Meetings

Our next meeting will be at Richard Smith’s on Thursday October 8th at 8:00pm. PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN DATE FROM THE NEWSLETTER. Richard’s address is The Old Corn Mill, Mill Lane, Tockington. Tockington is just west of the A38 and north of the M4

Most recent meeting

There was a good turn-out at Malcolm’s place in July with an impressive range of models on show.

Neil Bedford had moved on to a single decker London Transport bus with a good range of movements.

Terry Childs had the beginnings of a Leibherr digger which two other members are also taking on the challenge of creating.

David Northcott brought a ‘stretched’ mantle clock in red and gold that was weight driven.

David Worth had several small models, mostly from modern kits, whilst Tony South had some small non-Meccano sets he had picked up.

Malcolm had made the 1928 Supermodel Hammerhead Crane in its 1930s blue and gold guise using a geared roller bearing.

Sam Medworth brought his windmill along for the last time in his ownership. Sam had discovered that the model had originally been made by long-time club member Roger Baker. Roger had put it together during the last recession for the Wiltshire education service as a working model of a local mill. Somehow it had then ended up in a Bath junk shop where Sam bought it before restoring it! The model was sold back to its creator at the meeting.

Roger came with an impressive display of German ski lift and cable car toys set up on a model hillside. We also had a quick auction of parts Sam was selling on the behalf of someone else.

Previous meetings

We had another very successful show at Tockington Village Hall in May with a good range of models for us and the public to enjoy.

Neil Bedford gave a final run out to his Scammell truck and he and Forrest also brought a broad selection of trucks and tractor models.

Pete Evans had two restored shop display models along with two model steam engines, a dockside crane with its partner ‘Henbury’ loco, and a nice No 6 outfit of the dark red/green period.

John Day showed us his ‘drop tower’ fairground ride along with another fairground model he is working on, which he hopes will eventually be fully automated.

Mark Bridle displayed his Stothert and Pitt dockside crane which now boasts an ingenious automatic grab of his own design. (Mark used a large black cylinder motor as ballast and unfortunately this has now gone missing. If by any chance you picked it up by mistake and wonder where it came from please contact him on 01275 341235.)

Geoff Bennett dazzled us with his large model of a SRN4 hovercraft. This had pivoting propeller pylons, opening rear and front doors and would simulate hovering.

David Worth went to the other size extreme by bringing a collection of small models, many of them made from modern kits.

David Northcott had his beautiful orrery.

Andrew Cope displayed his block-setter and grandfather clock along with an impressive bulldozer based on an Eric Taylor design.

Sam Medworth brought contrasting models of Stephenson’s Rocket, one modern and one from a 1930 MM design. He also had his operating windmill. He demonstrated the range of gears in Plastic Meccano by building a Meccanograph that was enjoyed by the youngsters.

Richard Smith had his block setter in dark blue and yellow.

Ralph Clark’s locomotive of the day was a GWR broad gauge example.

New member Brian Bowditch exhibited a fine showman’s engine together with a steam wagon.

Malcolm Hanson came with various shop displays and wind-the-handle models together with his blue/gold “K” and “Ka” outfits. Examples: ball clock, jacknife bridge.

The "scrapheap challenge" for this year was to build a vehicle with SQUARE wheels to race the length of the hall; "first to the other end wins!" It had to be powered by a Powerdrive 6-ratio gear boxed Meccano electric motor and have a built-in power-pack (no trailing cables). We had 6 keen contestants, but none of the other 5 could get close to the speed of Neil’s square-wheeled boy-racer, so well done to him!

Many thanks to everyone, and especially the Smith family, for making the show so successful.

A happy New Year was had by all at Philip’s on 8th Jan 2009.

David Northcott showed us his improved version of a supermodel orrery. This included sophisticated features such as the rotation of the planets on their axes and the rotation of the moon about the earth. This is all achieved with standard Meccano parts!

Neil Bedford has been experimenting with radio control. He brought a standard modern Meccano car and a truck he designed and built himself that uses proprietary radio control devices. Both worked very effectively.

Sam Medworth brought two models. He has been working with some older men from a Church group he supports and got each of them to build a simple Meccano model of a machine tool from a Victorian factory. He then added a base, a motor and an overhead drive shaft to create the whole factory. Each group member had therefore contributed towards the model, a lovely idea. Sam’s other model was of a working windmill. Made mostly from Meccano it had lots of nice features. Sam had bought it from a local second-hand shop in a rather sorry state and then renovated it. Amazingly, after the meeting it turned out that this model had originally been built by club member Roger Baker in the early 1990s!

Terry Childs is working on a level luffing crane. With five separate drives it is inspired by an Eric Taylor design but with a number of additional features arising from Terry’s researches.

Malcolm brought along recently acquired mid-30s K and Ka outfits. He got the latter in a poor state from a Vectis auction and restored the box, which was riddled with wood-worm. However, chatting to Jim Gamble it would appear to be the only known version of the outfit! He also brought a 1931 Meccano Magazine “Mechanical Man” that he have made for an exhibition in Nurnberg and at the other extreme a modern Meccano robot model called Spykee. The latter is computer controlled; it takes photographs and videos, has a built in sound system and phone, can act as a motion detector and automatically returns to its base to recharge!

Our autumn meeting was held on the 2nd October at Richard Smith’s house with 8 members attending. Sorry, no pictures this time!

Peter Evans brought along two models. The first was a Meccano shop display model from the 1970s of the ‘Rotating Wheels’ which Pete has just renovated. The second is a Liebherr Digger to the Mike Adler design. The derrick and base are in skeletal form.

Dave Northcott also brought along two models. The first was a Bullock based on a North Midlands Meccano Gazette picture. This model featured the most prodigious use of Formed Slotted Strips (part no. 215) that any of us have ever seen. The second model was a 13:1 Gearbox utilising a differential.

Mark Biddle is building the Stothert and Pitt Dockside Crane as seen in Bristol docks. The tower is complete and the Derrick is partially complete. The whole is built from Mark’s beautifully restored (powder coated) Meccano.

Terry Childs has been developing an experimental Crane Derrick incorporating differential gears on the winches.

Neil Bedford has built a set 8 Land Rover model and then modified it to the Cuthberson caterpillar tracked vehicle used in Scotland. The tracks featured an excellent use of steel road wheels (part no. 187). Neil has also been working on an AEC Tractor unit with ballast back. This model has been built with a combination of red/green and white Space 2501.

John Day came all the way up from Bridport for the get together. He brought along three models; the Marks and Spencer model of the Eiffel Tower in zinc finish, an open top model car in 1930s style by Meccano France and lastly, a model Bulldozer in yellow and green with caterpillar track steering.

There was a good turn-out at Malcolm’s in July with an impressive range of models on show.

Sam Medworth brought not one but three Meccanographs. One used no gears and was made from the contents of a No. 1 set whilst another was the classic supermodel version. The third was from an old MMGG magazine article.

David Miller was into controllable cars with a modern radio controlled example and another using Electikit parts for steering.

Mark Bridle is building a dockside crane and showed us the ‘powerhouse’ which uses a number of commercial electric motors.

Another ‘work in progress’ was John Day’s Blaw-Knox bulldozer based on some old model plans. John had found himself foxed by a bit of Meccano history. He could not understand that why the gearing did not quite work as it should until he learnt that early ¼” gears had 20 teeth not 19 and he had used one of these old gears at one point without realising it.

David Northcott brought a lovely planetarium based on a Michael Whiting No. 10 set model. Getting the orbits of the planets about right with just the gears in a No. 10 is quite an achievement!

Terry Childs’ Shay class locomotive was another major achievement. We had seen the chassis at a previous meeting but were now treated to the completed project which runs beautifully.

David Hobson also had a great piece of engineering history in the form of the V16 engine that powered the Deltic locomotive. The model made excellent use of Meccano parts from a range of periods and even simulated the ignition of each cylinder.

Neil Bedford brought a version of the No. 10 Lifting Shovel powered by a power-drive motor together with a Coles’ tractor that used tracks rather than straightforward wheels.

David Worth brought a lorry built from the 2007 Vintage set

Annual Exhibition 2008

We had another very successful show at Tockington Village Hall in April with a good range of models for us and the public to enjoy.

Neil’s Scammell has progressed even further and he now sees it as “almost finished”! He also brought a #10 model digger shovel, a tank transporter, a Land Rover, an old Meccano Magazine model of a Morgan, an autogiro, a half-track tractor and a Cuthbertson Land Rover with tracks. To add to the great family contribution Neil’s daughter Forrest had a #2 set model of a tractor with steering.

Ralph had another of his super locos, this time a scale model of a ‘Rover’ Class.

Andrew Cope came with big models. a superb block setter and a version of the Bert Love #10 Grand Father clock that famously used every part in the set! Andrew added a few more parts to provide self-winding.

Richard Smith is still working on his Canberra Bomber and this time showed us improvements to the engines.

Mark Bridle had a multi-motored walking dragline and his Sinclair Harding Clock.

It was good to see Mervyn Bishop again who entertained everyone with his Dodgems, a scale model of a Sopwith Camel and various small models of cars.

As ever Pete Evans came well stocked with models. This time he had various car and aero construction set models, a Canadian super-model road-grader, a Watts and a Kite steam engine, his crowd pleasing bouncing ball model, a pre-war H set automated racer and a shop display model with flying delta-winged aircraft.

Malcolm went all medium red and green with unused examples of a #8, a #9 and a #10 set from the 50s and various shop display models of the era. He also had this friendly walking dinosaur!

Sam had a meccanograph which was enjoyed by numerous younger visitors, some planes from two world wars,and a version of Heath Robinson’s False Teeth Testing Machine!

The scrapheap challenge this year was to build a Meccano (only) vehicle powered by a No.1 clockwork motor that was aimed at a ‘goal’ with a ‘mouth’ 1ft wide from successively greater distances. Each vehicle that scored a goal in each round by passing completely between the goalposts without touching them went through to the next round where it was again aimed at the goal, but from a greater distance. The owner of the vehicle that managed to score a goal from the greatest distance was the winner! The contest was extremely hotly contested, and after a series of run-offs Richard finally proved the victor with his lengthy and very ‘one-dimensional’ (in the best possible sense!) vehicle.

Many thanks to everyone, and especially the Smith family, for making the show so successful.

Older meetings