140a and 106 Austin A90 Atlantic (1951-58)

Many thanks 'boumpa' for taking the time to check your Terex and to find that it did not have cross-hatching on the interior ceiling of the cabin. Your information is most appreciated. I hope others will do so as well, in addition to checking their 642 Pressure Refuellers. Kind regards Bruce Dinkinius

The interior ceiling of the cabin of my Pressure refuellers is smooth ! Richard

Hi all, Both my early (no windows, grey decal) and my late (windows, red decal) Euclids are smooth,as expected, the RAF fueller is too, no X hatching here! Chris Warr.

As my Terex 965, my pressuree refueler 642 does not have cross hatching kind regards boumpa

Merci Ronald.

dinkycollect wrote: '[/i] Jacques - what a splendid job you have done with this photographic comparison! To Chris and Richard, many thanks for your input. It is starting to appear that the 642 Pressure Refueller with cross-hatching on the ceiling of the cabin is not very common - at least until more can check their models. It also may have revealed the possible reason why this model had a relatively short production life - a problem may have arisen with the die/mould and the cross-hatching, a temporary solution did not really solve the problem. Of course this is purely conjecture, but considering that Meccano would have needed to recoup its development costs, a long production life for each model has always been the rule rather than the exception. The 642 has always been one of my favourite models and it is nice to start learning a little more about it. Bruce

If I can be of help, here is my contribution. I have no 'circumstantial evidence', like a box or other related information of the exact dating of this very example. Kind regards, Jan

As can be seen, the above Post lost much of its content before or during the transfer process from the old website to the new. The following is that Post in its entirety, again with thanks to AK: dinkycollect wrote: Terry, I have answered this question several times on various forums. 'Checkering' or 'cross hatching' is applied to large flat surfaces to facilitate the flow of metal in the die and reduce the weight of the toy but also to save on the metal. If you save 10 gr. on 1 000 000 models you have saved 1 ton of Zamac. The main reason is that large flat surfaces such as car roofs, tippers etc are kept thin and the metal does not fill the die completely or makes a turbulence leaving a nasty pattern or depression on the casting which has to be rejected and re-cast. The dies are highly polished when new, this eases the flow of metal but with aging, the surfaces are not so smooth and this slows the flow of metal. This is the reason why the cross hatching is usually not found on early models. Some models such as the 24D Plymouth Belvedere, 25C Citron H type van or 32E Berliet fire engine have also had flow channels added to the ceilings. I agree that this technique started in 1956 or maybe 1955 with the 24N Traction. It would be interesting to make a list of the models with cross hatching to know when this stopped. Did any of the models with windows have it? My experience with R&D in multi nationals is called the NIH for 'Not Invented Here'. If anything is invented in a R&D dept else than the one of the mother company, it is considered not any good. Was it the same between Bobigny/Calais and Liverpool? About the technical exchanges between the factories, there may have been the language barrier. How many people could speak English in Bobigny and how many could speak any French in Liverpool? Richard may be able to tell us a bit more on this subject. Jacques The 965 does have cross-hatching inside the cabin, but it does not seem to be in an expected sequence. Cross hatching is in a Euclid packaged in a half pictorial yellow lift-off lid box, and yet when the model was changed to Terex, one would expect these would also have cross-hatching, but this is not the case. My Terex with the Euclid base DOES NOT have cross-hatching inside the cab when in fact it should have. The Euclid that followed the lift-off lidded box packaged in the pictorial end-flap box has cross-hatching. The last Terex issued in an end-flap box, white sided with a drawing of the model, has no cross hatching. This model was bought in June 1970 from Hobbyco in Sydney. I know the preceding may not make sense but I will later try to post photographs of each example in a possible chronological sequence. But it is interesting to see that the first Terex did not have cross hatching and yet the last Euclid's did. Kind regards Bruce 20130404/867/0047

THIS POST IS A REPETITION OF POST #10 - Somehow it has been duplicated before or during the transfer from the old to the new website. Bruce (150)

Bruce, by pointing at that repetition of the post my attention was newly drawn by Jacques' remark: 'Checkering' or 'cross hatching' is applied to large flat surfaces to facilitate the flow of metal in the die and reduce the weight of the toy but also to save on the metal. I wonder if cross-hatching applied to a surface that was initially smooth reduces the amount of metal to be used. If the hatching lines are to be 'engraved' into the smooth surface of the die (in a mirrorred way) they need more metal to be filled. Or, on the other hand, is it really feasible to heighten the die at the spots of all the tiny squares in between? And if the cavity in between really gets thinner, uses less metal, does not that thinner cavity eliminate the advantage of the newly applied hatched 'flow channels'? Did anybody measure possible reduction or increase of a roof's thickness and/or a difference in weight? (I'm sorry that Jacques himself will most probably not be able to comment at this moment). Kind regards, Jan

Jan---That is an interesting comment, and the first time I remember hearing that it was also to save material and thus less weight. In the past, when I first asked about why the cross-hatching, it was always to help the molten metal flow. Bu the way, as a young boy and avid collector, I had several French made Dinky's, and noticed very early on that some had the checkering and some did not........even the same model, such as an early and then later Citroen 11 BL. I wondered about this for many years and had no idea what the purpose was. But if the goal was to reduce material usage, wouldn't they tend to use this everywhere? Why on the roof ceiling only, or has it appeared elsewhere? Best regard, Terry