SMEE at MEX 2011

Report by Stuart Walker

The weather was kind to us for the third year running but, unlike the previous two years, visitor numbers were considerably higher and, thanks to Mike Law and Steve Eaton, the Clubs and Societies, as well as the loan and competition entries, also enjoyed significantly stronger support. However, it was unfortunate that the room normally used for displaying the loan and competition models became unavailable just a few days before the exhibition was due to start, and hurried plans had to be made to re-allocate the available space. Consequently, the new display areas became overcrowded and our Road and Field Steam Stand had to lose its impressive steam car display and move back to last year's location which was previously considered unacceptable as it lacked access for wheelchairs and large displays. However, on the plus side, we were able to gain concessions in the main hall which enabled us to enjoy Ashley Best's stunning tram collection adjacent to our main stand. Ashley's latest model of Stockport Tramcar No. 53 was completed just in time for the competition this year, winning a well deserved Gold Medal, and completing his collection of award winning Manchester trams which represents the culmination of 38 years of dedicated research, model design and building work.

Regardless of the setbacks in the planning stages, the set-up and three days of engaging with the visitors went really well thanks to the whole SMEE team working together brilliantly to make it a really enjoyable event for all concerned.

The workshop demonstrations were as popular as ever. Derek Brown could be seen not only putting the Myford lathe through its paces, but also showing his much admired, near completed 5 inch gauge A4 locomotive. Mike Sayers demonstrated the tooling and techniques he developed to form and soft solder the thin copper tape used to make fully functioning car radiators for his growing collection of one-third scale early Bentley engines. On the nearby IC Engine Builders stand, Mike was also displaying his immaculate award winning engine fitted with the same type of radiator, as well as work in progress on his current project consisting of supercharger fitted with newly completed carburettors mounted on a half chassis frame. Gear cutting was a special feature this year and introduced some welcome new faces: Martin Gearing did a great job in bringing along his vertical mill which Gareth Hughes used to ably demonstrate how conventional spur gears are made, and also provided the modified Myford lathe that he used to show how skew gears can be turned using an off-set indexable jig and homemade cutting tools. As well as demonstrating, Martin also provided information explaining how the form tools and jigs are made as well as working examples of skew and bevel gears that visitors were encouraged to pick up and feel. Shaper enthusiast Kieran Wisely had recently motorised his small shaper and kindly brought it along to demonstrate, with the aid of a two stage cutter made by Martin Gearing, a simple method of making internal gears. Despite the fact that shapers are less popular these days, Kieran's demonstrations generated much interest. It was good to see Giles Parkes back again this year and, despite his poor health he was able to be with us for all three days to actively promote and demonstrate with John Florentin his ever popular gear hobbing techniques. He also brought along a fascinating collection of gears that he has been helping Ian Hughes make for his one-third full size model of a classic 1950's Ferguson Tractor.

On the experimental side, Mike Kapp and Alan Wragg impressed everyone with their mark 2 Ghost Writer which ably demonstrated its capability. Visitors were also intrigued by some puzzling objects and mechanisms which included a levitating spinning top. Despite extensive coverage at previous exhibitions there's still a thirst for information about their ever popular Spark Eroding equipment. Alan was also demonstrating on air his special take on the small elbow engine that ran beautifully, looking and sounding rather like an early machine gun mechanism!

Thanks to Allen Berman, our Meccano contribution was significantly strengthened this year. As well as displaying his large dockside crane robot, complete with new routines, Allen also demonstrated his latest model, Rover 1, which is track driven on a Meccano frame fitted with a Lego MindStorm controller which was programmed for obstacle avoidance. It performed well and proved to be a great hit with the youngsters. For the first time, fellow Meccano enthusiasts Alan Wenbourne and Bryn Jones were able to join Allen to demonstrate impressive displays of working manual and gearboxes and the kind of automatic door opening mechanisms found in modern buses, all of which fascinated the visitors.

Our display of stationary steam is always popular and thanks to Owen Bird, Mitch Barnes and highly skilled new member Ian Hall, this year was truly splendid with an extensive range of models from Owen's larger Stuart engines, in particular his impressive Major Beam Engine ticking over slowly on air, to Mitch's finely detailed static early 19th Century beam engine and on to Ian's collection of smaller engines, many of which were seen running on air, including a pair of charming scratch built aero engines designed to demonstrate the difference between rotary and radial mechanisms. Congratulations go to Ian for winning a Bronze medal in this year's competition for a delightful working model of the fine old Victorian reciprocating metal cutting saw that he uses in his own workshop.

Working crane models always make a good display and none more so than John Dalton's wonderful 7 1/4 gauge crane locomotive which he presented with historical facts and demonstrated running on air as a tribute to his friend Don Ketley who sadly died earlier in the year. This was the last in an impressive list of award winning models that Don made and it ran beautifully.

Bob Bramson not only displayed his working test boiler on the stand and helped numerous visitors who wanted advice on boilers and boiler fittings, but also provided a very popular live demonstration and talk on all you need to know about injectors and ejectors as part of our SMEE Lecture Programme. To compliment and further enhance the steam boiler theme, Peter Wardropper displayed an immaculate copper boiler along with a separately displayed superheater and regulator that he'd recently completed for a 7 1/4 inch gauge 0-4-0 locomotive. There was also a newly completed 5 inch gauge boiler on a rolling chassis, along with special tooling designed and made by Mike Chrisp to overcome the difficulty of bending copper pipework tight up to soldered fittings. As well as locomotives, there was also some interesting scratch built rolling stock on display made in the larger gauge. Michael Hall showed a fine example of a slate wagon he had made and Charles Warr presented, as work in progress, a well detailed rolling chassis of an early passenger coach made from wood and steel - in fact, several visitors thought it would be a shame to add the body and cover up all the nicely detailed chassis work!

The interest in Gauge 1 modelling seems to be growing and it was good to see some fine examples of locomotives and rolling stock made by Peter Haycock, Gordon Hatherill, John Hocking and Kim Fisher who also provided a short length of running track to demonstrate that the electric locos and rolling stock on display really did work!

Alan Kiff did a great job organising and running the membership and training element of our stand which generated much interest as well as some welcome funds. To help meet the steady demand from visitors other members, including Roger Woollett, David Carpenter, Stephen Mitchell, Don Rutherford and Paul Sargeant, all helped Alan keep the ball rolling. Whilst there was lot of interest in our formal training programmes, there was also much interest in Martin Gearing's wooden vacuum cleaner powered model engine which he designed as a simple quick build demonstrator that explains the working principles of the steam engine - Martin's fully illustrated "How to Build" guide is being published by Camden Books and will be on sale in January 2012.

This year, Adrian Garner completed some 40 years of monorail research and published the results of his comprehensive study in a book entitled “Monorails of the 19th Century”. The Lartigue monorail that ran at Tothill Fields, Westminster in 1886 is not only fully described in the book, but Adrian also made and displayed a charming 16mm:1ft scale model of the railway to give an impression of how it probably appeared in its heyday. This was much admired and considered by David Clark to be one of his highlights of the show.

Jerry Burchell showed the progress he's been making this year on his 5 inch gauge model of the Gas Turbine Electric Locomotive No 18100. Both his 3-D CAD design, CNC controlled machining, 3-D printing and lost wax casting techniques all generated much interest, as did his concept thinking and the alternative approaches he's developing to build this impressive project.

As a tribute to the early model engineers who had little access to powered machines let alone computers, we were delighted to display our newly acquired and recently preserved model of Jenny Lind, fitted out with new display track and glass case. The restoration work was carried out as a student project at West Dean College under the watchful eye of their Senior Lecturer in Metals Preservation, Jon Privett, who we were pleased to have with us for the full duration of the exhibition along with a group of his students to discuss their work with visitors and provide an excellent contribution to our Lecture Programme.

 Jake Sutton has been taking time out from building his 5 inch gauge Britannia class loco to discover the delights of 2 1/2 inch Gauge modelling, as described in his recent articles in ME. His approach to design and standard of workmanship is excellent. He was pleasantly surprised at how many visitors had read his articles and was pleased to chat and encourage others by showing his part built locomotive, together with the special tools he's developed along the way.

Many model engineers share a passion for old motor bikes and Neil Read is no exception and this year displayed, as work in progress, his full size 1912 4hp Campion Motorcycle restoration project. There was very little of the original that could be used and visitors were fascinated to see his ingenious approaches and the very high standards of workmanship that he's achieving.

Tool sharpening is a key factor in safe and rewarding work and both Joerg Hugel and Robert Grundler did a great job providing much needed advice on a wide range of sharpening tasks, offering a range of techniques from simple hand jigs through to setting up and using the well respected Quorn tool and cutter grinder.

Maurice Fagg intrigued visitors as he worked his magic accurately hand turning on his watchmakers lathe. Alan Martin was only able to join us for the set-up day, so Maurice kindly volunteered to also demonstrate Alan's working display of a purpose made dividing and indexing tool, which included the use of a kit made Division Master which generated much interest. There was also a wide selection of other home workshop tooling on display, ranging from the simple tools often made by beginners to hone their skills and accumulate a useful collection of basic tools, to the more ambitious tooling, designed to simplify more complex machining processes or extend the capability of existing machines. There was a lot of visitor interest in the display, many items of which Ken Willson designed and made, and also did a great job of explaining and discussing the ins and outs of different approaches with the visitors. He also provided one of the highly successful SMEE Lectures this year explaining the benefits and practical approaches to using tipped tooling.

To help encourage beginners to get started, Tony Phillips set up our small training lathe to demonstrate basic techniques and respond to visitors requests. David Carpenter kindly donated one of the new, professionally made, Diamond tools which prompted a lot of interest, as did the home workshop made versions supplied by Chris Stephens who also showed a much admired range of simple tools that he'd made during the year, including flip-up internal and external thread cutting tool holders. Others helping out with the turning advice included Richard Dedman, Terry Mendham and Seamus Collins.

The large display screens and AV equipment we used were of great benefit and I'd like to thank Richard Dedman in particular for taking charge and looking after all the equipment so well.

As mentioned earlier, our Road and Field Steam contingent found itself back in the Sports Bar area again this year but without the attraction of the Engineers Cafe. However, it's absence enabled us to screen off the bar area and create a better display environment for the models. The main attraction this year was Harry Williams with his award winning single engine ploughing display, complete with separate clip drum demonstrator, that once again intrigued the visitors who were also impressed by his tireless enthusiasm. Harry was a contender for the Duke of Edinburgh Trophy, as was James Louder who displayed his wonderful compound condensing marine engine that wowed the visitors this year as much as it did last year. Whist Harry and James were very worthy contenders, it was Cherry Hill's truly splendid Blackburn tractor model that ended up winning the highly prestigious trophy.

We also hosted Andrew Beese's 4 inch scale "Little Giant" type 2 steam tractor, Bob Fowcett's 4 inch scale Foden DG4 7.5 ton flat bed lorry and last, but by no means least, David Bretten's absolutely fantastic 3 inch scale fully working 1918 Fordson F Tractor, complete with book of comprehensive information and casting patterns - it was awarded a well deserved gold medal and we hope to see David with his tractor up at Marshall House during the summer.

David Steel did a great job bringing together our Road and Field Steam exhibits again this year and demonstrating his own collection of one tenth scale engines, which included an additional part built ploughing engine he intends to complete to make up his matching pair. Steve Baldock brought along his much admired and near completed 4 inch scale Burrell Showman's engine. Steve Trails displayed an immaculate kit built 4 inch scale Burrell traction engine. Chris Alderson showed his completed and well presented 1 inch scale "Minnie" steam tractor and we also had a second "Minnie" made by Jason Ballamy, who also contributed a complete but unpainted 2 inch scale Fowler 7A traction engine which revealed an interesting level of detail and good craftsmanship. Mel Martin also exhibited a 2 inch scale traction engine, this being a kit made Burrell that was seen as work in progress. Mel helped out on the stand chatting with visitors, as did Martin and Elizabeth Cook and John Turner.

Jon Poulter did a great job again this year organising our outside steaming activities which involved having five engines in steam over the weekend, including the participation of Jon's father, Tony, who demonstrated his very smart 4 inch scale Burrell - some of you may recall seeing it featured on the front cover of the early January issue of ME.

Our Lecture Programme was well publicised and well attended this year, so thanks go to the following speakers who all worked hard to deliver some memorable presentations: Bob Bramson's talk with live steam demonstration explaining "All you need to know about injectors and ejectors"; Peter Thomas's tribute to Neville Evans; Bob Walker's talk on the design of electrical traction motors for railway locomotives in general, and the work surrounding his experimental work based on a car alternator; Norman Billingham and Jon Privett's talk on modern approaches to preservation in general, and Jenny Lind in particular; Ken Willson's talk on the selection and use of tipped tooling for model engineering; and last, but by no means least, thanks to David Carpenter for chairing the sessions on the Friday and Norman Billingham for stepping into the breach on the Saturday.

Mel Martin who, as well as being a member of SMEE, is a schools STEMS Ambassador, worked hard this year to encourage more schools to join in so it was rather disappointing that in the end only one attended. However, Cove School, who did so well last year, decided to make a welcome return and really enjoyed themselves again and it was good to see that some of the pupils were genuinely inspired.

Congratulations are in order for the following members who won awards for their models and equipment entered for Competition this year:

Cherry Hill, awarded her 9th, Duke of Edinburgh Challenge Trophy, this time for her amazing Blackburn Tractor. See the article by David Carpenter here.

Ashley Best, awarded a Gold Medal for his wonderful Stockport Tramcar No. 53.

Neil Read, awarded a Bronze Medal for his finely made and fully tooled George Thomas designed sensitive drill and staking tool.

Ian Hall, awarded a Bronze Medal for his beautiful scratch built model of his old Victorian sawing machine.

 Joerg Hugel, awarded Very Highly Commended for his unique Unbalance Demonstrator.

Ken Willson, awarded a Highly Commended for his very nicely made variable angle

thread cutting tool and also for his taper turning attachment.