Wheel variations

Hello Jan and Jaques, Interesting question on the aeroplane wheels. Pre war are three different diameters on the British planes. All wheels are cast. Some wheels are silver plated and some just bare metal. Never painted. Thick 1,35 mm. 4,8 mm, On small planes as Gloster Gladiator, Hurricane and Spitfire, rear wheel on DC 3. 6,3 mm, standard wheel on most planes. 7,9 mm, big wheel for Atalanta, Ensign etc. Of course the diameters were in inches not in mm. The drawings for the wheels still exist. N0 6777, wheel for aeroplane. No 6772, wheels for miniature aeroplanes. These drawings are not in my collection, maybe a member of DTCA has more info on these. French avions pre war. 8,5 mm, on Arc en Ciel, cast with spokes. Note the diameter is smaller as on the pump. 6,5 mm, other planes. Some other pre war models have special wheels. 29A Motorbus, 9 mm hard plastic white wheels on models without advertising. 8,7 mm cast wheels on models with advertising. 60y Thomson refuelling tanker, 11 mm, front wheel white rubber. 12 mm, rear wheels white as on 35 models. 27 Tramcar can be found with cast wheels or with rollers. I will make pictures of the different wheels and send these. John.

Pictures of two airplane wheels pre war. left 4,8 mm, Gloster Gladiator, rear wheel DC 3, Hurrican, Spitfire etc. right 6,3 mm. Standard wheel for pre war planes. John.

Two different wheels on 27 Tramcar. Cast wheel and plastic wheel. John.

Hi John, I have never seen those plastic wheels before, I had no idea they existed, thanks for posting! Chris Warr

Thanks Chris, The wheels are of course of a 29a Motorbus and not the Tramcar, my fault sorry. John.

Hello John, Thank you for mentioning three wheels which I had missed. Can you please let us know the

Hello Jacques, The white wheel for the 29a motorbus is hard plastic, diameter appprox. 8,8 mm. See the picture for inside of the wheel. The cast wheels for the Motorbus are the same as for the small wheels of the train wagons. John.

Jacques, The wheels for trains are the same for Liverpool and Paris models. Wagons 8,5 mm, Loco 11 mm. John.

John, Many thanks, this fills the Encyclopaedia which is still missing a lot but is slowly growing. Bruce, Here is a similar wheel with spun aluminium hub and polished or chrome plated cap which was fitted to the ref. 1409 Chrysler 180. The hub is probably the same as for the Peugeot 504 but the cap is different.

There is an other wheel hub which is not on my list of all Dinky wheels. It is the plastic hub as fitted to the late 69725 pounder field gun unit. Where these wheels fitted to other military or civilian models and during which period ?

Hi Jacques, I wonder if the plastic hubs on the later versions of the Austin Champ could be the same (I have no example to compare). Kind regards, Jan

Hello Jan, Those hubs have probably been fitted to other models such as the Champ. David will probably know as he is our military expert. All the best. Jacques