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 Motorised dentures! |
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All of a sudden our weekend diary is full, kicking off with the SELMEC meeting. With Easter next weekend we are exhibiting at The Magic Of Meccano exhibition (Saturday only) the week after. That is followed by the HTMC at Hildenborough and then to top it all TIMS’ Meccanuity is the following weekend. SELMEC (South East London Meccano Club) is our local club. I can be there in 20 minutes with ease, even in traffic. Sue usually skips the local meetings so negotiations are made and I get to borrow her car which is just large enough to accommodate this times models. Parking is a bit tight at the Sherard Hall and I am sure that I would not be overly popular if I arrived in my LWB Transit taking up large portions of the car park! Secretary's Challenge I do enjoy entering the Secretary’s challenge, this time the task is to build a bridge that will span 24½ inches. Looking through Geoff Wright’s Super Models book I noticed a reference, and a couple of small drawings, to a model of the Forth Bridge built from Mechanics Made Easy (MME) parts. That’ll do! The original MME system was limited in its range of parts and there were obvious advantages in using Meccano parts such as the 1½ inch double angle brackets instead of strips and ½ x ½ brackets. The initial construction of the cantilever was somewhat tedious trying to work out how the original was made from some very sketchy and small drawings. After a bit of head scratching I managed to produce a single cantilever. It was at this point it dawned on me that this was going to be a large model. I went back to Geoff’s book and read some of the accompanying text (typical bloke! - Sue) It appears that the whole bridge, without the approach sections, is 16ft long! Hmmm… Oh well, I’ve started now… Construction of this sort of model is not so much difficult, more laborious than anything else. It is parts hungry but our ever growing stock of silver is more than adequate to supply the required parts. As time went on it became apparent that the chief engineer would need to employ some additional labour so Sue was drafted in and the third cantilever and track laying was sub-contracted to her! On arrival at the venue I discover that I am the first person there. Usually Dave Taylor is there setting up shop. However we are not going to see Dave this weekend due to other commitments. Great! I need a bit of time to assemble the sections of the bridge. After 20 minutes or so I am now getting a bit worried. Is this the correct day? Have I screwed up here? Just as paranoia was setting in Tim Surtell arrived and my fears were dispelled.
As the bridge finished up rather large, I decided to build a smaller girder bridge that conformed to the specification of the challenge precisely. There were several other entries including a rope bridge built by Ivor Ellard and Pooh bridge By Brian Leach.
Star of the meeting was the long awaited appearance of Alan Wenbourne’s London Eye. What a superb model, the use of rods for the wheel itself meant that Alan used 600 rod & strip connectors (P/N 212). That’s 300 more than we are using in our Ferris wheel!
Above and below: Chris Fry's been building F1 cars
It was good to see Mike Allen managing to get to a meeting between bouts of working abroad his entry to the Secretary’s challenge was an impressive No 10 set model suitably modified to comply with the span distance of 24½ inches. Auction The meeting ended with an auction of some loose parts and a selection of sets in nice condition including a Meccanoids set and one of the Crazy inventor air-ship sets. I ended up buying a few odd lots - only to boost club funds, you understand… A good time was had by all and it was another successful meeting. You will find more information on the SELMEC website CLIK HERE For us it is back to the building now. We have to get the French display model crane refurbished for the Magic of Meccano show at Kew in a fortnights time and start on the Scottish Derrick ready for Meccanuity at the beginning of May. |
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The smile factor was again given to us by John Cowdrey with his marionette, which danced away happily, and a pair of chattering false teeth! Frank Payne brought along his Display model of tower bridge to sympathise with the bridge theme of the meeting although it did not comply with the rules of the challenge it was good to get the chance to have a close look at it. 
This made the bridge too heavy so the counterweights had to be paced with lead shot in order to balance the weight.
