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CMC Meeting, February 07

A good turnout for the first meeting of the year. We were honoured by a visit from Peter Harwood, who has recently completed a tremendous scale model of the Fishguard Blocksetting Crane and has created a modelplan from it. Apparently more than thirty copies of this have already been sold, so we must be prepared for these to start turning up everywhere! Peter is visiting family in Christchurch and, although he couldn't quite fit the model into his hand luggage he did bring a slide show and showed us how the crane was built from pictures and the original blueprints of the crane. This model differs from most Meccano GBSCs in that the engine house is accurately modelled, and the jib uses narrow girders for the vertical struts giving it a very delicate (and much closer to scale) look.

Models on display

As well as this presentation, there were some good models on display, some old favourites and some new ones. Neil Pluck brought his fantastic New Zealand Ka-class loco, which is back up and running well: Something to interest every age group at the CMC meeting this month...
...and every inclination too. Meccano old and new, Marklin, and even a Dan Dare rocket got in there somehow!
Graeme O'Neill's collection of modern tuning cars -- we think he's getting a bit carried away by the music. Note the blue tuning car, this is a Marks & Spencer special edition but will be available in New Zealand later this year.
Hugh Aston's barrel tumbler wins the over-engineering award. Two motors and a bag full of gears and eccentrics give this machine the ability to shake a jam jar full of nuts and bolts to pieces. Unfortunately, it also tends to shake itself to pieces in the process!
A crawler base by Dave Laing, made mostly from Marklin parts. The tracks are normal household brass hinges bolted together which give a great-looking heavy-duty track. Shame something like these weren't made as standard parts, they would have been very useful!
A very neat floating spur differential, with reduction gearing to the final axles. The drive comes in via the universal coupling at the top of the picture. Not sure who built this, either, yet...
Fantastic fun, these pair of Neil Pluck's X-series models of a biplane and a destroyer.
More bits and pieces. Army multikit, the Cheshire Cat (appears similar to the New Meccano Models book model number 32), a garage door demonstration model, and a nice red/green clock surround. We think the clock mechanism is suspiciously non-Meccano, but Neil assures us that it keeps time a whole lot better than his Clock kit 2 ever did...

The CMC Challenge - "Moons"

A new challenge this month, and a cup to be won! Build a model in time for the next CMC meeting on the 2nd March 2007.

The Challenge

Build a Meccano model using a maximum of fourteen separate Meccano parts. However, you may use as many as you like of parts 37 (nuts and bolts) and 214 (semicircular plate). These don't count towards the fourteen parts.

The Competition

At the CMC meeting in March, all present will vote for their favourite model, and the winner will be the one with the most votes! In the case of a tie, the most senior disinterested club member present has the casting vote.

The small print

As usual, you can use any Meccano part ever made and sold as Meccano, or any reproduction part that is structurally identical to a Meccano part. Parts may not be cut or deformed such that they cannot be used for their intended function again. You can cut a 2 down into a 2a (it becomes a reproduction part), but not down to a 4" long strip (which has no Meccano equivalent).

Cord, driving bands, springs, and power supplies may be of any type (but they still count as a part!). Motors, if used, must be genuine Meccano. Non-Meccano washers may be used in your model solely to protect the paintwork (these don't count as a part).