March 2013 Newsletter
March 2013 Newsletter
Issue 146
This was one of our informal quarterly meetings where our members showed off their latest Meccano creations.
At around 2:00pm we had a short committee meeting, followed by the Model Tour in which members were invited to give a short talk about their models — in particular their entries for the Secretary’s Challenge!
Written by Michelle O’Brien
Need to make Meccano-sized holes in things where none existed before or to widen holes in non-Meccano items to the exact Meccano standard? I recently discovered the very thing — a 4.1mm (i.e. equivalent to Meccano’s somewhat dated 8 swg standard) steel clearance drill — hidden away on the Meccano and Compatible Parts website.
The drill is perfect for creating holes that exactly fit Meccano axles and bolts and for widening holes made by engineering firms to the industry’s present-day 4mm standard. Engineers will know all about this already, of course, but it’s all new stuff to me, so bear with me.
Fit the 4.1mm goody into the chuck of your power drill, secure the thing to be drilled, switch on and away you go, and all for 95p. But my advice is don’t try it on anything really tough like tough steel or you could come a cropper. I used the 4.1mm drill for widening the 4mm diameter bore holes in MFA/Como Drills’ very useful aluminium timing pulleys (about which I wrote here recently) to Meccano’s 4.1mm so that the pulleys can take Meccano axles. It saved all that dreary, time-consuming slog messing about with a hand file, which among other things ruins your nails, girls, and tends to make for wobbly holes.
It struck me that the 4.1mm drill could also be handy for making Meccano-sized holes in a whole variety of other things, such as, to cite just one example, the edges of electronic PCB boards … or (Meccano purists look away now, this is sacrilege) even drilling strategically vital new Meccano holes in existing Meccano strips, girders and plates where none existed before in order to meet the model-making exigencies of whatever you’re working on (go on, you know you want to).
Report written by Chris Warrell
The Brighton Toy and Model Museum has just been awarded a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to help it to celebrate 2013 as Frank Hornby Year, this being the 150th anniversary of his birth in May 1863. On 23rd February an evening drinks and nibbles reception was held to launch their celebration project. Tim Surtell had received an invitation to the do (as ‘co-ordinator’ of the London Meccano Club initiative) but just five tickets were allocated to the six clubs in the affiliation!
In the end it appeared that very few tickets for the Meccano fraternity had been taken up so there were plenty of spares. Les Chatfield, who’d been in Brighton all weekend for the three-day Modelworld show (see his report) and I attended, most of the other guests being from the Hornby Trains or Dinky Toys world.
Inside the Brighton Toy and Model Museum
The evening kicked off with an introduction from Museum Director Chris Littledale, who insisted that Meccano should be pronounced Meccanno, not Meccarno! (I put him right later that evening — here’s the proof). The layout of the museum, in a couple of arches under Brighton Station, doesn’t really lend itself to speeches to a large group — there were about 40 people present — and, at first, Les and I were out of sight of the steps where the speeches were being given and could barely hear anything. We managed to shuffle forwards a bit to hear him give a run down of some of Meccano’s products before introducing the guest speaker Sir William McAlpine (a former director of Sir Robert McAlpine and currently Chairman of the Railway Heritage Trust). Sir William spoke fairly briefly about Meccano, but I’m afraid I can’t recall exactly what he said! I collared him afterwards and learned that he once had a Meccano model of a block setting crane, similar to one in a glass case in the museum, but he had to dismantle it to make another model.
Sir William McAlpine (right) gives his talk as Chris Littledale looks on
We were then treated to some very realistic steam train impressions (sound only — we didn’t get the steam!) from Chris Littledale using just his voice and a microphone. Luckily, he didn’t subject us to it for very long!
After that, there was a short talk by Eric Baird, the museum’s Project Officer, about how they’re going to spend the grant: In a nutshell, he is going to rewrite and expand their online resources for Meccano, Dinky Toys and Hornby Trains, and to set up a project website which will hold a directory of clubs and organisations, and a calendar of their 2013 events. There’ll be events focussing on Frank Hornby Week (13th–19th May 2013). As well as the Meccano, they have what they believe to be the best collection of early Hornby Trains on public display anywhere in the world. A new information system will be installed that can do justice to the collection. They also hope to bring in some new guest exhibits for 2013 to mark the anniversary.
Part of the Meccano collection
This should have been followed by a toast to Frank Hornby. We had the Champagne but no one actually proposed the toast, so we just drank the stuff anyway!
There was plenty of time to look around the museum, before and after the formal proceedings. A large impressive O gauge railway, with a mixture of track types, rolling stock and buildings etc. from various toy makers, was running for a while with Chris Littledale at the controls. Two large Perspex screens that normally keep inquisitive fingers out had been removed for the evening so that guests could get a bit closer to the models.
Playing trains!
A view of the O gauge layout
It was a very enjoyable evening rounding off, for me, a good afternoon at Modelworld.
The museum is well worth a look — hopefully I’ll pay them another visit during the anniversary week in May.
Report written by Les Chatfield
For the first time I took a selection of my models to Brighton Modelworld; an annual three-day exhibition held this year on 22th–24th February at the Brighton Centre, right on the seafront. The Centre is an enormous building with five separate halls full of various models of, to quote the old song, ‘trains and boats and planes’, not to mention a gigantic 8’ tall Ferris Wheel made of Meccano by John Molden; the largest model in the show. Fortunately my stand was nowhere near this leviathan.
I set up my models which included my biplane Bristol Bulldog, several steam engines, a V2 rocket and a new model — the Schmidt Coupling Meccanograph, inspired by a lovely model seen at our SELMEC annual show last year. I wired up all my working models to my patent drill battery-driven controls and fortunately everything was in full working order. After labelling up and some final touches I was ready!
The mighty crowds arrived! Soon it was obvious my Meccanograph was going to be the star of the show especially as I gave away the finished patterns to the fascinated spectators! My enormous Bristol Bulldog grabbed a lot of attention too, especially from children when I let them start its engine by reaching into its cockpit and pushing the throttle (switch) forward. I was even photographed by several visitors holding my V2 rocket model. Saturday was by far the busiest day and I needed eyes in the back of my head to keep tabs on everything. A clockwork driven dynamo driving a small Meccano power hacksaw was very popular with children as they could wind it up and watch it generate electricity for the tiny model to run on. My lack of a ‘Do not touch’ sign proved very popular; a few bent models are worth one or two new Meccano club members!
Les shows one of his models to a visitor
Chris Warrell turned up on the Saturday and informed me he had obtained tickets for the Frank Hornby 150 launch for me that evening (see his report on this fascinating evening). I managed to obtain a Frank Hornby T-shirt that I will donate to the club for auction or a prize. [Editor’s note: I also have one to give away.]
The last day dawned and an old friend turned up to assist on my stand. He really enjoyed himself demonstrating my various working models and even had a shot at answering some of the questions asked. I think a new Meccanoer is in the making.
The whole experience was great fun, the fellow exhibitors extremely friendly and helpful and the visitors (especially the children) very interested in what I had on show. If I had had some Meccano sets available I could have sold them by the dozen. Many people were not even aware that the system is still available. I really think that once again the world is ready for Meccano. I will definitely be here next year.