Auckland Meccano Guild

The May meeting of the Auckland Meccano Guild took place at David Walls residence at Orewa.

David had his excellent Mississippi riverboat which he had recently displayed at the NZFMM convention in Palmerston North. This is a superb model which realistically catches all the charm of the real thing, If I had been awarding the prizes David would have been right up there in the winning circle.

Richard Sealey had managed to score some more aircraft parts on E-Bay, I don't know how he does it. This time he had a virtually complete cream and green European aero set with some specialised extras such as the double height engine mountings part no 205 and 206 , I had never seen these before. They obviously come from one of the large special sets , most likely the 12s. This set also had the corrugated finish and one pair of the tapered wings. We look forward to seeing the made up models Richard.

John Denton had made an excellent job of recreating a model of a twin oscillating cylinder steam engine, complete with operating electric lights which John made by extracting LED's from a cheap LED unit. It ran faultlessness during the meeting.

John Pond, our visitor from Cornwall in the UK arrived with the models that he had displayed at the convention a small tractor and harrow and motorcycle and side car and a small circular saw bench he should have been awarded a prize for having travelled the furtherest to the meeting.

In the second picture John Pond on the right talks to Henry Porter

Rick Vine had an example of a meccano jigsaw featuring the famous meccano yellow truck Reg BEK343 as well as a WWII motorcycle, a mini model of the starship enterprise, a fixed wing aircraft, a helicopter made with the vintage meccano set and a school master caneing a pupil which was Rick's PC model of the day.

Gerald Hart had a 3 wheeler Morgan car, and recovery truck in Yellow and red built from a design by Tony Davis.

Mike Stewart had been working on a compact wharf crane designed by Colin Cohen and detailed in the Johannesburg Meccano Hobbyists Newsletter. The gears are so numerous and fitted into so small a space that he will need much perseverance to get it up and running. Mike had finished most of the base and we look forward to seeing the finished model.

Les Megget has started work on a new model car. It is based on the Bentley speed 6. Les has completed most of the chassis and will no doubt show us a superb model when finished. The Spoked wheels are an Ashok special.

Henry Porter brought along his model of a rack and pinion locomotive used on the railways in India and a interesting model of a walking scorpion and a small triceratops. This was a request from me for Henry to make a smaller model. Most of his are so large it is a mammoth effort to remove them from his modelling room.

Gary Higgins has been experimenting with USA Gilbert Erector and has acquired some sets to build with. He had made up a model Ice truck from an 8 ½ set and had adapted a couple of 110 volt erector motors to rum from a 6 volt motor attached at the rear. Erector made motors with a driving axle accessible from both the front and rear of the motor. Gary also had a nice example of a 3X USA Meccano set from 1916 complete with excellent motor and manuals. He had a selection of early USA meccano motors and one of the Humpback French ones. Gary had two of the new Xtreme models made up, a pull and go dragster and a non- motorised dragster, these use the no nuts strips with tapped holes.

Jeff Clark from Meccagears was there with his excellent selection of new parts.

Also in attendance were :

George Ovenden
Peter Hancock
Graham Mills
Neil Carey
Matthew Carey

Peter Hancock spoke about the up and coming convention in Palmerston North and also wanted numbers and models for Model X as we were assured of extra table space this year.

An excellent afternoon tea was hosted by the ladies making it a most enjoyable afternoon.