Fury Fairground Ride (Ferocity 1.2)
Built by Santiago Plicio in December 2018
It was after the 2018 SELMEC Meccano Show I guess when I decided that my most recent Ferocity model had served me well enough, and having been displayed by then at more than just a few clubs, ought to give way as most models do, to something new! The trouble is that sometimes you can get too attached to your creations and form a relationship with them that grows as each model evolves. As I have in the past and far from the first time, I found myself developing the model further instead of dismantling it and enjoying the thought that it would serve me even further.
I have found on many occasions that there is not always a need to start from a complete new beginning and something from the old always survives, be it a chassis, the carcass shell, the drive mechanisms or passenger pods for example, and in this case I felt that the Ferocity model was a construction I was particularly proud of and so a facelift was an easy decision to opt with. That said, any new incarnation still needs the merit of its own identity.
Having decided to modify instead of completely recreate, I thought the new upgrade to my fairground ride would keep the exact same rotation movement, but I would focus the redesign mainly on the rotating arm itself and the passenger pod at the end of it.
Instead of having a large passenger boat structure centrally fixed at the end of the long arm, I wanted to have a fork in the arm at about thirds length changing its dimensions into a Y-shaped arm instead, and that a new passenger pod would be attached at both ends to the arm’s fork ends. Once I had achieved what I hoped, I fitted the new arm and passenger vessel and was immediately delighted to see my model sporting the new apparatus, and then I thought that as a finishing touch there ought to be some similar upgrade to the entrance way framework.
Personally I already felt that the new unit looked better and gives the model the satisfactory required facelift that helps stands it alone rather than feel like another clone of my previous model and to further this same objective I also modified the encasement unit, the ride’s home so to speak and more importantly, the entrance doorway to show casing the model, and a much higher raised embellished archway of curved girders has made the model? s appeal more visually impressive. If the arm and pod was the new shirt and tie, then perhaps the carcass now was dressed in a new suit and high heels.
Before I started it was hard to know whether implementing such changes would have much visual impact, but I was certain that it would raise the model? s status and profile and as such that I owed it to ‘our’ relationship to show it off once more but wearing its ‘Sunday best’ outfit so to speak, and it was only once I’d finished and was standing back from it that I wondered if it now looked looming or stately and if from the old ‘Ferocity’ model I had added any more menace and to my fury I couldn? t really decide. That is sometimes the conundrum of evolving relationships and becoming attached to your models, and in the case of fairground rides particularly, you come up with an idea and a theme and try to create something raw and equally thrilling, but there is a fine line in crossing between whether an upgrade makes the new model more edgy or just more polished.
If only in adding this small dilemma in my mind, my ‘Ferocity’ has now turned into my ‘Fury’ but at least ‘our’ relationship has not yet fizzled out!