Snow Plough
Built by Chris Warrell in January 2012 for the Snow Secretary’s Challenge
Based on the Meccano Snow Plough features in the November 1961 issue of Meccano Magazine. It was designed to constructed from a set № 7 and hence is somewhat limited in some of the details: no suspension, and a rather nasty diagonal fold across two 5” x 2” plates to form the plough!
The half title in the magazine was “For the Advanced Model Builder” but, by today’s standards, it’s not what you would call an advanced model, having no gearing, although it did take some time to fathom out the construction details from the description and the two photos.
I changed a few things: simple leaf suspension has been added and I’ve improved the steering (although lack of time before the January meeting meant that I couldn’t connect it to a steering wheel — it has now been improved). The tin-plate road wheels have been substituted for the plastic version which greatly improves its realism.
The main change has been to the plough itself: in the original it has a centre fin with side scoops (formed of the aforementioned folded plates) so the snow would be pushed to both sides, but in mine it has a side plough which would push the snow into the verge.
The model now has a motor but lack of space precluded the fitting of a differential.