2001 Meetings

October, 2001

Richard Smith's ever-evolving crane now had working caterpillar tracks.
Ron Garside entertained us with his coin-in-the-slot musicians.
Ralph Clark brought his completed and beautifully proportioned Britannia class locomotive.
David Hobson brought some fascinating items, each of which was a clear predecessor of Bayko. Batisse was a French system of the '20s and '30s with wooden and fibre elements held together by vertical steel rods. David had two beautiful, varnished, shop display models of castles made from this system. However, even more unusual and intriguing was an English system he had just acquired which again had wooden elements held together by vertical wooden rods. What made this truly amazing was that it dated from the 1850's! At this time wooden construction sets normally just consisted of wooden bricks that were simply placed on upon another. With this system everything was held firmly together. Furthermore the basic elements were mostly wooden strips with regularly spaced holes in them and on sale to the public 50 years before the Meccano equivalent.
Sam had some models with the younger members in mind, including an SML Meccanograph, remote control set Bulldozer and a Harmonograph of his own design. He also built a working microscope with a water-drop lens, as in a 1960s Meccano Magazine, through which it was possible to see the cells in a thin section of a piece of cork.
David Northcott had an experimental differential for discussion.

July, 2001

Ralph brought a now complete version of a Britannia class loco that was beautifully proportioned.
Richard Smith, whose huge mobile crane had impressed us as the exhibition brought the motor part of the model, which is now complete with caterpillar tracks. He promises the whole thing next time.
Mervyn had some more fun models in the form of an aeroplane flying game that circulated under the power of two propellers one to control vertical movement and one for horizontal and a stunt motorcyclist that performed vertical circles.
Sam had been trying to exploit the potential of the 70's Electronic Set and came with a shooting gallery game that exploited the photocell contained in the set.
Michael Knowles impressed us once again with another vehicle based model, this time a chassis with an impressive operating gearbox that closely modelled the ratios you would find in the real things.
Malcolm displayed a range of 40's Masterbuilder sets and a Masterbuilder model loco. In addition he had acquired some of Meccano's early advertising literature that used some sort of a story to sell the product. This included versions of Dick's Adventures in Meccanoland and a booklet detailing Jackie Coogan's visit to the US Meccano factory.

January, 2001

David Hobson had been experimenting with pneumatics and brought along an excavator he is still working on where the major movements are powered by a pneumatic system sold in Germany as an accompaniment to 'Construction' outfits. It worked very smoothly and used an 'airbrush' painting compressor as the pneumatic power supply. David also brought along a mobile crane made from Arkirecto, a joint mechanical and architectural system of the 30's.

Sam Medworth had linked a laser pen to a Meccano 2-dimensional oscillatory system to simulate the output on the screen of an oscilloscope but in this case on Philip's ceiling! He had also recently acquired a modern Meccano set that builds an all-terrain vehicle. He had put this together and proceeded to impress us with the range of things it could scramble over.

Richard Smith, using beautifully restored parts, showed us what will eventually be the jib of a tower crane.

Philip himself is still attempting to demolish his home with a model of a mediaeval trebuchet.
Fortunately for the house the device can still barely fire its ammunition from one room to the next!

 

Grahame's adapted 70's Meccano model on this occasion was an automatic ship coaler based on a No.7 set model and worked beautifully.

Mervyn, still living firmly in he past, brought along a complex crane ("mechanical navvy") from a 1913 manual.

Malcolm brought his completed blue/gold block-setting crane, which had always worked perfectly at home but which, of course, decided to break down on the night.

David Northcott is building a Bugatti and thus far has completed the chassis, which he brought along to show us.

Ron and Veronica both brought along models of Edwardian 'B' type buses. Veronica's in Meccano and Ron's in Kliptico, a pre-war clip together system than Ron recently managed to get a 'super' set of.