2006 Meetings

October 2006

The meeting was at Richard’s house in Tockington.

Richard is building a Canberra bomber on the ‘unit construction’ principle and displayed the results of his efforts so far. Taking the principle further he also had a tracked vehicle with a unit gearbox.

Ralph Clark, taking a break from railway based models, came with a ship’s steam engine based on a design from a 60s Meccano Magazine.

New member Dave Worth drove up from Paignton to be with us. Dave has acquired a range of modern sets and displayed the models he had built from them, e.g. helicopter, car, submarine.

David Northcott was also inspired by an old published design, this time a dark red/green period No. 7 manual model of a Midland locomotive.

Continuing the transport theme Pete Evans when airborne with models of the Red Barron’s WW1 Fokker tri-plane and a rare Aeroplane Constructor No.0 set model.

Sam brought models on a 2 wheeled theme; a 1964 scooter, a modern mountain bike, and a micromodel motorcycle.

Philip brought his wonderful rotating ball puzzle for another outing.

Malcolm brought along a range of construction sets of the 30s,40s and 50s with the common theme that you were expected to ‘make’ the constructional parts from various tools and raw materials that came in the sets. These included Juneero, Manufax and N-G-Neero.

July 2006

This was held at Malcolm's in Long Ashton. Good weather allowed us to display models out in the garden as well as in the house.

Sam Medworth brought a modern Radio Controlled Meccano model of a 6-wheel lorry tractor that worked very effectively.

Richard Smith had a model of a 50s Winget dumper truck.

Pete Evans showed us his emerging model of a Peckett saddle-tank locomotive of the type that can still been seen in the Bristol docks.

Malcolm Hanson had not one but two Dealers Cabinets from different eras, red/green and blue/gold.

David Miller could not bring his room-sized fairground roller-coaster on his bicycle! However he showed us the railcar and a video of it in action. See David Miller's Page for video of this ride.

January 2006

There was a good and very enthusiastic gathering at Philip’s on the 6th Jan.

David Northcott showed us the beginnings of his interpretation of a Snowdon Railway rack and pinion locomotive based on a Modelplans set of designs.

Neil Bedford brought the latest version of his Scammell Explorer. He has now ‘colour coded’ the various key elements to make them easier for the viewer to identify.

We had a good range of steam engines on view. Sam brought the 1935 set 6 manual model of James Watt's beam engine. This displays most of the innovations for which he was responsible, such as "sun and planet" gearing, external condenser and parallel motion.

Pete Evans had two steam engines, one a Watt inspired beam engine and the other a German designed oscillatory example.

Richard Smith is working on a display model of various mechanisms similar to the sort of shop display models that emerged from the Liverpool model room. So far he has constructed the framework and one of the mechanisms.

John Day also had a ‘work in progress’ to show us. He is making the 50s No.6 observation tower but is upgrading it to include a reversing mechanism for the lifts. He has thus far built the base and the reversing mechanism.

David Hobson has acquired two of the Nikko Meccano radio controlled chassis. One is still standard but the other has been incorporated into a tracked vehicle using the 70s Meccano plastic tracks. This drives and steers in a most realistic manner.

Malcolm brought a ‘Meccano calculator’ that will multiply and divide and which in turn is based on a 100 year old toy. He also brought a DVD of a recent TV programme in which James May (Top Gear) eulogised over the toys he had as a child, including Meccano. We all watched the Meccano bit, including the building of the 1950s set 4 elevated jib crane, which led to a lively discussion of children’s toys then and now and the attitudes and capabilities of the children of today with regard to things mechanical.