Engineering in Miniature December 2023

Welcome to the December edition of EIM – now where did that year go? Everywhere will be gearing up to total festive overload by the time you read these words but thankfully I'm writing them at the end of October so the full commercial bit of Christmas is only just starting to stir. Fresh in my mind as I write is another Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition – wonder how many I've been to now? As ever it was highly enjoyable – our full coverage of the EIM-sponsored show starts in this issue and will continue next month when John Arrowsmith details the various successful competitive entries. Like many I am an extensive user of social media – in my newsgathering for the other magazine I edit, Narrow Gauge World, social…

Another year has gone and here we are again looking at the 2023 Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition, held in its usual venue of the Warwickshire Event Centre over four days between 12th and 15th October. Photos by the author except where stated This year was down on 2022 in terms of model entries but that was to be expected – last year had seen a bumper crop of models as we were viewing three years’ worth of work, thanks to the Covid pandemic the 2022 show being the first since 2019. Quality not quantity Only five competition classes out of the 16 did not have any entries so that was not too bad, while the smaller numbers did not detract at all from the quality with some superb model engineering…

One area in which our soon-tobe former massage couch was not up to scratch was in the castor department. It came with two (of a required four) castors and a neat kick-down arrangement – pressing a foot-operated (and latching) lever forced the couch onto its castors; releasing the lever allowed the couch to sit on solid feet. Photo 23 shows this arrangement for (a) the ‘foot’ end of the couch and (b) the head end – the latter is missing its castors, which is one reason behind the ‘bargain’ price we paid. Unfortunately, the original castors were only intended to allow the couch to be moved when unoccupied (unlike, say, a hospital bed, which has wheels designed to allow the whole to be moved with a patient in-situ). These castors…

Ihadn't planned on constructing manually operated cylinder drains and it did take quite a few hours to get the whole lot designed and built, even though the construction pretty much follows existing LBSC designs. Once again there is not much room to fit all the bits and pieces in, the middle engine valve gear is always close by! Schools-class 4-4-0 No. 925 ‘Cheltenham’ is part of the National Collection but is on loan to the Mid-Hants Railway, and they overhauled the engine at Eastleigh in 2011/12. They appealed for Whitworth nuts and bolts required for the work and I was able to supply a bucketful of various sizes. I had inherited these from the time that my father spent working in engineering in the 1950s. My reward was an opportunity…

Readers who follow my efforts in each issue of EIM will be aware that over the last few months I have been carrying out a muchneeded overhaul on the Fairbourne Miniature Railway's 12¼ -inch gauge Hunslet diesel loco, ‘Gwirl’. With the remachining of the loco's wheels completed in the Fairbourne workshop, I could then refit them (Photo 1) and have the loco low enough that it could be moved from the 30ft section of track that it had been confined to, due to the cab fouling the tops of the doors at either end of the workshop. I was then asked to fit a louder horn to our recently acquired Simplex loco as the existing klaxon, despite being reasonably obnoxiously loud, had been ignored by several motorists on the railway's…

Recently I began building a Stuart Turner triple expansion engine – why this engine? I had purchased a set of castings for it at an auction of a late members effects held by the Wolverhampton and District Model Engineering Society, where I was a member, a few years ago. Then, having moved house during the Covid lockdown and after completing my 5-inch gauge Johnson Spinner, I was seeking a new challenge – building a rather complicated marine engine seemed like quite an attractive alternative to loco building. I set to familiarising myself with the box of bits. It was almost complete and I was reasonably sure that I would be able to obtain or make the missing items. But after obtaining the drawings and component schedule (missing from the auction…