Innehållsförteckning för January 2026 från Model Engineer & Workshop

It's easy to take batteries for granted, but it is frustrating wanting to get on with a project critical piece of equipment has lost power. It's worth understanding how they behave. A single cell is a chemical device for making electricity, a battery is a combination of cells to give a higher voltage. Primary cells are single use, while secondary cells are rechargeable. If you rely on single use cells for any of your equipment the obviously precaution is always to keep a set of fresh spares in your kit. If you use rechargeable, make sure they are topped up before each session. The voltage each cell produces depends on its chemistry, while its capacity -the amount of electricity it can deliver – also depends on its size. The capacity…

EXPERIENCE indicates that unless design has arranged for it to be unnecessary, lack of suitable means of adjustment can be a handicap in producing good work on a machine, or set a limit to the useful life of certain of its parts. Consequently, commencing with the simplest lathe, various means of adjustment are common to a wide variety of machine tools-to ensure accurate fitting, smooth and rigid working, correct alignment, to accommodate wear or take end-thrust loads. One of the simplest means of adjustment of journal bearings is as A, a slit at one side through which the bore can be closed slightly to provide the desired degree of fit of the spindle, or take up wear. This may be used for the spindle of a drilling machine, the mandrel…

The Rob Roy oil pump design was never fully drawn, but those working from the descriptions most likely produced something that had (has) a reputation for delivering rather too much oil. What I would call a good fault, so long as you don't mind getting covered in black oily spots. There are various ways to reduce the oil flow, one of which is to shorten the piston so as to have less piston stroke below the inlet port. Having done this I realised that there was no need for such a large eccentric so for my next model I developed a small simple design which I've used in various forms ever since. Simple designs with low parts count are quicker to make and there's less to go wrong (that's arguably…

For those of my readers who attach significance to numbers, this issue of ME&W pays homage to the locomotive, Flying Scotsman in one of its anagrams. Numagrams? In this issue, Florence Nightingale's mistake, another young driver, a free e-book, tiny engines and John Barry. Happily bumbling along, minding my own agendum, I was struck, some say, by a stray cosmic ray from deep space, as it encountered a neuron which fired a synapse. Some time ago, oh weeks, Deborah visited her No 2 daughter, who works at an independent cinema in Leeds, which suits her well, as her degree is in Film Studies. Anyway on Debs’ return, I was given a number of pictures from behind the scenes, and in the projection booth there are preserved old projectors as well…

Brian P----- was a very good friend, about 15 years older than me. We went on a lot of jaunts together with him always wearing a sports jacket, tie and cloth cap. After giving up his car, I used to happily drive him about to traction engine rallies (he had had his own engine for a period and used to drive a steam roller at one time for work). He was very knowledgeable about many aspects of steam. Not only that but he had practical tool room experience and was a good teacher and absolutely merciless if anything that I did was not up to standard once I had been shown how to do it properly. This is not to say that he was severe, on the contrary he had…

BETTER CONTROL OF A LIFTING DRILL TABLE Our tip winner this month is John Crammond, who wants to help readers preserve their knuckles: Those of us with floor mounted pedestal drilling machines, especially if they are located close to a wall, will like me have scraped knuckles on brickwork manipulating the rack and pinion mechanism that heightens or lowers the table assembly. My table is large, 18” by 16” and has a large compound table with vice that will probably weigh well in excess of 50 kg. The difficulty in using the elevating arrangement is caused by the very short crank attached to the pinion which in my case is less than three inches. It doesn't require rocket science or precision engineering to graft a reversible socket wrench to the…

2025 DECEMBER 29 Stafford & District MES Steam up, County Showground, Stafford, 10:00 am. See www.sdmes.co.uk or Facebook. 2026 EVERY SUNDAY Warrington MES Running day. Contact: contact@wdmes.org.uk Wakefield SMEE Public running day. Contact Denis Halstead 01924 457690 JANUARY 17 Gauge 1 Yorkshire Group Running day at Drax Power Station social club, 9:30 - 15:30. Contact secretary@gauge1north.org.uk 18 Stafford & District MES Steam up, County Showground, Stafford, 10:00 am. See www.sdmes.co.uk or Facebook. FEBRUARY 15 Stafford & District MES Steam up, County Showground, Stafford, 10:00 am. See www.sdmes.co.uk or Facebook. 21 Gauge 1 Yorkshire Group Running day at Drax Power Station social club, 9:30 - 15:30. Contact secretary@gauge1north.org.uk MARCH 21 Gauge 1 Yorkshire Group Running day at Drax Power Station social club, 9:30 - 15:30. Contact secretary@gauge1north.org.uk 22 Stafford & District…

Some end mills have a threaded bore, with or without a centring register. It's not easy to tighten and untighten them from the holding shaft. This usually requires using a lathe carrier, with the tool edges protected by a soft metal strip wrapped around it. This is not easy for dovetail cutters as the risk of breaking the sharp teeth is great. Photograph 1 shows a 30mm diameter dovetail cutter with a M10 bore. It is convenient to use a special spacer, photo 2. Here the number 2 morse taper part is made from 22mm hex CRS (cold rolled steel), the spacer is from 17mm hex CRS. This ensures it's easy to tighten/untighten the end mill using two spanners. In figure 1, the hexagon is 19mm across flats, this is…

As promised, I will now detail how I modify gears. When it came to the smaller gears sizes that were hard to hold, split collets were made to secure and centre the gears in a 4-jaw chuck, photo 11. A piece of gear stock fitted in the split collet in photo 12 is in the process of being turned into a wide gear. When it came to the larger gears, photo 13, the chuck jaws were reversed in the 4-jaw, some copper strip was used to protect the teeth from damage, with the gear tapped back against the chuck jaw face to ensure it ran true. To set up the gear to run accurately, a dial indicator can be used in the bore if it is a good quality gear.…

PostBag is one of the most popular sections of the magazine - readers want to hear from you! Drop us a line sharing your advice, questions or opinions. Why not send us a picture of your latest workshop creation, or that strange tool you found in a boot sale? Email your contributions to neil.wyatt@kelsey.com. SCREWCUTTING ON MODERN LATHES Dear Neil, I was quite surprised to read in Brett Meacle's article Gearing Around, ME&W 4771 that modern lathes have very limited screw-cutting facilities. My first lathe was a 5” IXL model W3 and I now have a 3½” Birmel, of, I believe, WW2 vintage. Both these lathes are equipped with a forked banjo assembly and tumbler reverse. In spite of dating from the nineteen twenties or thirties the IXL came equipped…

The display classes were a little disappointing in terms of numbers this year but nevertheless there were some outstanding models on show, worthy of being called superb model engineering. It was also good to see the large range of work presented by the Eastleigh Model Engineering club. All the young people are to be congratulated for their efforts and making a fascinating range of models, with some very unusual models and projects. Probably the most eye-catching model on display was that by David Moore who spent the last thirty years creating his model. It is a 10¼” gauge, 1:5 scale model of a Class 60 Diesel Electric CO-CO locomotive. Beautifully made it represented the full-size version totally, photos 1 and 2. Fitted with a Kubota D859B motor driving a Stamford…

A cluster of the salvaged glass balls for lenses, mentioned in the previous issue, is shown in photo 18. My search for other potential lenses continued… The recycling shelves at our local amenity site often have old paper scanners discarded for having parallel rather than USB ports. Dismantling these is both fun and educational while yielding useful components. These include stepper motors, toothed belts, optical encoders, linear guides, surface-silvered mirrors, plate glass and a multi-element coated lens module such as the examples in photo 19. Some hold the lenses in a threaded ring, while others simply clip the lens in place with plastic fingers, e.g. photo 20. Either way they are easy to remove, and some are shown in photo 18. A third source of quality lenses can be found…

Unlike the previous example, which was a freelance design, many of the items that are likely to be made in the home workshop are copies or scale renditions of something that already exists, such as a worn or missing part that needs replacing or an engine to be modelled. In these cases, use can be made of reference material that can be found in archives or with some trawling of the internet, the following are some examples. HISTORIC PATENT DRAWINGS These can be a good basis for recreating something in miniature as they tend to have most of the important parts shown and are invariably square on elevations, plans and sections. The first thing to do is download a copy of the patent and then make an image file such…

We can now get on with the smoke box. I have shown the plate to roll into the barrel although you need to be aware of what is on the left-hand side as I have only drawn one side (we don't have drawings for the wrapper and door yet, they will appear as soon as we have them). All there is on the right-hand side are the usual handrail holes and a nice little steam lance valve. I am not sure whether anyone has tried it yet but mine all works. On the left-hand side is the vacuum brake ejector with all that entails. I have seen various arrangements on the preserved locos and if you want to have a look at an unadulterated one then I would have a…

Sometime around 1990, I purchased a set of castings for the Quorn Mk1 Universal Tool and Cutter Grinder from the now defunct Model Engineering Services company. Having already completed a Dore Westbury Mk1 milling machine kit from the same source, I was confident that it wouldn't take long before I was able to commence building the machine. I estimated that it would probably take me around a year to build it. How wrong I was. My work in the Automotive Industry changed and took me travelling to many overseas destinations which meant long absences from home. I was able to “tickle around the castings” during periods when I was working back in the UK, but I spoiled two castings and the project was put away ‘beneath the bench’ to be…

For me, the arrival of November heralded my annual pilgrimage to LOWMEX, the Halesworth club's excellent model engineering exhibition, held at the East Coast College, Lowestoft. This was my seventh visit and the tenth occasion for the show. This show simply gets bigger, better and brighter year after year and if you live anywhere near East Anglia then you should make sure it gets added to your diary. If only Lowestoft were more centrally located in England, rather than holding the distinction of being Britain's most easterly point, LOWMEX would easily earn the status of being a national, rather than a regional, show. This year's show was, as always, brilliantly organised by Kevin Rackham and his team and the variety, high quality and sheer number of the models on display…