Table of contents for Issue 4720 in Model Engineer

IMLEC 2023 Weeting Rally Stoke Park Rally Young Engineers It seems to be the season for awarding prizes to young engineers! Both NAME (the Northern Association of Model Engineers) and FMES (the Federation of Model Engineering Societies) have held award ceremonies recently. One of the stated aims of NAME is to encourage younger people to develop themselves by getting involved in model engineering. To that end NAME make several awards every year. This year presentations were a bit delayed following the sudden and untimely death of the NAME chairman, Frank Cooper. Recently the Junior award was made to Alfie Dunning at Wrexham and District Society of Model Engineers by NAME chairman John Bennett (photo 1). The youngest member of Peterborough Society of Model Engineers, James Barrett, has been awarded a…

Continued from p.11 M.E.4719 June 16 With cylinders complete and his workshop mothballed, we left the story at the end of the school summer holidays in 1986 with the author, bless his little cotton socks, about to begin his final year of A-level studies and still believing he would finish Elidir within eight years. He was, as you have no doubt guessed, entirely wrong. Time machines Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, or perhaps seen one of the movies, but if you have then you will recall that the protagonist invents a machine in which, perhaps unsurprisingly given the book’s title, he can move backwards and forwards in the fourth dimension and, furthermore, can speed up or slow down the rate of…

Views and opinions expressed in letters published in Postbag should not be assumed to be in accordance with those of the Editor, other contributors, or Mortons Media Group Ltd. Correspondence for Postbag should be sent to: Martin R. Evans, The Editor, Model Engineer, Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR F. 01507 371066 E. MEeditor@mortons.co.uk Publication is at the discretion of the Editor. The content of letters may be edited to suit the magazine style and space available.Correspondents should note that production schedules normally involve a minimum lead time of six weeks for material submitted for publication. In the interests of security, correspondents’ details are not published unless specific instructions to do so are given. Responses to published letters are forwarded as appropriate. NVR Switches…

In this article I am going to summarise the development of electrical generators and the steam engines that were developed to drive them. I’ll then go on to describe two model generators that can be built to go with our model steam engines. By the time electricity generators were developed the steam engine had been advancing for many years. The dynamo generating direct, DC, current was developed by various people though it was December 1866 before Samuel Alfred Varley took out a patent. This was followed in January 1867 with patents by Verner von Siemens and Sir Thomas Wheatstone. These machines used rotating coils in a simple magnetic field, just a north and a south pole, thus the description as being a two pole machine (photo 1). As the machines…

I renewed my acquaintance with Chesterfield market and managed to resist its traders’ charms with the exception of George Harrrison’s (‘auto’biography). I also spotted these two BSA Gold Stars, not the originals but the updated version by Mahindra. To this tyro motorcyclist, they look good (photo 1). Mahindra say that British designers, Austrian engines and Indian R&D combined to produce a ‘world m/c’. The company is known for its Jeep which it has produced under licence since the 1940s. I read some time ago the biography of Edward Turner, who had a major part in the British m/c industry from WWII to its demise in the 1970s. Failure to move with the times, resting on its laurels, squeezing more power out without uprating the bearings and making a casing that…

Ron Fitzgerald considers the consequences of a brake failure and looks at the class of locomotive involved. Bob Bramson in his article Railway Braking for Model Engineers (M.E.4717 et seq.) reproduces the photograph of the Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest’s locomotive 721 in its role as an unwelcome pavement customer at the Café de la Gare Montparnasse. Readers may be interested in some further background relating to the accident and also details of this very distinctive locomotive type. The photographer recorded the scene within a few days of the accident which occurred on the 17th of October 1895. Recovery has begun and a crib of timber is under construction in front of the main doors of the café whilst an accumulation of additional timbers and heavy cables is visible in…

I wondered if the building of a new workshop for the construction of Flying Scotsman might be of interest to other model engineers? Since I can’t progress any further with the model itself until, that is, I have somewhere to actually build it - I thought that a description of the build might be of interest to others in a similar position. I will cover the materials used and also my approach to each part as well as giving the general layout. I’ll also be using a lot of recycled materials in an effort to keep the costs down which in this current ‘cost of living’ crisis may be of some use to others. When building the locomotive I took a lot of photographs, and I’ll also share photographs here…

July 1-2 Guildford MES Stoke Park Railway Gala, 10:0017:00. See www.gmes.org.uk 2 Bristol SMEE Public running at the Ashton Court Railway BS8 3PX, noon17:00. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 2 Canterbury MES Public running. Contact: ginapearson@btopenworld.com 2 North Wilts MES Public running at the Coate Water Railway, 11:00-17:00. See www.nwmes.info 2 Taunton Model Engineers Public running, Vivary Park, 14:00-17:00. See www.tauntonme.org.uk 2 Warrington and District MES Running day at the club track. See www.wdmes.org.uk/events 5 Bradford MES Steerage trophy competition, Wibsey, 19:30-22:00. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 5 Bristol SMEE Talk: Tower Clocks, Begbrook Social Club BS16 1HY, 19:30. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 6 Sutton MEC Bits and Pieces evening 20:00. Contact: Paul Harding, 0208 254 9749 7 Rochdale SMEE Members’ projects, Castleton Community Centre, 19:00. See www.facebook.com/RochdaleModelEngineers 7-9 IMLEC 2023 The Ashton Court track…

When our editor recently wrote in Smoke Rings (M.E.4685) that he had restored a mechanical calculator, it reminded me immediately about the calculators used at school. I am sure that, for many, the electronic pocket calculator helped enormously to unravel the secrets of calculating and save time, whether during work, hobby or study. When getting your first pocket calculator you immediately felt like a real Tech Techie. These pocket calculators did not materialise overnight, indeed the history of calculating goes way back to ancient times when people used the length of various body parts for measuring. Calculation was necessary for weights and measures and for dividing during affairs of trade and of goods and food. In the year 3500 BC, the people in Babylon and Egypt were already using a…

Continued from p.33, M.E.4719 June 16 In Part 1 (M.E.4716, May 5) I referred to Brian Glasspool’s expertise with a soldering iron. He had installed and wired the relay racks for Tunnel East and Little Moore, using Post Office type relays. Much Natter station was not re-signalled for a few years - then we discovered Relpol relays. They have screw terminals, not solder tags, so it was decided to use these relays for Much Natter. After all, no other member of the BHLR team could match Brian’s soldering skills. Then David Smith appeared on the scene and, amongst many other initiatives, he built the relay boards for Tunnel East and Little Moore, using 108 and 164 Relpol relays respectively (photo 14). More Relpol relays were required because they had fewer…

Continued from p.13 M.E.4719 June 16 Assembly Now that we have all the parts drawn, let’s make an assembly. But frst, I suggest a search on the Internet for phrases like ‘onshape assembly mates’, ‘onshape moving components’, ‘onshape mate connectors’ or access QR code 9, QR Code 10 and QR Code 11. www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6HO0DswUkU www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUfjspoKmT4&t=118s www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVpHQUG2NsE Based on the information from these tutorials, you are now going to put all the parts together in an assembly. This is the most complex part for this article. Adjustments to the parts created may be needed but there are many tutorials dedicated to this topic on the Internet. For this stage, the more tutorials on this topic you read, the better Step A1 – In the bottom right ‘+’button, create an Assembly – g…

Continued from p.28 M.E.4719 June 16 In the following analysis we have to assume that the eccentric rods are very long and the effect of eccentric rod angularity can be ignored. So far we have only looked at mid gear and full gear. What happens in between? A schematic is shown in fig 11. In fig 11(a), the crankpin is on back centre, and the curved link has been lowered such that the distance from the die block to the link centre is u. In fig 11(b), the crank is on front centre, and the curved link has moved to the right by 2m. The datum for the eccentric movement (points d1 & d2) is taken as the crank centre, the datum for curved link movement is a hypothetical line…