Adrian Swain

Designer

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There are few artisans who include both pattern making and casting in their portfolio who have remained in business through 40 years, but Adrian Swain stands out as one who has achieved this, and without fanfares of publicity.

Adrian was working for the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), at Weybridge dealing with production problems for non-metallic parts used on Concorde, when he met John Day and Barry Lester in the late 1960s at an early Maidenhead swapmeet. John was carrying a wooden plinth with models of his Lotus 49 GP racing cars.

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There are few artisans who include both pattern making and casting in their portfolio who have remained in business through 40 years, but Adrian Swain stands out as one who has achieved this, and without fanfares of publicity.

Adrian was working for the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), at Weybridge dealing with production problems for non-metallic parts used on Concorde, when he met John Day and Barry Lester in the late 1960s at an early Maidenhead swapmeet. John was carrying a wooden plinth with models of his Lotus 49 GP racing cars.

Prior to this in the mid 1960s Adrian had become involved with Frank Vescoe of BEC Models (Tooting Bec) through a work colleague, Eric, wanting a model railway layout but lacking the space to display it. He had decided on the new BEC Kits “Horsfield Tram” to feature on a tram layout as the only practical alternative.

At the time the only tram kit available was a Keyser’s kit (K’s), but the new BEC kit bore a resemblance to Hull trams where Adrian’s colleague had come from.

Adrian built one for Eric, which was shown to Frank Vescoe who then asked for more to be built for his customers. The next tram produced was the BEC E1 class tram, which Adrian found would not run once motorised. Frank took Adrian’s advice and changed the design which was then incorporated into the next model, the Feltham Tram.

Adrian really wanted to build early LCC London trams, but Frank told him he would have to make his own patterns, so armed with a ladies nail file, 2 needle files, 3 drills, a soldering iron, and when this was found wanting a blowtorch, he began. He was living in digs at the time, and would come home from work, have his meal at 6.00pm, then retire to his room and spend 3-4 hours, “filing brass” and listening to Radio 3 on a very early pocket transistor radio.

Having made a better job than the Frank Vescoe models, Frank eagerly took the patterns, made moulds and produced the six different kits Adrian had designed using many common parts. He gave Adrian a few sets of castings in payment – that’s how it was done in those days, and thus was born in 1968 the BEC-ABS tramcar range, the very first of Adrian’s kits.

Adrian continued making model tram kits for Eric and, through Frank Vescoe, made for other customers as well. He obtained more information on Hull trams, bought himself a casting machine, and began production. Unfortunately, at this time, the supply of Tri-ang electric motors was drying up and apart from 4 models for Eric and some variations Adrian made for himself the project lay dormant for over 20 years. He now had a casting machine but nothing to cast. Then, fortuitously, he met John Day, Barry Lester and two or three other budding entrepreneurs who all wanted castings and in most cases pattern made, without requiring the pattern to be donated to the caster.

Adrian was a lifelong Dinky enthusiast, and was intrigued by John’s models, having never seen white metal car kits in 1:43 scale.

The outcome of the encounter was that John asked if Adrian he would cast for him, a well-timed opportunty as it transpired. John’s patterns were not made of metal but mainly carved wood and filler with a few bits of wire etc. and originated from Barry Lester.

For many years Barry had been making superb wooden model cars in various scales, and his models were highly sought after both in the UK and abroad. He had also made masters for Vac-form slot racing car bodies and had tried the same method for mass producing 1:43 static models. However, the lack of definition, especially for louvres and similar detail made the process unsuitable. His skill with wood had caught John Day’s attention, and as a result, Barry among others, had been making masters for him. These wood masters were turned into metal sub masters, usable in the white metal mould making process, by making cold cure silicone moulds and hand pouring lead alloy into them. The definition was not nearly as good as using brass or metal primary masters but was acceptable in those days.

Adrian’s main interest lay in 4mm model railways but at this point he was making masters and castings of 4mm buses for GS Models, cars for John Day, Chris Leigh, MOPOK 4mm railway parts, and later Jim Varney of Transport Replicas, Westward Models and Pirate Models. The last three all being 4mm buses, all 3 commencing at the same time, typical of buses! By the beginning of 1971 it had become Adrian’s practice to drive to his parents’ home in Poole on alternate Friday nights, cast furiously Saturday, Sunday and Monday, taking a day’s annual leave from BAC, and drive back Monday evening for work. The following two weeks would see the castings sorted, despatched and some more pattern-making before the sequence was repeated.

Following the cancellation of his work on the Concorde project, he had hoped to be made redundant, but his involvement in carbon fibre projects meant BAC was not keen to lose his services, in spite of the Monday absences. Adrian then made the decision to gamble on going full time as a model maker which he had always hoped to do. Moving back to his parents in Poole he soon had a nasty shock when two of his main trade customers closed down. This precipitated some new patterns for 4mm railway items of his own, which were the start of the ABS Models “Fourmost Models” range.

John Day was beginning to ask for more models but Adrian was very disappointed with the standard of his patterns and began making improvements mainly to the finer details and to aid casting. John was quite happy with this as he was not being charged separately although Adrian was charging a bit more for the castings.

Soon after this two policemen arrived in Poole enquiring about Adrian’s connection with John Day who had apparently taken significant advance payments for supplies of kits which had not materialised. It seemed that the previous casters had not supplied John, possibly because of payment disputes. Having been told how to contact John the police went on their way. Adrian was of course rather alarmed by this situation but the work continued, with the patterns remaining in Poole as insurance. John wanted more and more models but Adrian found car patterns very time consuming if made to his standards and in some cases the John Day patterns were almost completely replaced.

Adrian still has some John Day metal masters which he largely made as they were never paid for and when John’s business failed around 1980 nobody wanted them. In the 1970s car kit sales were extraordinary, an initial run of 200 to 300 was often followed by a further 50 more at regular intervals, at least once a year.

About the time Adrian moved to Poole, Barry Lester approached him as they met at various swapmeets where Barry was selling his one-off cars. Barry had found there were many customers wanting them but as he was only working part time he could never make enough. He was then trying to get masters made for white metal kits as he realised how well John Day was doing, but wanted to produce something even better if possible.

So the Auto Replicas range was born with Adrian casting and Barry getting other pattern makers to do the masters in brass. The first 3 or 4 pattern sets turned up at more or less the same time but the quality was not really that good, and both Barry and Adrian felt something better was needed if success was to be achieved. Adrian agreed to rework some of them but the biggest stumbling block was the lack of really good drawings, dimensions and photos.

Needing the work, Barry and Adrian were soon hot-footing it to Beaulieu to measure and photograph the ERA which became No 1 in the new range with its pattern largely made by Adrian. The Maserati 8C, AC Cobra, Brescia Bugatti and Healey Silverstone all followed with substantial upgrades by Adrian and with, at that time, Barry’s unique selling point, the kits were pre-assembled but unpainted. The idea was that the buyer did not just get a bag of parts but an apparently complete model that only needed painting. Barry soon moved to Poole as well, having been living in Salisbury, and also decided to go full time.

Barry, Adrian, Barry’s wife and brother then went on the first of their autumn continental trips to the first “International Model Swapmeet” in Poitiers, France where Barry met some of his customers. Adrian used the takings to buy French Dinky Toys and a good time was had by all in spite of the mosquitoes.

On their return Adrian made more castings to make good the Dinky expenditure.

Barry’s “built kits” were very popular and the designs were sufficiently good that Barry could make fully finished models in double quick time to satisfy the demand from those who had the extra money. Eventually, with practice, Barry himself was able to make most of the patterns with Adrian occasionally making a model such as the Amilcar. They were able to see this real car at the owner’s home and to get authentic chassis detail, the owner insisted that the car be turned on its side on the lawn to get good photos.

Fortunately the car weighed very little and no damage was done. The car itself had spent the war years on a balcony at Harrods Repository alongside the Thames and after the war the previous owner returned to find the car in a sorry state, covered in pigeon droppings dirt and rust. Harrods agreed to reimburse him with its full value and he promptly sold it to a collector and bought a much newer car.

In 1980 with Mrs Thatcher in power many of the small kit manufacturers found difficulties surviving. Westward and GS models decided to call it a day promptly followed by Jim Varney. This was very worrying as about 50% of Adrian’s business looked like disappearing within months. He was able to fund the purchase of the first two from savings but Transport Replicas was as much again. Fortunately he was only doing a few kits for Jim so this would not have been a financial disaster. The Transport Replicas range was very attractive, however, and with his mother’s backing Adrian took the risk, driving up to Worcester to the Tyler Casting Company to collect most of Jim’s moulds. At Worcester he discovered that they were holding many of John Days’ masters, which they asked if he wanted to buy, as John had gone out of business. Knowing from the past what sort of patterns they were likely to be he declined rapidly when he discovered they were not brass. They returned to Jim’s house to collect all the rest and pay the first instalment. Adrian’s “Streetscene Series” range subsequently incorporated all these acquisitions and others.

The Motorkits range had previously been bought from Bryan Garfield Jones when Barry had told Adrian he thought it was for sale but was not himself interested. Adrian had always liked commercial vehicles, and met with Bryan with the intention of buying just the commercials as long as the patterns were up to his standard. For Adrian, buying a business such as this all depends on the quality of the patterns, after all, the moulds and castings can be re-made. As it turned out, the commercial brass masters were good, and the price was right to buy most of the cars as well, so Adrian became the new owner. Motorkits original patterns were often made by Brian Lawrence, known in the trade as Lawrence Designs and Models, or LDM, and were of a consistently good standard for the era. The casting had been undertaken by Western Models who had already had the pick of some of the cars for their own range.

Barry Lester, his wife June, and Adrian continued their trips to Europe each autumn for some years. It was customary after these European events to organise a dinner and a trip for some of those attending and Adrian recalls that at the Italian ‘International Swapmeet’ the food was not to Barry’s liking and Adrian had to return home with an unhappy Barry halfway through the meal.

As the years passed Adrian was consolidating his railway interests by purchasing various other businesses including model ranges for 0 gauge, 4mm and buses. More recently, when Western Models closed down, Adrian bought some of the English car range, but found they were not of the quality he had expected despite being some of the most recent Western Models.

The story turned full circle some years ago when Frank Vescoe, who had semi-retired and persuaded Adrian to do most of his casting, decided to give up altogether and sold all the English trams to Adrian who thus received back all his original LCC tram patterns.

Adrian has known Pete Kenna, owner of Kenna Models for many years, as they had both worked for K’s, and was able to pass on some of their patterns when they shut down. Pete asked Adrian if he could use some of the Motorkits patterns and Adrian supplied him with the Wolseley Wasp and Austin Goodwood, which Pete has improved to current market standards, and introduced into his ready built range. The patterns would then revert to Adrian to sell as kits when Pete had finished with them.

Adrian’s plan was to retire when he reached 65 continuing to make and sell batches of castings as kits to supplement his pension. However his mother’s health deteriorated before this and in order to look after her he decided to semi retire in 2004. His colleague and friend Kay Butler (Wrightlines Narrow gauge and IKB Models owner) had been handling the mail order side of the business for some years and in 2006 created a website for him, and began selling his ranges on the internet. The result has been that some of his back-up stock has disappeared and he has had to work hard to build the stock up again.

Adrian believes that his high standards derive from his roots in railway modelling, in which many modellers are fastidious about accuracy – “every rivet has to be right”. Adrian has now reduced his sales to mail order and exhibitions only and generally wound down his business, with recent health problems slowing things still further. He is literally a one man band now, and hopefully, with supplies of Streetscene Series, Motorkits and all the other ranges, with over 2000 items in his current catalogue, they should bring him a steady income.

In 2011, Adrian purchased the Classic Commercials business from Bob Barlow, based in Cambridge. This range of railway accessories, vehicles and equipment complements his existing ranges, and is in both 4mm and 7 mm scales.

Subject ID: 82475

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Subject ID: 82475