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I do like the transitional Superfasts so I was quite happy to find a battered red pipe truck. I was surprised to find that it has hollow wheels, as I have an orange version with solid wheels. Is this just normal for this model?

While I was looking closely, I noticed that the chassis rails are noticeably thinner than on the orange truck I have. Is this a known casting variation or just the result of paired moulds? The axles supports are also smaller as a result. It's especially obvious around the rear two axles.

Hi Glenn,
Had to dust of the superfast pages for this one.
The red model has been found with solid and hollow or even a combination of both. Mack code 1
Pretty interesting profile on a couple of those wheels on your orange model.
The orange version lines up with the Charlie Mack code 2 and have been recorded with solid, hollow and combinations.
Technically both these had grey pipes. All later codes so far as I have seen have hollow wheels if you intend adding their loads.

Bert

Thanks, Bert. I have a Faun crane (my sister's when new) that has two axles of solid wheels and two hollow. I don't think we ever noticed!

The wheels on the orange pipe truck do have a variety of different profiles. All except the front left (34H) have tread patterns. Here are the numbers:

The casting variation mentioned here is another one I had not noticed before. I have noted that I will have to check my examples.

My one with the grey base compared against my other 3 models has the thin sides, all hollow wheels and Yellow pipes.

George T.

Not the best image but my grey plastic base #10 also has thin edges and hollow wheels all round.
George I note interestingly that both your model and mine have the same small imperfection (line) on the base plastic between the two rear wheels from the top rear rivet, how odd.

I have now looked at my Superfast pipe trucks, and I have to say I cannot see a significant difference in the edge thickness between red and orange examples.

I have three red ones: one with all solid, one with all hollow wheels and one with a mix of solid wheels on the front axle and hollow on the others. The edges look the same on all three, and it is approximately the same thickness as on the orange ones. If there is a slight difference, then it may be due to a thicker layer of dark orange paint compared with the red ones. On the later light orange models with grey bases the paint thickness may be a little less once again, so the edges on those seem a little thinner. Anyway it is hardly noticeable to me.

However, while doing these checks, I noticed something else: among my orange examples there are a few on which just the section of the edge on the right hand side immediately below the word "SERIES" is significantly thinner than the rest of the edge on both sides. While the thickness of the edges is generally close to one millimetre, it is only a little over half a millimetre in this particular section.

This is the most obviously noticeable difference which I can see, and it appears on both dark orange body / silver plated base and light orange body / grey base examples. I hope it can be seen in the following pictures, although I'd say it is even more noticeable in reality:





No doubt this is due to two different dies used concurrently, so it is a typical sub-variation in terms of my cataloguing practice.

I'm not sure that any of the other Leylands shown here do have the thin chassis members (I can't decide whether Alex's does because of the angle). I agree that there are two different versions of the orange base, with slight differences in thickness. My red Leyland has much thinner chassis members, and I don't think it's just paint. Here's another angle that might help. The place to look is just in front of the third axle, and then along the chassis from there towards the back of the truck.
I do agree it's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable in hand and it would be interesting to see if anyone else has this version. I'd guess it was the first Superfast casting, with a quick modification for a little more strength.

Comparing my models with this last picture, I see that on all my red models the chassis edges seem to be a little thicker, and on my orange models they seem to be a little thinner than on the examples shown in the picture. As a result the difference between them is hardly noticeable.

Maybe I should start looking for a red model with thinner chassis edges, but I am afraid I would never be sure about it if I saw one on its own, not even in real life and certainly not in pictures on the internet.

ChFalkensteiner wrote:Maybe I should start looking for a red model with thinner chassis edges, but I am afraid I would never be sure about it if I saw one on its own, not even in real life and certainly not in pictures on the internet.

If I ever find another I'll send it to you!