Long Ashton
David Miller made a brave attempt at building a working escalator. Unfortunately friction got in the way of his best efforts, so it was a case of back to the drawing board for next time.
David Hobson brought a spectacular model of the Earl’s Court Big Wheel of circa 1900 made from Construction. As always with David the model was backed up with a range of interesting explanatory literature and photographs of the original.
Ron Garside brought a range of models including his nickel bagatelle game and a lovely coin-in-the-slot ‘orchestra’ that for the princely sum of 2p played you all the popular tunes of the day!
Mervyn Bishop had a racetrack full of models on the theme of Brooklands. He had scoured the manuals for racing car models from all periods starting in about 1913 and finishing with a modern ‘single model’ kit example. A paddock, section of track and a grandstand accompanied these.
Grahame White also had a range of manual models but, as usual, all thoughtfully adapted to improve operation or appearance. These included a manually operated gantry crane, a bulldozer and a tractor and bailer.
Richard Smith had a ‘model in progress’ of a huge mobile crane. Several motions were already working with a separate motor operating each one. Eventually he hopes to have the whole thing moving on working crawler tracks.
David Northcott brought his completed model of a Bugatti, now with a fully operating gearbox, and ‘plain-steel’ model of a pre-war aircraft.
Bill Jary appeared with a recently acquired shop display model of working mechanisms and an early, 1912, Marklin-made-for Meccano No 2 clockwork motor.
Sam Medworth had an infra-red controlled model vehicle made from one of the kits produced by the French factory a few years ago, and a 1999 all-terrain vehicle. His daughter Hannah entertained us with a Meccangaroo - a version of a wooden toy horse which gravity sent ‘galloping’ down a board set at a slight incline.
Malcolm brought his gold block-setting crane, a blue/gold L outfit (the nearest thing to a set with which you could build the block setter) and a recently obtained factory shop display model of a windmill from the 50’s.
Just when we thought we had seen all the models we were going to on the day new member Michael Knowles turned up with a highly impressive version of a Scammell lorry. This was blessed with a wealth of detail including an intricate gearbox and independent suspension all round.
Sam, Ron, Richard and Malcolm competed for the ‘scrap heap challenge’ of projecting a part 24a, 8-hole wheel disc, 15ft onto a target. After a close fought battle, and much to his amazement, Malcolm just scraped home the winner and is now the proud holder of the scrap heap cup until next year!
