Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Discuss the prototype and how to model it.
doggeface

Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby doggeface » Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:45 am



Having made the decision to repair all of my binned P4 trackwork in order to have a choice of systems where I can experiment to find an elegant solution to my past disappointments, I began working at it last week.

I have reordered all the jigs etc which I sold those few years ago; I have bought in some Butonone. My next move would be buy in some plastic chairs to replace all those which have died in storage or had merely fallen off into the floor pit !

I can find only one source and that is C&L . I had some memories of numb fingers and brain accompanied with bouts of severe iiritation when assembling these . I delved into the S4 Archives and seemed to confirm the sole supplier and pulled up some adverse comment. This as usual called out the "I would not start from here"! type advice. Does C&L now work as intended and is there any alternative?

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jim s-w
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby jim s-w » Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:50 am

C & l actually offer 2 ranges of chairs. The original ones and the ex exactoscale ones. I personally prefer the latter.

HTH

Jim
Jim Smith-Wright

http://www.p4newstreet.com

Over thinking often leads to under doing!

doggeface

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby doggeface » Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:09 pm

Thanks for the reply Jim

Peter

mikeg

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby mikeg » Tue Jul 14, 2015 2:12 pm

I'm in the process of make up my first points for my layout and am using Exactoscale components. The chairs on the 'switches' mouldings are numbered from 1 to 38 and whilst I can deduce some of their uses does anyone have a listing of what each number represents in the way of what chair it applies to? The common crossing mouldings have similar issues.

On the Exactoscale point kit I bought many years ago the template gave some of the identities but it seems that the current templates do not have this info.

dal-t
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby dal-t » Tue Jul 14, 2015 3:58 pm

Have you checked the files on C&L's Knowledge Centre? I suspect the Exactoscale track downloads will give you the info you want but without knowing exactly what you're building it's hard to guess at the exact link. HTH!
David L-T

mikeg

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby mikeg » Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:20 pm

No I tried there before posting on here. They show nice pictures of the mouldings and if you zoom in you can see the numbers in question but that's about it. I will probably mail them to see if they have a crib sheet but they are on holiday and admit to only viewing their mail once a week. I thought someone here might have had the same problem before!

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grovenor-2685
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby grovenor-2685 » Tue Jul 14, 2015 6:55 pm

So far as I remember the templates were drawn up by Len as a joint venture between the Society and Exactoscale, which is why they are available here. i don't think they have changed since they were drawn.
You can enlarge the templates to a very clear level of detail and the chair types are all labelled, not, however with numbers 1 - 38, but I would suggest that a magnifying glass should allow all the chair types to be matched to the templates. (If not then no-one is going to be able to tell when they are on the layout :) ).
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Keith
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Will L
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby Will L » Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:41 pm

grovenor-2685 wrote:...You can enlarge the templates to a very clear level of detail and the chair types are all labelled, not, however with numbers 1 - 38, but I would suggest that a magnifying glass should allow all the chair types to be matched to the templates. (If not then no-one is going to be able to tell when they are on the layout :) ).


On the templates as Keith indicated, you will see various chair types are indicated by a letter codes. The last (and only) one of these I built, I found these letter codes cast onto the Exactoscale mouldings, on the adjacent sprue if I remember rightly, as some aren't that easy to tell apart. Don't know where your numbers come from Mike.

David Thorpe

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby David Thorpe » Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:36 pm

mikeg wrote:I thought someone here might have had the same problem before!


I did! I bought one of these mouldings but then had no idea what most of the chairs were meant for. In the end I hardly used any of them so, without some indication as to use, it was a bit of a waste of money.

DT

dal-t
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby dal-t » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:04 am

!'m obviously missing something, because it seems to me the Exactoscale instructions on the C&L site do carry these details. For example, the "LH switch" document says

Looking along the turnout from the tip of the switch rails (the ‘toe’), there are first a number of slide (‘P’) chairs (5 for an A switch,
6 for a B and 7 for a C) then the special chairs in ascending numerical order ...
and provides a drawing to illustrate the placing.

Likewise the "1:6 Common Crossing" sheets shows the chairs used, in order from the switch end, as S1/S1,S1/S1,L1/S1,X,A,B,C,S1/S1,S1/S1,S1/S1 - isn't this what is required?
David L-T

Terry Bendall
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby Terry Bendall » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:17 am

doggeface wrote:Does C&L now work as intended and is there any alternative?


The Exactoscale chairs are far superior to anything in the C&L range. I would not use anything else.

mikeg wrote:The chairs on the 'switches' mouldings are numbered from 1 to 38 and whilst I can deduce some of their uses does anyone have a listing of what each number represents in the way of what chair it applies to?


I am not sure what is the case on new templates, but on the ones I have used, the templates give a number/letter code for each chair. You then have to find the right combination on the sprues. In some cases the chairs are in two or even three parts and these may be on different sprues. Working out the system took quite a long time on the first occasion but once I had worked it out it was simple.

The sprues of chairs for turnout kits contain chairs that will fit a wide range of the different turnout types and for any one turnout you will only use a few, so yes there will be a lot left over. These do have some uses - if you drop and loose one, the next closest will usually be sufficient and if you built ply and rivet track they are a good source of cosmetic chairs.

I shall be on the Society stand at Railwells and will be doing a demo of working in P4, including track. I will bring some spare chair sprues and a template to explain further for anyone who wants to know and can get to Wells.

Terry Bendall

David Thorpe

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby David Thorpe » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:29 am

Terry Bendall wrote:The Exactoscale chairs are far superior to anything in the C&L range. I would not use anything else.


I fail to understand why the Exactoscale chairs are "far" superior to the C&L ones, indeed that they are superior at all save for the much wider range they offer. For plain track I have used both. I have just examined examples of each under a magnifying glass and there does not appear to be any great difference in the quality of the mouldings, both of which perfectly adequate for the purpose for which they are being used. If anything, I would prefer the C&L ones for plain track as they slide onto the rail rather more easily and seem a little more robust, being very slightly longer than the Exactoscale ones - maybe because of that the Exactoscale ones are slightly neater in appearance though once rail and chairs are suitably painted I suspect that there will be little if any noticeable difference. Exactoscale ones are of course essential for pointwork as they offer a full range which make building points much less problematical.

As to the sprue to which Mike refers, it is probably one from the "4mm scale chairs A B and C switches" set offered by C$L. One of the sprues contains items numbered between 15 and 37. I used Templot to build my points, but even after looking at the Exactoscale templates I still have no idea what most of these are for.

DT

Eastern
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Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby Eastern » Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:00 am

mikeg wrote:I'm in the process of make up my first points for my layout and am using Exactoscale components. The chairs on the 'switches' mouldings are numbered from 1 to 38 and whilst I can deduce some of their uses does anyone have a listing of what each number represents in the way of what chair it applies to? The common crossing mouldings have similar issues.


If you go into the knowledge centre and then to the "4mm instructions"; "Exactoscale - Instruction (4mm) - covering track" you will find a number of document downloads. The second half of the list deals with Special Switch and Crossing Chairs. The documents RH Switch Chairs or LH switch chairs provide small diagrams that show where the switch chairs 1 to 38 are used depending on the switch type. You can then use these in conjunction with your track templates. You will have a lot left over (as someone else has pointed out). The other files deal with crossings and diamonds. I hope that solves the issue for you.

David Thorpe

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby David Thorpe » Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:37 am

Got it! Thanks very much. I might just have a use for some of these now.

DT

mikeg

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby mikeg » Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:35 am

Many thanks for all the info and especially the Exactoscale instructions which was something I had not found on the C & L site. This explains most things.

Numbers (Medium).jpg


The pictures show the original enquiry - the extract is from the Exactoscale template for a 1 in 8 turnout. As you can see the chairs are identified to the mouldings numbers. This does not appear on the current templates. A pity because it did make things clear (and right!). Len went to great efforts to make all these individual mouldings, wonder if he had a cross reference list - a question for C & L I think.

Mouldings (Medium).jpg
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mikeg

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby mikeg » Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:48 am

Terry - I hope this clarifies my enquiry but as you are attending Railwells can you enquire at the C & L stand - they may have all the info to hand.

andrew jukes

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby andrew jukes » Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:58 pm

I think the thing you really need is the large table to be found in the download ‘General information on use’ under the Special switch and crossing chairs heading. Go to:
http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?r ... tion_id=36 for this

Seems like a lifetime ago that I put that together and brought some order to what threatened to be chaos. The large table is daunting but does map sprues and individual special chair components onto specific track formations

There is a lot of other Exactoscale data to be found in the C&L ‘Knowledge Centre - Home Page’

Hope that helps.

Andrew Jukes

mikeg

Re: Plastic Chairs suppliers.

Postby mikeg » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:19 am

Andrew - thanks for that. As you say it was/is all there on the C & L site I just had not found it. It answers the questions of what chairs go where so no excuses now. An example is shown from their site.

Pete at C & L was very helpful and quick - usual disclaimer but great service.

LH Switch Data.jpg
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