A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 20th September 2025 at  Chelmsford Society of Model Engineers

A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 1st March 2025 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos and videos taken by Tim Surtell from the Hainault Hangout on 7^th December 2024 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 14th September 2024 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 11th May 2024 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos and videos taken by Tim Surtell at our meeting on 17th February 2024 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos and videos taken by Tim Surtell from the Hainault Hangout on 2^nd December 2023 at Hainault Baptist Church. Les Chatfield also has an excellent series of videos on Facebook:

• Welcome to the Hainault Hangout
• Guy Loveridge  — Double Fairlie Locomotive
• Roger Little  — Blocksetting Crane
• Gregg Worwood  — Starbucks Meteor Fairground Ride
• Gregg Worwood  — Car-O-Planes Fairground Ride
• Alan Esplen  — Overtype Steam Engine
• Alan Esplen  — Pontoon Crane
• Tim Surtell  — Unicyclist
• Tim Surtell  — Cavorting Cow

A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 16th September 2023 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos and videos taken by Tim Surtell at our meeting on 11th February 2023 at Hainault Baptist Church. Paul Leech won the Model of the Year competition for his model of an Elevator Loader.

A selection of photos from the Hainault Hangout on 3^rd December 2022 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos taken by Alan Esplen at our meeting on 24th September 2022 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos taken by Tim Surtell at our meeting on 14th May 2022 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos and videos taken by Tim Surtell at our meeting on 12th February 2022 at Hainault Baptist Church. Greg Clarke won the Model of the Year competition for his cable car model.

A selection of photos and videos from the Hainault Hangout on 4^th December 2021 at Hainault Baptist Church.

A selection of photos taken by Greg Clarke at our meeting on 18th September 2021 at Hainault Baptist Church.

Paul Leech won the Model of the Year competition for his excellent car transporter. Colin Davies and Greg Clarke shared 2nd place with their marine engine and dragline models respectively.

Triumph Herald

A quick build and an attempt to model what was seen as quite an innovative car when it came out in May 1959. Dinky Toys released their model of it on the same day as the real car. The model had windows and spring suspension, only the second Dinky to have both, and I can remember buying mine from the local toyshop quickly before they sold out. However, my Meccano model was built from memory; I still have the Dinky somewhere but finding it would have taken longer than the construction.

Sentinel Steam Lorry (rebuild)

This is the model I took to my first ever SELMEC meeting, in January 2011. Well, it is, and it isn’t. I took it to the exhibition that autumn then put it on top of a wardrobe and dusted it once in a while. It was one of my first attempts at a realistic model and I was quite pleased with it. It was however built with blue and gold parts with not much of either colour paint remaining. Rather than take it apart I decided to rebuild it. What was gold is now BMW Sapphire Grey, since I no longer have that car, Meccano silver for the chassis, and the blue parts I swapped for red, mostly un-repainted but in good condition. I have left only the hot and oily bits in their tatty blue. I suspect on the original they would not have stayed pristine for long.

Incidentally the Sapphire Grey aerosol was bought from a car paint specialist, cost more than H******s, but gave an excellent finish over a coat of white primer. It is not a bad match to the dull dark grey parts you find in the 2001 Special Edition Crane kit.

4-8-4 Steam Locomotive and Tender

This 4–8–4 steam locomotive with a 12-wheel tender matches the two American railroad cars I built a few year ago, the shorter of which I’ve rebuilt to be the same length as its brother.

Coles Mobile Crane

This is a copy of the Dinky Supertoy No. 571. I have used black and yellow or gold parts where I have them, to follow the colour scheme of the original as much as I can. Also, the model is hand-operated by two crank handles protruding from the sides of the body, just like the toy. I have however made two changes. The hook has a pulley and a return cord, rather than dangling from a single thread, and the jib is raised and lowered by a heavy-duty threaded rod; the forces involved were much too high to do otherwise.

Unicyclist

This model makes use of two Meccano parts that I have never used before — the Fan and the 5¼” Hub Disc.

The unicyclist circles around the Hub Disc, propelled by a couple of pulleys and a small motor in the base.

Shopping Trolley Smartphone Holder

During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic Sainsbury’s supermarkets were only allowing people to shop alone, so I developed this little gadget to help me. It clamps onto a shopping trolley handle, and has a holder that perfectly fits my smartphone, thereby allowing me to use the smartphone as a hands-free barcode reader with the Sainsbury’s SmartShop app. Next to the holder there is a also a spring-loaded clip for holding a shopping list.

The Demonizer Fairground Ride

For as many Allen bolts or nuts that I have it seems there aren’t ever quite enough and so another one of my Meccano models was sacrificed and dismantle to harvest the parts.

I choose a fairground ride I called The Tormentor MK II, which I was particularly fond of, but as I dismantled bit by bit, I simultaneously started construction on a new model.

Starting with a solid base, followed by a V-shape twin tower fitted at the front, and then a second tower at the rear.

This second one however was going to be a single straight tower at the very centre which you would see clearly when looking through the V-tower.

The height of the towers was restricted to the max ride height of my own car and anything else I might want further was going to have to be detachable.

Due to the height and proposed action of the towers, they needed to be very solidly anchored to the base and free of any swaying movements and I had to keep reinforcing until such sturdiness was achieved.

Before anything else I continued with adding things like the customer access steps, railings and general amusement ride embellishments and I also added a ticket kiosk and some lights.

At the top I created some channels where I planned for the main rotating unit to be fitted to the towers.

By this time the other model was almost totally dismantled with the exception of the main arm and the riders circular seating unit, which I offered up in place on this new unit right on top as a test and which proved apt both as a fit and with easy free rotation.

It was not the plan to use this same rotating unit as it was too small for this new ride construction but I decided to needed grow it in size rather than start something completely from new and so I started adding parts to stretch the unit to its wanted bigger diameter as I did so I replaced most of the chrome parts with dark blue parts to tie it in with the look of the rest of the new model which consisted of mainly red, yellow and dark blue.  

The old Tormentor Mk II rotating unit is still pretty much in the heart of it but now much larger than its predecessor yet just as equally balanced it and poised in its rotations.

The model was virtually finished on Saturday the 14th November 2020 but I still wanted to add a motor and a gearing system to it and perhaps add a few tweaks just to improve it visually.

I have since fixed a motor and a pulley system which worked very well but which was rather faster than what I needed, so I had to fix larger pulleys, adjust all dimensions and fittings and change the position of the motor to be at just the right distancing for all elastic bands to function perfectly.

It took me a few hours just to achieve that but I was delighted at the end of it and finally the right speed was achieved to make the ride experience realistic.

Just when I thought I was finished I decided on increasing the tower heights further by adding two new detachable towers that would mount on top of the existing ones.

Why not build two additional towers to rest on top of the existing ones, and as soon as I was happy with its new status, I added two new 12V lights I had recently bought as kind of spotlights. Finally, I decided to build a third tower to stand at the left-hand side of the model behind the kiosk.

Just in case I get bored, the new model’s rotating unit is interchangeable with another and can be presented as two completely distinctly different personalities but both sharing the same lofty status.

This model if scaled up to life-size would prove a very huge and extremely high machine which with its two different rotations would have a capacity for thrill sensations that only those with an appetite for extreme endurance might tolerate or maybe for only those foolishly brave ones who chance it.  

It was once part of the ride that promised only to torment you, but now tormenting has been taken on a descent to a brand-new level.  

The Demonizer: Plunging its riders on a high way to heaven and then hell.

Go ahead — yell!

Drill Press

This is my Secretary’s Challenge model in that it uses a part I have hardly used — until now. It is the brass cone pulley. A beautiful part but lacking a model to go in.

Now I have two new models using these pulleys. The chuck came from goodness knows where but I was able to hold it in the chuck of my lathe and drill it to take a standard Meccano shaft, secured with some Loctite!

Funicular Railway

A water balanced type based on the East Hill Lift in Hastings.

Goods Yard Crane

Built using only the Pocket Meccano Set parts, not an unlimited amount as specified in the Challenge.

Mignet Pou-De-Ciel

Another large scale model of a home-built French-built light plane known as a Pou-de-Ciel. Literally ‘Louse of the Skies’!

This model has been ‘on the stocks’ for a long time but now with this enforced home lock down I have finished it. It features a detailed inverted two-stroke engine (which runs!) and working flying controls. It even ‘takes down’ like the full-sized aircraft for transportation!

Mini Moke

Another model built to use wheels in my stock — large ones comprising the tyres glued to boiler ends. I strengthened them with bush wheels and the vehicle is driven by a single Emebo motor via the front wheels. (This is the first vehicle I have built with front wheel drive steering!) Despite the low power it does go at a realistic speed and can be seen in action in an album on my Facebook page.

Series I Land Rover

This model, driven by a magic motor, was built to see if I could make a believable model using those dreadful Meccano plastic wheels.

A German Bruder figure is at the wheel (and is a bit undersized). The windscreen hinges down and the spare wheel is correctly mounted behind the driver. (I had to mount a semi-circular plate next to the spare so one could not see the awful hollow interior of the wheel.)

Shaping Machine

This is one of my most recent ‘mono colour’ models. It came out far larger than I first thought but it does work well and features a real lathe tool mounted in the ‘tool post’.

The long green ram moves to and fro with a slow forward cutting stroke and a more rapid return stroke. The mechanism that does this is visible behind a hinged door to the rear of the machine. The length of the stroke can also be adjusted as well. Two more three speed pulleys can be seen forming the motor drive.

“Tich” Locomotive

This small 0–4–0 tank locomotive a full size copy of an original 3.5” gauge live steam engine designed and built in the 1930s by one of Britain’s most prolific and well known model locomotive engineers named Lillian ‘Curly’ Lawrence, known as LBSC.

My Meccano model was built from the original drawings as closely as Meccano will permit.

Other Models

• Ball Mill
• Cement Mixer, Wheelbarrow and Shovel
• Clockwork Lorry
• Engine Hoist with Meccano V8 Engine
• Grand Piano
• Gyroscope
• Lorry
• Mobile Phone Camera Dolly for photographing table top models
• Power Hacksaw (new version)
• Ruston and Proctor Steam Navvy
• Steam Tug Hercules
• Sussex Post Mill

Christmas Pudding Stirrer

Based on a drawing by W. Heath Robinson entitled Mechanical Aids for Christmas.

It is a mechanical device for stirring the Christmas pudding with various gears and the obligatory knotted string! Cardboard cut-out figures (based on WHR’s originals) complete the model.

The later photo shows a rebuild of this model, with a few minor alterations.

Army Lorry

This lorry, built with the Liverpool-made prefabricated Multikit cab, and two other models are the subject of Modelplan 232 by Alex Barker, available from MW Mail Order. They have been built by the Meccano Society of Scotland modeller Dave Stanford and feature in some of his photos from a meeting of the society in early 2020.

The examples in MP 232 use a worm and pinion steering set-up, which works, but has no ‘feel’ to it. Dave Stanford’s examples use a long rod to the rear and use a contrate and pinion steering mechanism. This works well and so my own examples have been built using this method.

Box Van

This box van with an opening door uses the pre-fabricated cab of the Mulikit series, and uses the steering system used in some of my earlier models; a long rod under the chassis as shown, to a 3:1 bevel pair 30a, 30c, this moves the steering gear.

Lorry

This four wheel lorry, built with the Liverpool-made prefabricated Multikit cab, and two other models are the subject of Modelplan 232 by Alex Barker, available from MW Mail Order. They have been built by the Meccano Society of Scotland modeller Dave Stanford and feature in some of his photos from a meeting of the society in early 2020.

The examples in MP 232 use a worm and pinion steering set-up, which works, but has no ‘feel’ to it. Dave Stanford’s examples use a long rod to the rear and use a contrate and pinion steering mechanism. This works well and so my own examples have been built using this method.

Tanker Truck

This eight wheel tanker truck, built with the Liverpool-made prefabricated Multikit cab, and two other models are the subject of Modelplan 232 by Alex Barker, available from MW Mail Order. They have been built by the Meccano Society of Scotland modeller Dave Stanford and feature in some of his photos from a meeting of the society in early 2020.

The examples in MP 232 use a worm and pinion steering set-up, which works, but has no ‘feel’ to it. Dave Stanford’s examples use a long rod to the rear and use a contrate and pinion steering mechanism. This works well and so my own examples have been built using this method.

Lorry Chassis

This is a further model on the theme of lorries with prefabricated cabs, and shows the typical build for a chassis. The steering, this time, is operated by a bevel gear pair 30a and 30c as shown; this uses the long rod ideas shown in some of my earlier models and it works well. It replaces the contrate and pinions that I used in some of the earlier models.

The chassis will work with the Spinmaster-type tyres and Meccano tyres of various types, but the 1978 three part wheels foul the cab structure, which needs a redesign.

Remote Steering Vehicle

This is a further model on the theme of lorries with prefabricated cabs. This one, a remote steering vehicle, uses spur gears, 19-tooth and 57-tooth gears to move the steering mechanism. The idler 19-tooth pinion corrects the rotation of the steering wheel, so the model moves left when turned left and right when turned right.

This model works well with the photographed Spinmaster-type tyres and Meccano tyres. The 1978 three part wheels are presently not suitable.

The steering wheel adds play value, since the Liverpool-made prefabricated cabs do not have access for a workable steering wheel or control. If the builder has available the French Meccano Multikit cabs, these are also suitable.

Farm Tractor

This model was originally designed by Frenchman Pierre Monsallut and a Modelplan appeared in the July 1995 issue of the Meccano Newmag (issue 72). Since then, various modifications have been made, notably to the rear mudguards, the transmission system and the steering gear.

The transmission system from the 6-speed motor motor (see underside view), has a novel differential gear in it. Briefly, this consists of a four hole collar fixed to that shaft with two freely rotating contrates which drive pinions. These then transfer drive to two 57-toothed gears to each rear axle. This makes the model operate particularly well.

The model is said to represent a 1970–80s Ford tractor before roll over cages and cabs became mandatory.

Four Station Roundabout Fairground Ride

This model is based upon a 12.5" square base, with the mechanism built upon this.

It is powered by a Dave Taylor-supplied electric motor driving reduction gearing to two motions.

The first motion rotates the roundabout about the central column turning the four arms with it. This central column is mounted on a 4" ball race, with a 133-tooth gear on the upper side, driven by the reduction gears below.

The second motion operates through the central rod which the arms rotate, this rod rod drives a cam on its extremity, an offset pair of stacked wheel discs is attached to each of the four arms by rods and end bearings. As the cam rotates the arms lift up and fall. This is geared slower than the first motion.

Each arm has a passenger seat and a barrier to prevent them falling out.

BT Tower

Previously known as a the Post Office Tower.