GHOSTHUNTER wrote:''so has this sort of test appeared on other castings''
We don't know until more are discovered and if it can be proven to be a casting from an apprentice, is must surely have escaped destruction at Lesney simply because of what it is with no further use.
Ghosthunter.
If an apprentice produced this casting he would have been the Lionel. Messi of apprentices...I doubt very much that it is the work of an "apprentice"
However if this is as far as you can go with it to neatly tie up a reason over a weekend then so be it. There were several of these castings , I only purchased one...
You said earlier...''I wish I had bought more from the stall because as I remember there was a lot of very rare pieces'', this is quite common, a lot of rare stuff has now been engulfed into the collecting communities and your statement implies various items of different designs.
Then you say this..''There were several of these castings , I only purchased one...'' this now tells us there were more of this actual model on the dealer's table, the Thunderbird, so it suggests there were a handful of these castings done for reasons we don't yet know, but looking more likely as a re-issued model now with the new roof-rack added.
Just to clarify...apprentice casting here means it was the tooling (molds in the US), that an apprentice would have been given to work on, not the actual finished bare metal body casting and that is why to you and us, it looks like a finished body awaiting some paint, glazing, interior and a baseplate.
Yes I do understand the pentagram wooden master would have to be altered then painstakingly redesigned in all the technical equipment then the roof rack would be machined "perfectly into the redundant 75 thunderbird mold. Then fitted to a production injection machine and then manufactured, then thrown away...
Batterseaboy wrote:Sorry, but I don,t nessesarily agree with this idea unless it was common practice ,so has this sort of test appeared on other castings or is it a first. Show me where this type of testing is carried out before or after?....
It could be quite likely a standard practice by Lesney. But these models, after verifying the functionality of the casting mold, were as worthless tossing into the trash (I wish I was dustman at that time ). You managed to save probably a unique evidence of this practice.
Antonin
Having though about it (quite extensively), I am warming to the metal flow test theory.
The only way for molten mazak to get to the roof is via the roof pillars which, even when taken together, offer a comparatively small cross-section for flow. Whilst this was clearly enough to form the roof on a normal model, there was no evidence that the flow would continue for long enough to fully form the roof-rack or that the roof-rack void would be able to vent fully. In addition, the roof-rack is relatively chunky, so there might also have been concerns about how such a large lump of mazak would behave on cooling (e.g. whether it would crack or perhaps lead to deformation of the roof on cooling). In this context, I would suggest that the Fiat's roof-rack is a much more elegant design than the one on the Thurderbird casting, possibly indicating that lessons were learned. (Interestingly, it looks like this casting has been tumbled since there is no sprue or flash present. This might have been in order to find out whether residual stresses and strains in the modified roof were enough to trigger deformation on loading.)
As regards the existence of multiple castings for sale, I do not see this as evidence of a possible relaunch of the modified model. It seems much more likely to me that, having set everything up, they would run off several hundred bodyshells in order to i) get the mould up to running temperature, and ii) generate a large enough sample to be able to get a realistic feel for the rejection rate. Although this would represent a significant investment in terms of time, the resultant castings could be thrown back in the pot meaning that there would be as-good-as no material costs.
The Thunderbird was retired from the range in mid '65 to make way for the Berlinetta. At exactly the same time the 56b Fiat was introduced - with a very similar roof rack.
Could it be that the production team simply used the old Thunderbird dies to experiment with roof rack designs before committing to the production version on the 56b?
mb75ii.jpg
Martin
Hi,
Iwas thinking about this possibility a while and I think it does not make sense.
If the one tooling was in use until the Fiat came out there was not enough time to change the mould of the Thunderbird, try if it works with a roof rack as well, decide to do it on the mould of the Fiat as well, change this mould too and in addition do a new mould for the plastik luggage.
This would have taken quite a long time. (I think about 3 to 6 months)
I think the Fiat mould and the luggage mould was finished a while before the model appered on the market and at this time the Thunderbird was still in production.
I might be wrong it is just my thought about this matter.
Finally a timeline. The test theory to my mind is a very neat dead end , The casting is of first line production quality. And if your saying Matchbox didn't,t understand Mazak flow characteristics by 1965 then your theory is .
Why do you not open to what is a possibility of a gift set or Bronner asking for a variation, dream a little guys.....
Batterseaboy wrote:Finally a timeline. The test theory to my mind is a very neat dead end , The casting is of first line production quality. And if your saying Matchbox didn't,t understand Mazak flow characteristics by 1965 then your theory is .
Why do you not open to what is a possibility of a gift set or Bronner asking for a variation, dream a little guys.....
Please do not forget that there could be several dies. At the end of the production it could be used only a few of them because of small demand or large stockpiles. And one of the old die was used for testing purposes. I can not imagine the possibility of introduction of the new gift set with an outdated model (and in my opinion ugly model). If it should be a special variation for the gift set, it would be from economical point of view absolute disaster to produce a special die for a few models in the gift sets.
I totally agree with Hugh´s logical explanation
Antonin
Batterseaboy wrote:Finally a timeline. The test theory to my mind is a very neat dead end , The casting is of first line production quality. And if your saying Matchbox didn't,t understand Mazak flow characteristics by 1965 then your theory is .
Why do you not open to what is a possibility of a gift set or Bronner asking for a variation, dream a little guys.....
Please do not forget that there could be several dies. At the end of the production it could be used only a few of them because of small demand or large stockpiles. And one of the old die was used for testing purposes. I can not imagine the possibility of introduction of the new gift set with an outdated model (and in my opinion ugly model). If it should be a special variation for the gift set, it would be from economical point of view absolute disaster to produce a special die for a few models in the gift sets.
I totally agree with Hugh´s logical explanation
Antonin
You beat me to it, Antonin!
I was going to say that by 1965, Matchbox was well-enough established for paired tooling to be used, and it would seem reasonable for this to have been the case right from the start of 75a Thunderbird production since it was obviously aimed at a big-volume market: the USA.
Using one of the two bodyshell toolings of a soon-to-be deleted model for development work, although perhaps a somewhat drastic solution, does make sense.
Precedence is what is needed, show where this is common practice, using retired molds for apprentices to practice on, otherwise you are just guessing, in any event that is what I have, like it, loathe it, dismiss it whatever. you don,t like the thunderbird that,s your opinion. I think it's amazing that's why I shared it I,m kind of disappointed with your short shrift dismissal of it but hey hoo that's life. I won,t bother posting any other MB pieces that I have so this is me checking out have a good one
). You managed to save probably a unique evidence of this practice.