We had another very successful show at Tockington Village Hall in April with a good range of models for us and the public to enjoy.
Neil’s Scammel has progressed even further and he now sees it as “almost finished”! He also brought a #10 model digger shovel, a tank transporter, a Land Rover, an old Meccano Magazine model of a Morgan, an autogiro, a half-track tractor and a Cuthbertson Land Rover with tracks.
To add to the great family contribution Neil’s daughter Forrest had a #2 set model of a tractor with steering.
Ralph had another of his super locos, this time a scale model of a ‘Rover’ Class.
Andrew Cope came with big models. a superb block setter and a version of the Bert Love #10 Grand Father clock that famously used every part in the set! Andrew added a few more parts to provide self-winding.
Richard Smith is still working on his Canberra Bomber and this time showed us improvements to the engines.
Mark Bridle had a multi-motored walking dragline and his Sinclair Harding Clock.
It was good to see Mervyn Bishop again who entertained everyone with his Dodgems, a scale model of a Sopwith Camel and various small models of cars.
As ever Pete Evans came well stocked with models. This time he had various car and aero construction set models, a Canadian super-model road-grader, a Watts and a Kite steam engine, his crowd pleasing bouncing ball model, a pre-war H set automated racer and a shop display model with flying delta-winged aircraft.
Malcolm went all medium red and green with unused examples of a #8, a #9 and a #10 set from the 50s and various shop display models of the era. He also had this friendly walking dinosaur!
Sam had a meccanograph which was enjoyed by numerous younger visitors, some planes from two world wars,and a version of Heath Robinson’s False Teeth Testing Machine!
The scrapheap challenge this year was to build a Meccano (only) vehicle powered by a No.1 clockwork motor that was aimed at a ‘goal’ with a ‘mouth’ 1ft wide from successively greater distances. Each vehicle that scored a goal in each round by passing completely between the goalposts without touching them went through to the next round where it was again aimed at the goal, but from a greater distance. The owner of the vehicle that managed to score a goal from the greatest distance was the winner! The contest was extremely hotly contested, and after a series of run-offs Richard finally proved the victor with his lengthy and very ‘one-dimensional’ (in the best possible sense!) vehicle.
Many thanks to everyone, and especially the Smith family, for making the show so successful.