Auckland Meccano Guild

The meeting took place at The home of Neil Carey, who is well known for his skills in building large scale models of steam engines. Neil has built a more manageable sized model in the form of a "Logging Loco"
made to scale to run on "O" guage tracks. We suspect Neil may be attemting to take over the Hornby displays by sneaking his model onto the tracks :)
Neil described the model as being a cross between a Climax and a Heisier with a no1 clockwork motor providing the driving power. It certainly worked well.

Neil aslo assisted his grandson Matthew Carey, with a loco having a cardboard engine and meccano running gear

Gerald Hart had modelled an excellent version of the Sopwith Camel out of red, green and yellow meccano.
He had used two different sized washers for the engine detailing instead of the usual worm gears and they certainly looked the part.
Gerald had detailed the cockpit with instruments taken from an instruction book for a old computer game.They looked most realistic when mounted on washers and fixed in place.
The wheels were sprung by using a rubber band to allow the axle to move up and down this providing some give when the aircraft was landing.

Rick Vine always astounds me with the huge variety of models he brings along. This time he had A truck made from the mechanical workshop set, a spitfire from the special edition series and the concorde from the same series. He had built a red and green tractor from the new vintage series and a motorcycle and mini tractor in modern meccano. The motorcycle was taken from a meccano magazine but like all good meccano modellers, Rick had done his own thing by adapting some of the parts.
Rick had a most impressive Rolls Royce on a circular base which rotated. As the base rotated so the wheels of the car turned. Rick tells me he had a lot of fun determining what gearing would achieve just the right speed. The whole device is driven by one 6 volt motor through worm gears, pinions and contrates.
And wait theres more..... Rick also brought along a small six wheeled truck made from a modelplan in the NZFMM Vol 24/1, a microlite aircraft and a cube as well as one of the red arrows display jets. He really can mount a one man display.

David Wall had brought along his version of a scotch yoke, a drive unit for steam engine pumps.

Les Megget brought along a cleverly constructed Mercedes 4 axle truck with a trailer set up as a container side loader all made to 1:36 scale. All you need now is a container Les :)

He will be taking it with him on his upcoming UK tour, what a pity he couldnt take the large scale one, it would have blown them away in scotland.

John Denton had brought along his version of a south facing meccano man. The model used for the top is very familiar and is seen cluching a spanner in one hand and a roll of meccano plans in the other, no guesses as to who it is.

Gary Higgins brought a selection of models including his now completed meccano ship model with the steering and propulsion systems powered by motors from the infa red control set of the 1980's.All we need now is a large pond to see if it floats.
He also brought a meccano howitzer constructed with parts from the mechanised army set, a flexible plate roller which he made after seeing one on spanner. Every meccanoman really needs one of these to achieve good looking curves.
Gary had constructed a car from the new design set 4 series but like others who had tried these sets found the same delamination problems with the paint finish. An unusual item was a made up Meccavion aero constructor from France. It was manufactured there in the 1930's and looks very similar to the meccano aero constructors. He also had a boxed version of the meccavion clockwork motor.
Gary brought along a 1929 no3 meccano set in its original shipping carton i.e. an outer carton of heavy cardboard into which the meccano carton was placed for shipping.

George Ovenden brought along a most attractive yellow horseless carriage. The model was designed by Bruce Geange and is very well designed.The springs would have made for a comfortable ride.

Kegan Wrightson had made up a Go cart / Dune Buggy out of the modern 50 model meccano set Whilst Rick Vine had made up a gun which fired small plastic spacers....it was mostly harmless.

Anthony Caldwell had made a helicopter also using the 50 model set.

William Irwin had brought along two well constructed dragsters.

The one made with the mechanical workshop set in Williams opionion lacked a firm chassis and tended to sag in the centre. It is a pity that meccano had not included some girders in this set to give the models a little more strength.

William had also made up another dragster using parts from a 1978 no 5 set, this looked really nice and was far more stable than its modern counterpart. William had used the small green racing driver that was featured in some of the 70's sets or was available as a separate part.

Peter Hancock gave us details of the up and comming Modelx show and a suitable number of volunteers was found to man the displays on Queens Birthday weekend.
Henry Porter and David Barnard came along and Im sure were impressed by the variety of models.
After an excellent supper the meeting adjourned. The next meeting will be in August details will be in the NZFMM Magazine.