The Linka Story
The following extracts layout to some extent the story of Linka, form its inception to the present day. at the time of building this website I had been oblivious to what had gone on before, I had used Linka as did a lot of people in the late 70s and early 80s, however with a family and commitments I found I could not spare the time to carry on using Linka and making models, so away it went to a cold and dusty place, almost to be forgotten forever. then just over a year ago my family all grown up I had become interested in gardening, in fact miniature gardening to be precise. One day in 2013 I remembered my old days of making little buildings, and decided I would see if Linka was still around. The reason I was looking was to see if I could make some little building for my mini gardens, to my amazement I found it was. I bought some sets and started to build, what I had noticed was there seemed very little information, help or new products around and it seemed to me it was just on its last legs, Although the moulds where still thankfully in production. so I thought maybe it needs something fresh and thats where this website began. Who am I you may ask, in a nut shell nobody really, just a keen enthusiast that always loved Linka and who has a little idea that he can bring something to people that may have otherwise been eventually forgotten. Today after only a few months I can see that the same holds true from years gone by, there is still a love of the product and building these fantastic models, it seems a shame so much of what was created is no longer in production, so now it has become a passion as well as a hobby and I am trying to find and resurrect as much as I can, and also make information and a place to share available for everyone.
I do not have any ownership of Linka nor am I involved with Linkaworld who now own the copyright, but I am trying to work with them at present to see where and how I can help, the rest of the story has not yet been written - I wonder what 2014 will bring.
Martin Stancer
I do not have any ownership of Linka nor am I involved with Linkaworld who now own the copyright, but I am trying to work with them at present to see where and how I can help, the rest of the story has not yet been written - I wonder what 2014 will bring.
Martin Stancer
This is a copy of the last Linka Newsletter, published in 1995 and written by Stuart Manley, the last owner of Linka when it was written.
As most of you will be aware, the Linka factory closed in late 1993, ending a fifteen-year history of a unique and unusual product.
Anyway, this seems the perfect time to tell the whole Linka story.
It began in 1978 with an idea submitted to Thomas Salter Ltd by Peter Champion. There is a wonderful story that Peter Champion ‘pinched” the idea from someone else working for the firm of “Minibrix’ (does anyone remember Minibrix?), but I have never been able to get to the bottom of that! Be that as it may, Salter’s liked the idea, and put it under a crash programme of development. The main mould range was primarily the work of their designer, Arthur Hunter, who worked all hours god sent to meet the deadline of the Earls Court toy fair in January 1979
It was launched with a great fanfare, and 1979 was a year of unmitigated success, Huge sales, aided by a massive TV and press promotion, led Salter’s to believe they had a new Meccano. massive money was put into a simultaneous launch of Linka in America and throughout Europe; and millions of boxes, components, and instructions were produced for each country and language.
Then came the fall, the seeds of which had been laid in the crash development programme.
Unfortunately, although the 1979 TV campaign was successful in selling millions of pounds worth of Linka, no one had bothered to check if the customers who bought it actually’ liked it! Nor was any market research done in the new countries into which it was being launched. (Extensive market research was carried out in Germany, but only AFTER it had failed!) - They just assumed that the wonderful sales of 1979 would keep on growing.
Down in the real world, too many buyers were not liking Linka. The crash development had led to confusing and misleading instructions and plans which, if you followed them, pretty well guaranteed ugly models with joints showing! Also, because of the way Linka was being promoted on TV, it was being bought for young children, who found it too complicated.
So instead of the popularity of Linka spreading by word of mouth, as all ‘successful products must, the reverse was happening. The word on the street was ‘Linka is crap!”
At the same time, the 1980 overseas launches were not going too well either. In Germany (quite apart from setting up a deal with Noch where Salter’s could hardly ever make any money anyway) sales were going poorly - the German modeler liked his nice clean Faller models, thank you very much. And in America, the situation was even worse. For by the time the distributor, sub-distributor, and sub-sub-distributor had taken their cuts, the price ruled out any huge popularity - even if, as was never researched, the American modeler was prepared to spend the kind of time Linka demands.
By the end of 1980, things were in a sorry state - a huge investment committed to sets and packaging, coupled with dwindling sales in any part of the globe you looked.
Meantime, back in Alnwick, I was playing with Linka and getting some good results -mainly because I was one of those people who never read instructions!
In 1979 I built a large viaduct, and other models, for the exhibition layout of the local model club. This was well received, so the next year an even larger viaduct (5ft long!) was built for the next exhibition layout. An article was written and accepted by Railway Modeler. Salter’s were notified.
The wheels of publication grind exceedingly slow, and it was late ‘81 before Railway Modeler gave a publication date. (It was eventually published July 1982.) Salter’s were again notified. They wrote back to say that they were scrapping Linka! I replied that I believed Linka could have a future with some redesign, and to my surprise, they took me up on it.
The subsequent meetings with Salter’s map the rapid decline of this once prosperous company: the first meeting was over a three-course dinner, the second included a pub lunch, and with the third it was virtually a case of ”bring your own sandwiches”! (Salter’s went into receivership in 1983.)
Agreement was reached for me to take over Linka and attempt a re-marketing. The situation was clouded by Salter’s, in their desperation, having to sell off the hundreds of thousands of surplus Linka kits they had manufactured at a giveaway price to get immediate cash. This led to Linka sets, previously selling for as much as £24, being sold in the Zodiac and Maynards chains for as little as 99p. Such is the pattern of life that both Maynards and Zodiac went into receivership within a few years. (How long for Toys R Us, one must wonder?)
So manufacture moved to Alnwick in late 1982. But with sets on the High Street selling at 99p, there was little immediate prospect of getting it back in the shops at full price. The next two years were spent designing new packaging for Linka’s re-launch, as well as producing the Linka Manual (still the ‘bible” for this kind of modeling). In fact, the Manual alone required sending out hundreds of letters to modelers, who kindly sent back their tips and ideas, so that at last the old Salter’s instructions could be swept aside forever. Then, in January 1984, Linka was re-launched at Earls Court toy fair, with a greatly reduced fanfare compared to the previous Salter’s introduction.
For the next few years Linka jogged along well enough, with a small but appreciative following, and slow progress was made. There were a few scares along the way. When Salter’s went bankrupt. We still had not secured the tooling. A desperate period of negotiation with Peter Pan Playthings of Peterborough (who had bought Salter’s assets from the receiver) finally secured them, but it took all spare capital. Then Peter Champion popped up from the Caribbean where he had gone with the proceeds from his royalties after that successful 1979 launch. He wanted thousands of pounds of further royalties for sales since we had taken over, money we simply did not have. Despite showing him the books, he still insisted that his royalties were on sales, not profit - and if we didn’t have the money to pay him, we had to find it. Luckily, a trip to Glenrothes to meet with erstwhile directors of the now defunct Salter’s clarified the position: Mr. Champion’s royalties ended with the closing of the Salter’s’ patents, and we owed him nothing. Otherwise the story of Linka might have ended there!
Even aside from these distractions, the business was becoming a struggle. Sales, although steady, were not increasing. The people who got into Linka really loved it, and did some marvelous things, but we couldn’t seem to get greater numbers interested. This in turn left us always short of money for bringing out new moulds and accessories, so we could not extend the range to stimulate new interest. The pattern became quite familiar, quite good sales in the winter where we would make a little progress, only to lose it in the summer when sales dwindled - and with factory costs and overheads rolling on remorselessly.
By the late 1980’s it became clear we had to do something quite radical, or slowly be squeezed out of existence. It was decided to gather together all our resources for one last try to break into a larger field. The packaging would be renewed to bring it up to High Street standards (a very costly exercise in itself), and new sets designed to make Linka as ‘user friendly” and as easy as possible.
This resulted in the “step-by-step” instruction books and their allied accessories, which were launched at Earls Court in 1989. We were aiming for Beatties, Menzies, Hobbies, Toys R Us, Fenwicks, Toymaster, and any other major outlet we could find. We had borrowed to the hilt to make this happen (and interest rates were penal in 1989) so it HAD to work!
THE NEW PACKAGING
We got Beatties and Hobbies. All the others showed interest but finally decided it was “too specialized for them”. Still, Beatties and Hobbies were a great help, and sales in 1989 more than doubled. Unfortunately, they needed to triple for us to make progress. Same old story - the people who bought Linka loved it, but there was never quite enough of them.
By the end of 1990, it was clear we had failed. Enough sales to keep afloat, just, but no prospect of increased sales to pay back the crippling borrowings. Various tries at diversification into allied manufacturing came to nothing, and anyway there was little capital available for such projects.
Then early in 1991, my wife, Mary, had the idea of opening a small secondhand bookshop in part of the factory premises at Alnwick Station, in the hope of helping with the overheads. Meantime the business was advertised for sale. And although a number of people showed interest, an American buyer, who had previously been importing Linka, was the only one to come up with a firm offer.
Meantime, the bookshop became increasingly popular and successful. In 1992 it was enlarged to about half of the total factory area, with Linka shoehorned into the remaining area. Then, as the American buyer was planning to take Linka over in 1993, it was decided to close the factory completely and enlarge the bookshop yet again.
Rather than just disappearing and leaving people with half-completed Linka sets, a “Last Orders” campaign was conceived, and the closure advertised in the Railway Modeler during the summer and autumn of 1993. The idea was that anyone who wanted to complete their Linka mould collection would have this one last chance to do so.
And to our huge surprise, we were absolutely overwhelmed with orders!
In three or four months we sold more Linka than we had in the previous two years! Nonetheless, the factory closed on schedule in September 1993 - but not until after we had manufactured enough stock to ensure that all “last orders” would be satisfied. Unfortunately, our American buyer went bankrupt, (with all the bankruptcies that have happened around Linka, it is amazing that the product itself survived!) so that his plans to continue manufacturing Linka necessarily fell through.
Meantime, the bookshop has gone from strength to strength, so that it is now one of the largest secondhand bookshops in Britain - so large that it now covers a far bigger area within Alnwick Station than the factory ever did! In addition, and much to our satisfaction, we have been able to restore many features of the original station, including the old waiting room, and are gradually working on more restorations.
So is this the end of Linka? Probably so. But the tooling for Linka has been carefully mothballed, so that if anyone wishes to take up the torch by buying or leasing them, they are there.
Stuart Manley, Alnwick Station, 1995
As most of you will be aware, the Linka factory closed in late 1993, ending a fifteen-year history of a unique and unusual product.
Anyway, this seems the perfect time to tell the whole Linka story.
It began in 1978 with an idea submitted to Thomas Salter Ltd by Peter Champion. There is a wonderful story that Peter Champion ‘pinched” the idea from someone else working for the firm of “Minibrix’ (does anyone remember Minibrix?), but I have never been able to get to the bottom of that! Be that as it may, Salter’s liked the idea, and put it under a crash programme of development. The main mould range was primarily the work of their designer, Arthur Hunter, who worked all hours god sent to meet the deadline of the Earls Court toy fair in January 1979
It was launched with a great fanfare, and 1979 was a year of unmitigated success, Huge sales, aided by a massive TV and press promotion, led Salter’s to believe they had a new Meccano. massive money was put into a simultaneous launch of Linka in America and throughout Europe; and millions of boxes, components, and instructions were produced for each country and language.
Then came the fall, the seeds of which had been laid in the crash development programme.
Unfortunately, although the 1979 TV campaign was successful in selling millions of pounds worth of Linka, no one had bothered to check if the customers who bought it actually’ liked it! Nor was any market research done in the new countries into which it was being launched. (Extensive market research was carried out in Germany, but only AFTER it had failed!) - They just assumed that the wonderful sales of 1979 would keep on growing.
Down in the real world, too many buyers were not liking Linka. The crash development had led to confusing and misleading instructions and plans which, if you followed them, pretty well guaranteed ugly models with joints showing! Also, because of the way Linka was being promoted on TV, it was being bought for young children, who found it too complicated.
So instead of the popularity of Linka spreading by word of mouth, as all ‘successful products must, the reverse was happening. The word on the street was ‘Linka is crap!”
At the same time, the 1980 overseas launches were not going too well either. In Germany (quite apart from setting up a deal with Noch where Salter’s could hardly ever make any money anyway) sales were going poorly - the German modeler liked his nice clean Faller models, thank you very much. And in America, the situation was even worse. For by the time the distributor, sub-distributor, and sub-sub-distributor had taken their cuts, the price ruled out any huge popularity - even if, as was never researched, the American modeler was prepared to spend the kind of time Linka demands.
By the end of 1980, things were in a sorry state - a huge investment committed to sets and packaging, coupled with dwindling sales in any part of the globe you looked.
Meantime, back in Alnwick, I was playing with Linka and getting some good results -mainly because I was one of those people who never read instructions!
In 1979 I built a large viaduct, and other models, for the exhibition layout of the local model club. This was well received, so the next year an even larger viaduct (5ft long!) was built for the next exhibition layout. An article was written and accepted by Railway Modeler. Salter’s were notified.
The wheels of publication grind exceedingly slow, and it was late ‘81 before Railway Modeler gave a publication date. (It was eventually published July 1982.) Salter’s were again notified. They wrote back to say that they were scrapping Linka! I replied that I believed Linka could have a future with some redesign, and to my surprise, they took me up on it.
The subsequent meetings with Salter’s map the rapid decline of this once prosperous company: the first meeting was over a three-course dinner, the second included a pub lunch, and with the third it was virtually a case of ”bring your own sandwiches”! (Salter’s went into receivership in 1983.)
Agreement was reached for me to take over Linka and attempt a re-marketing. The situation was clouded by Salter’s, in their desperation, having to sell off the hundreds of thousands of surplus Linka kits they had manufactured at a giveaway price to get immediate cash. This led to Linka sets, previously selling for as much as £24, being sold in the Zodiac and Maynards chains for as little as 99p. Such is the pattern of life that both Maynards and Zodiac went into receivership within a few years. (How long for Toys R Us, one must wonder?)
So manufacture moved to Alnwick in late 1982. But with sets on the High Street selling at 99p, there was little immediate prospect of getting it back in the shops at full price. The next two years were spent designing new packaging for Linka’s re-launch, as well as producing the Linka Manual (still the ‘bible” for this kind of modeling). In fact, the Manual alone required sending out hundreds of letters to modelers, who kindly sent back their tips and ideas, so that at last the old Salter’s instructions could be swept aside forever. Then, in January 1984, Linka was re-launched at Earls Court toy fair, with a greatly reduced fanfare compared to the previous Salter’s introduction.
For the next few years Linka jogged along well enough, with a small but appreciative following, and slow progress was made. There were a few scares along the way. When Salter’s went bankrupt. We still had not secured the tooling. A desperate period of negotiation with Peter Pan Playthings of Peterborough (who had bought Salter’s assets from the receiver) finally secured them, but it took all spare capital. Then Peter Champion popped up from the Caribbean where he had gone with the proceeds from his royalties after that successful 1979 launch. He wanted thousands of pounds of further royalties for sales since we had taken over, money we simply did not have. Despite showing him the books, he still insisted that his royalties were on sales, not profit - and if we didn’t have the money to pay him, we had to find it. Luckily, a trip to Glenrothes to meet with erstwhile directors of the now defunct Salter’s clarified the position: Mr. Champion’s royalties ended with the closing of the Salter’s’ patents, and we owed him nothing. Otherwise the story of Linka might have ended there!
Even aside from these distractions, the business was becoming a struggle. Sales, although steady, were not increasing. The people who got into Linka really loved it, and did some marvelous things, but we couldn’t seem to get greater numbers interested. This in turn left us always short of money for bringing out new moulds and accessories, so we could not extend the range to stimulate new interest. The pattern became quite familiar, quite good sales in the winter where we would make a little progress, only to lose it in the summer when sales dwindled - and with factory costs and overheads rolling on remorselessly.
By the late 1980’s it became clear we had to do something quite radical, or slowly be squeezed out of existence. It was decided to gather together all our resources for one last try to break into a larger field. The packaging would be renewed to bring it up to High Street standards (a very costly exercise in itself), and new sets designed to make Linka as ‘user friendly” and as easy as possible.
This resulted in the “step-by-step” instruction books and their allied accessories, which were launched at Earls Court in 1989. We were aiming for Beatties, Menzies, Hobbies, Toys R Us, Fenwicks, Toymaster, and any other major outlet we could find. We had borrowed to the hilt to make this happen (and interest rates were penal in 1989) so it HAD to work!
THE NEW PACKAGING
We got Beatties and Hobbies. All the others showed interest but finally decided it was “too specialized for them”. Still, Beatties and Hobbies were a great help, and sales in 1989 more than doubled. Unfortunately, they needed to triple for us to make progress. Same old story - the people who bought Linka loved it, but there was never quite enough of them.
By the end of 1990, it was clear we had failed. Enough sales to keep afloat, just, but no prospect of increased sales to pay back the crippling borrowings. Various tries at diversification into allied manufacturing came to nothing, and anyway there was little capital available for such projects.
Then early in 1991, my wife, Mary, had the idea of opening a small secondhand bookshop in part of the factory premises at Alnwick Station, in the hope of helping with the overheads. Meantime the business was advertised for sale. And although a number of people showed interest, an American buyer, who had previously been importing Linka, was the only one to come up with a firm offer.
Meantime, the bookshop became increasingly popular and successful. In 1992 it was enlarged to about half of the total factory area, with Linka shoehorned into the remaining area. Then, as the American buyer was planning to take Linka over in 1993, it was decided to close the factory completely and enlarge the bookshop yet again.
Rather than just disappearing and leaving people with half-completed Linka sets, a “Last Orders” campaign was conceived, and the closure advertised in the Railway Modeler during the summer and autumn of 1993. The idea was that anyone who wanted to complete their Linka mould collection would have this one last chance to do so.
And to our huge surprise, we were absolutely overwhelmed with orders!
In three or four months we sold more Linka than we had in the previous two years! Nonetheless, the factory closed on schedule in September 1993 - but not until after we had manufactured enough stock to ensure that all “last orders” would be satisfied. Unfortunately, our American buyer went bankrupt, (with all the bankruptcies that have happened around Linka, it is amazing that the product itself survived!) so that his plans to continue manufacturing Linka necessarily fell through.
Meantime, the bookshop has gone from strength to strength, so that it is now one of the largest secondhand bookshops in Britain - so large that it now covers a far bigger area within Alnwick Station than the factory ever did! In addition, and much to our satisfaction, we have been able to restore many features of the original station, including the old waiting room, and are gradually working on more restorations.
So is this the end of Linka? Probably so. But the tooling for Linka has been carefully mothballed, so that if anyone wishes to take up the torch by buying or leasing them, they are there.
Stuart Manley, Alnwick Station, 1995
The Story Continues
I cannot say that I know the entire story, however at this time I understand that it is now owned by Linka world, below is what I found on the internet and makes interesting reading, if you know more than this please let me know as I would love to have the whole story here for the history books so to speak.
The original company, Thomas Salter, was a Scottish toy company. They produced Linka along with lots of other toys. When Linka was first introduced, they sold tons and tons of it to kids all across the UK and parts of Europe and Canada. The problem was that it was marketed towards kids ages 8 to 12. Most children that age lack the patience needed for this kind of product and after these kids realized that they wouldn't be able to build the huge castle pictured on the front of the box in 30 minutes or less, they quickly lost heart and gave up. For those kids (and their dads) who did persevere, they unfortunately found that the building plans that came with the kits had been designed by graphic artists and not by actual model builders. As a result, the models they did produce using the original Thomas Salter plans turned out very poorly constructed models indeed.
The demise of the Thomas Salter Company had little to do with Linka and nearly everything to do with poor management practices in several of their design divisions. Cost overruns and numerous quarters of financial loss soon put the company into bankruptcy where it was eventually broken up and its component pieces liquidated.
One of these liquidated pieces was Linka. It was taken over by Stuart Manley on Northumberland, England. He had been running a local hobby shop at the time and actually stocked Linka for model railroad enthusiasts who liked the buildings produced by the fine little moulds. As Stuart himself will tell you, his success with Linka at this time probably came because he didn't bother reading the instructions that came with his sets of Linka moulds and so never ran into the problems building the poorly designed Thomas Salter projects.
Stuart did a lot of research to revamp the moulds and make them easier to use. He found a more flexible rubber compound for his moulds, hired some modelers to design realistic building plans for the moulds, and even expanded the line by introducing additional vacu-form plastic moulds. Stuart's run lasted until 1993 when he finally decided he was tired of breaking even (he had been covering all the costs of production, packaging, advertising, warehousing, and staffing), he decided to move into another line of work. Upon advertising that Linka was going out of business, he was inundated with orders for moulds and accessories from Linka users the world over. Filling these orders forced him to stay in business for an additional six months.
One has to remember that when Stuart was running the company, there was no Internet and very little word-of-mouth for such a niche product. Even still, he managed to run his company, break even, and still manage to live on the proceeds from Linka sales for nearly 10 years. He helped to develop a very loyal following which I am fortunate to be able to access today.
One of the main problems that Stuart encountered with the Linka moulds wasn't that they were a bad product. Far from it. The main problem was his inability to get a lot of repeat business. The quality of the moulds is so good that under normal use, the moulds will last 10 to 20 years or more. Some of the original moulds are still being used by Linka-philes. This translated into a lot of first sales of people buying the entire range, but few follow-ups (except by people interested in picking up a few more basic moulds like the brick and stone wall sections to speed up the casting process).
I personally believe in Linka very much (and not just because I own the company). I have had great success and the dozens and dozens of high quality models on our Website, www.LinkaWorld.com demonstrate what is possible with our product. The key word though is patience. The moulds are thin, but there are any number of simple methods you can use to strengthen and reinforce them to stand up to constant use. This isn't an admission of a poorly designed product, it's simply a recognition that, with any product, there are limitations to what you can do with it. The Linka moulds were designed by a toy company for children. They were since adopted (forcibly) by the model building community and adapted for their use. Now they are in demand by the wargamming community who see yet another use for these fine products and the highly realistic results they produce. As a result, they will need to be adapted once again for the rougher handling of this relatively newly emerging genre. Strengthening the buildings is simply a matter of gluing two castings back-to-back to create a double-thick wall. Another way to do it is to glue cardboard, cardstock, or even thin strips of balsa to the back of the pieces. These strengthens them immensely.
One of the great advantages to the thin castings is it allows you to cast curved pieces, something you cannot easily do with thicker moulds. Simply fill the castings with plaster, place a thin piece of plastic card over the back of the mould, and use a rubber band to attach the mould to any curved surface (e.g., coffee can, juice bottle, etc.). You can make turrets, curved walls, the underside of tunnels or vaulted arches, bridges, and numerous other curved constructs. We have a great illustrated tutorial on this on our Website as well.
In the end, I guess all I'd like to say is give us a chance. Linka isn't for everyone. There is a bit of a learning curve and it does require patience, but I believe the results are well worth it. If anyone is interested in trying the Linka moulds, please do. And if anyone has any questions or feedback for us, please let us know. We always enjoy receiving e-mail from Linka users.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I also appreciate all those who gave constructive feedback on our product (both positive and negative). Believe it or not, we do enjoy hearing about the negative. It helps us better understand how our product is being used and allows us to research ways to meet the needs of Linka users, particularly those users who use Linka for projects other than models, railroads, and wargames!
Thank you again and my sincerest best wishes,
- Richard Purdy
www.LinkaWorld.com
The demise of the Thomas Salter Company had little to do with Linka and nearly everything to do with poor management practices in several of their design divisions. Cost overruns and numerous quarters of financial loss soon put the company into bankruptcy where it was eventually broken up and its component pieces liquidated.
One of these liquidated pieces was Linka. It was taken over by Stuart Manley on Northumberland, England. He had been running a local hobby shop at the time and actually stocked Linka for model railroad enthusiasts who liked the buildings produced by the fine little moulds. As Stuart himself will tell you, his success with Linka at this time probably came because he didn't bother reading the instructions that came with his sets of Linka moulds and so never ran into the problems building the poorly designed Thomas Salter projects.
Stuart did a lot of research to revamp the moulds and make them easier to use. He found a more flexible rubber compound for his moulds, hired some modelers to design realistic building plans for the moulds, and even expanded the line by introducing additional vacu-form plastic moulds. Stuart's run lasted until 1993 when he finally decided he was tired of breaking even (he had been covering all the costs of production, packaging, advertising, warehousing, and staffing), he decided to move into another line of work. Upon advertising that Linka was going out of business, he was inundated with orders for moulds and accessories from Linka users the world over. Filling these orders forced him to stay in business for an additional six months.
One has to remember that when Stuart was running the company, there was no Internet and very little word-of-mouth for such a niche product. Even still, he managed to run his company, break even, and still manage to live on the proceeds from Linka sales for nearly 10 years. He helped to develop a very loyal following which I am fortunate to be able to access today.
One of the main problems that Stuart encountered with the Linka moulds wasn't that they were a bad product. Far from it. The main problem was his inability to get a lot of repeat business. The quality of the moulds is so good that under normal use, the moulds will last 10 to 20 years or more. Some of the original moulds are still being used by Linka-philes. This translated into a lot of first sales of people buying the entire range, but few follow-ups (except by people interested in picking up a few more basic moulds like the brick and stone wall sections to speed up the casting process).
I personally believe in Linka very much (and not just because I own the company). I have had great success and the dozens and dozens of high quality models on our Website, www.LinkaWorld.com demonstrate what is possible with our product. The key word though is patience. The moulds are thin, but there are any number of simple methods you can use to strengthen and reinforce them to stand up to constant use. This isn't an admission of a poorly designed product, it's simply a recognition that, with any product, there are limitations to what you can do with it. The Linka moulds were designed by a toy company for children. They were since adopted (forcibly) by the model building community and adapted for their use. Now they are in demand by the wargamming community who see yet another use for these fine products and the highly realistic results they produce. As a result, they will need to be adapted once again for the rougher handling of this relatively newly emerging genre. Strengthening the buildings is simply a matter of gluing two castings back-to-back to create a double-thick wall. Another way to do it is to glue cardboard, cardstock, or even thin strips of balsa to the back of the pieces. These strengthens them immensely.
One of the great advantages to the thin castings is it allows you to cast curved pieces, something you cannot easily do with thicker moulds. Simply fill the castings with plaster, place a thin piece of plastic card over the back of the mould, and use a rubber band to attach the mould to any curved surface (e.g., coffee can, juice bottle, etc.). You can make turrets, curved walls, the underside of tunnels or vaulted arches, bridges, and numerous other curved constructs. We have a great illustrated tutorial on this on our Website as well.
In the end, I guess all I'd like to say is give us a chance. Linka isn't for everyone. There is a bit of a learning curve and it does require patience, but I believe the results are well worth it. If anyone is interested in trying the Linka moulds, please do. And if anyone has any questions or feedback for us, please let us know. We always enjoy receiving e-mail from Linka users.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I also appreciate all those who gave constructive feedback on our product (both positive and negative). Believe it or not, we do enjoy hearing about the negative. It helps us better understand how our product is being used and allows us to research ways to meet the needs of Linka users, particularly those users who use Linka for projects other than models, railroads, and wargames!
Thank you again and my sincerest best wishes,
- Richard Purdy
www.LinkaWorld.com