Displays and displaying

This was the basic Meccano framework complete and awaiting the fitting of the road bed. The above shows it fitted with a drive belt of leather as recommended in the Meccano Magazine description - these are commonly used on sewing machines. Once I had the road bed and the drive pins fitted in the drive belt, then came the fun. I just could not get it to function correctly, it constantly kept slipping of at the corners. The leather belts available were either 4mm or 6mm in diameter. The 6mm was too big and kept slipping off and the 4mm was just too small. After further digging around on e-bay I found a belt made from a modern green synthetic material which was 5mm in diameter and it is perfect. I did have to drill small holes in the baseplates but these were unboxed items that I had purchased at a fairly reasonable cost. This is supposed to replicate a Dinky dealer shop window display so I did not want playworn vehicles going round. Dave

Very clever dave :ohmy: :ohmy: Waiting to see it working in Derby ! Richard

That's great that is Dave, lovely bit of Engineering. Makes me realise that we considered Boys and Girls to be capable of a bit more in the 50's than we do now. Chris Warr.

Dave I cannot get over how talented you are in re-creating this piece of engineering wizardry! You are indeed a True Dinky Artiste! Now, I am wondering if you or anyone else such as Jan can re-create any of the following dioramas that were prepared by Mr Toyman? These dioramas appeared in the Meccano Magazine between August to October 1953. Your task has been set, and you have . . . . .hours/days/weeks to complete them! Kind regards from one who cannot drive a nail straight Bruce (150) #682 27 June 2015

Hi Bruce, you bet I love making such dioramas! But I need some Bayko sets for that and some extra Pavement Sets and ... a little extra time and space. Today many NAMAC colleagues and myself have been busy for hours building the big 50th anniversary exhibition in The Hague. Two wonderful huge halls filled with 112 stylish displays and numerous miniature cars. Tomorrow the work will be finished and the exhibition will open next Tuesday. I will report on this and other 'Dutch Dinky affairs' one week from now at the DTCA dinner in Derby. Kind regards, Jan

Just finished a complete refit of my 'ceiling displays'. Both the interior finish and the lockings have been improved and the construction of the whole unit has been fixed more sturdily. They are virtually 100% dust free now. A nice opportunity for some reshuffelling, placing i.a. the Fire Engine sub-collection in the centre. Kind regards, Jan PS: I did not compensate for the artificial light, so the colours of the pictures below are horrible!

Just finished another batch of 214 signs for my displays, both new and also a number of replacements for older ones. The completion of my 2010-2015 supplement made it easy to extract the data needed for these signs, which suffered a time lag of a 5 years' delay as well. I produce them by designing the separate texts in msword, print these items on sheets of yellow A4 paper (27 per sheet), cut them out and paste them onto 5 cm cut pieces of plastic L profile. So it took a total length of 10.70m of profile (available in stretches of 2.60m each) to be sawn in pieces of 5 cm. I'm very happy to be fully up-to-date now with these signs for my models on display (as is my digital catalogue for half a year already). Especially the sections of French Dinky Toys enjoy a visible benefit of this action, because many of them were added in the past five years. By removing some shelves with periodicals and other paper documentation I created space for an extension of my existing displays. I will built this unit on top of my ships display. The backwards sloping front will be continued upwards until it reaches (and will definitely support) the upper shelf with my 'ceiling displays'. Having many other non-Dinky things to do I will undoubtedly not finish this unit before the end of this year. Kind regards, Jan

What a work !!! pffffff ! I am tired, just looking at the photos !!! How have you fixed the plastic L on the shelf ? Admiring compliments ! Richard

Nothing special, Richard, just my (peculiar?) way of collecting and diving into a subject. The signs just hang loosely, one 'leg' resting on the shelf front edge, the model resting on it in many cases. Previously I made the signs pasted on aluminium L-strip, but these were too dangerous when falling down by accident, because even aluminium is relatively heavy and with harmful, sharp edges. So these are in the process of being replaced, in the course of time, step by step (still a few hundreds to go ...). Kind regards, Jan

A new display, hand made with my very good friend Mr IKEA, and already full of trucks ! Richard

Richard---Very nice, and already fairly bursting with lots of nice Dinky's. You have some very nice models in that cabinet......nice that you have them on display! Best regards, Terry

The study/hobbyroom changed into a busy (and tight) workroom this weekend, making quite some progress with the new extension of my display facilities. Two shelves with periodicals and atlases were removed to accommodate a new display unit on top of my ships models unit. It will have the same frontal slope continuing upwards to reach the narrower shelve with 'ceiling displays' which it will support in the end (these, and their contents, have been temporarily removed now). I made the final design scheme at the end of last week, bought some timber and started sawing, fitting and fixing the main rough construction this weekend. Finishing the outside and inside to be continued ... Kind regards, Jan