powerrabbit

I restore them because the cheap ones usually don't have much paint left on them or they have been so over-painted that it is difficult to see any of the finer detail and in my veiw a horse should look like a horse, as with the other cast animals and figures. I only buy ones that are intact as lead figures are practically imposible to repair, it's ok if a leg is a little bent but serious bends are hard to straighten as 99.9% of the time they end up breaking.

Horese drawn farm equipment seems to have been overlooked a little and in earlier times Britain's and other manufacturers produced some lovely models from pre-tractor days in hollow-cast lead and diecast. I know that a few pictures of these have been posted elsewere on here but here are a few from my collection. Up first is the 8F Farm Rake, Horse & Driver from 1955. This one has the solid drivers seat, the pre-war issue had holes in the seat. This one is the 4F Tipping Tumbrel Cart With Horse from 1955. (Should have a farm hand as well, I will find one sometime). The tailboard lifts out. Next is the 45F Farm Cart & Horse from 1955. This cart has a board bottom which can be 'knockd out'. This one is 9F Horse & Roller from 1955. It also should have a farm hand. The first of these rollers had a solid roller, this is the second type having seperate 'rings. This last pic is of three lead hollow-cast horses from the same period showing some variations. There are still loads of these horses about and in good condition. These can be found for as little as ?1 each and are not difficult to re-paint. Horses with holes each side are for the carts etc, horses with additional holes each side of their mouth are ploughing horses, subtle difference but important if building up a set.

FW. On the subject of researching this one, there was a comprehensive article on Britain's trailers in one of the 'Model & Site' magazines, last year I think, it pictured a lot of the trailers with dates and production run time, a mate of mine takes these and I will get hold of it an have a look.

Here is another pic showing the trailer with the sides down. The front-board slots in the bed and has to be removed to drop the sides down.

Look at the floor again. There should be a small peg sticking up either in the centre or to one side, it may have broke off, you may see a small 'ring' where it should have been. Iv'e also got 2 or 3 of the cows with the hole I think, have to have a look through my 2 4ltr icecream tubs of animals and check.

The cow that you have is the ordinary 'lying' cow. The cow for this trailer, as you correctly say, has a hole undrneath it's belly and fixes in the trailer on a peg that is part of the trailer bed moulding. Funny you should say that your upper racks (and ramp?) is missing, Iv'e got 2 sets.

This trailer is the fore-runner of the Britain's tipping silage trailers as it was scaled to the 10x6 Weeks and Martin Markham and Ferguson type trailers although this is a non-tipping trailer.

FarmerWill. Yes this was actualy made. It could be used as an ordinary drop-side trailer as all the sides and tailboard are hinged, the top rails are slotted in as you can see from the pics. This pic shows you how the cow is loaded, the 'ramp' slots onto the tailboard. If you want any more pics tell me and I will add a few more.

How many of these trailers do you see? This trailer is supposed to be one of the rarest trailers that Britain's produced. This is the 1st series trailer with the lying cow positioned in the centre made in 1968. There was a second series one made I beleive in 1970 and this one had the cow offset to one side. I have in the past seen examples offered on Ebay both boxed and un-boxed and they seem to make megga money, several hundred quid for a boxed one. I suppose that not many examples survive because of their delicate and easily breakable structure, I have seen parts of them, mostly the staves above the sideboards, at toy fairs but never the whole thing. I found this one last year at the Westpoint fair, unfortunately un-boxed but at ?72 (after a long haggle) secured it for my collection. I do like the old Britain's stuff, much more character and I think, true to life. Do you have one of these in your collection?

Sorry mate, still looking myself. That one came from the roller brochure, I put it through my computer prog and added 'sideflinger' in text to the blue background.

Here is the created Kidd decal(s) if you can extract it.

Tractorman810. The blue for the Kidd spreader I mixed myself to the right shade from Humbrol paint small tins and hand-painted with a soft artists brush, you don't get any brush marks then providing you don't put the paint on too thick, I hand-paint all my projects. The decals are taken from period brochures that I have collected over the years, I knew they would be usefull one day, scan the relevent picture of the decal in the brochure and put it through a picture editing prog on the computer and re-sise to requirement and print off on shiny-ish label paper, cut it out, apply to model, job done. As regards the Fraser, I know that there have been some done by professionals although I have never seen any down this way, I was told that there was one at Farmer Gile's a few years ago for ?65, that's why I built mine. If you are looking for specific decals, look through the farming mags, advertising brochures etc, it's surprising what you can find. If I can find it, I will post a Kidd 'decal' here later on, you will probably be able to extract it.

Apparently it was very close to ?400 or so the guy I bought it from said. The story behind this one is that the previous owner was getting rid of it to create a bit of space as it was too big for him to display so he took it to the last toy fair down here and put it on a mates stall with a price tag of ?150, when I was looking at it, it was drawing a lot of interest and discussion. I asked the owner if it was complete and he told me it was, apart from the outer box, the model had never been out of its inner styrene box, contained in the lid of the inner box was a tool to put the belts on the drive cogs, two extra drawbar pin locks, (a cone that fits up under the tractor pin to keep it hitched on) a booklet telling the history of the machine etc, certificate of authenticity, a large pictorial 'instruction' poster, a pair of cotton gloves to handle the model and finally, in a seperate box, the wooden display base thats about 2 feet x 18 inches. Anyway, one onlooker said that at ?150 it was too cheap and he was probably right but being my cheeky self I offered him ?100 in notes for it and too my surprise, he accepted, so I paid the man, grabbed it quick and ran. To put things in perspective, one guy was selling a Corgi Power Major Halftrack in its original box with one end-flap missing asking ?165 for it, so I thought this combine was a snip.

Let's start a section for model combines. Here is one for you. It's a 1931 Allis Chalmers Type A60 'All Crop' trailed combine in 1/12th scale by Franklin Mint. It's a 'working' model with fantastic detailing, put the 'cranking' handle in the back and turn it and see it 'going'.

Hi Scamp. Glue the joints with a good strong industrial strength superglue. You get a stronger model if you can stagger the joints, when set rub down the surfaces and fill any noticeable grooves with putty filler which you can get from any motor parts shop in a tin which is used to fill and smooth digs and scratches on car panels and rub down to a even smooth finish, this filler helps when you paint the model as some paints react with the glue and will show up the joint again.

This is a Renault R3040 made by the French company CIJ. Don't know much more about this one I'm afraid.

This tractor is pretty unusual and I have never seen one before. It is what I would call 'non-descript' as it does'nt seem to represent any recognisable tractor. It is all diecast including the wheels, look at the second pic and you will see the weird winding coil spring and drive mechanism to power it along, ther should be a small key to wind it that fits on the square shaft at the front. It does not steer as the axle is fixed. This tractor was made in England by Kondor in 1948.

Hi all. A short while ago I mentioned that amongst my model tractor collection there were some rarer ones. I say rarer in as much as you don't often see them and when you do they seem to make serious money in auctions, on Ebay and rarely turn up at toy fairs. Unfortunately the examples that I have do not have boxes and those that do will be pictured with the box. Some of you said that you would like to see some of these so I shall proceed to post pictures of those that I concider rarer models and for those of you that have not seen an example of these tractors before may perhaps inspire you to look out for some, especially if you are into the really old and unusual, so here goes and your comments would be appreciated. This first one is a E27N Major made by Crescent and produced between 1949 to 1961. This one has it's original Land Army girl driver. The tractor was also supplied in sets with a hay rake, trailer and disc harrow.

Found this 5000 'Force' at the last Exeter toy fair in January, it was a scrapper that was in a box of junk under one of the tables, got it for ?2.50. needed a good clean, exhaust, air cleaner, drawbar pin and driver, decals, all the usual bits, fortunately the mudguards and the back wheels were ok as the wheels usually melt. I did re-paint it as there was'nt a lot of the original paint on it, I used some paint in a tin that said 'Ford blue' on the lable, had to thin it a bit and using a soft artists brush done it by hand, not difficult when you've done several.

Sounds about right. The name of the guy escapes me at present. I just altered the handle back fom the tractor cab, he soldered it to the tank and it arrived snapped off at the point it was soldered so I re-fixed it and made it flexible so it would'nt snap again by putting a plastic sleve on the joint. Also made a shoe for the drawbar as the ring hitch was digging in the ground.

Well, I must admit, I did'nt build this one but we all have to start somewhere!

And another man went to clean out the slurry pit.

That's the main problem, decals, What I do is find old colour brochures on implements/machinery with a good clear straight-on pic of the real decaling and scan them in, send them or copy to another programme to fiddle about to enhance, resize and generaly play about with and print the finishsd article off on shiny-ish label paper, takes a bit of experimenting to get them the right size but once you've got them right, save the end product to disc and hey presto, job done. Another way I do it is to visit manufacturers web-sites and look at the stuff there, sometimes you can create some good decals from there by saving the pics and then going through previous mentioned process. The larger (within reason) and clearer the original you are scanning, the better quality you end up with. If it comes out ok, heres an example:-

As said, pretty run-of-the-mill really. Looks like the second pic of the Kidd did'nt come through, I'll try it again.

Anyone done any rotospreader coversions? Heres a couple that I did last winter. Green one is a Fraser. Two Britain's chopped and joined together. and another just re-liveried and slightly altered into a Kidd. The wooden lip used to be an ice lolly stick.