AndyRobinson – My Meccano

The New Meccano Loom

July 2024. I’ve plucked up the courage to have a go at building the second version of the Super Model Loom. I’ve been collecting parts for a while: as well as an inordinate number of 2 1/2 inch strips it also requires some special parts that haven’t been made by Meccano since WWII, and they probably never made very many in the first place:

A shuttle (part 104). You have to have a Meccano shuttle, or a reproduction of one (which do exist). I was lucky enough to get hold of an original.
A reed hook (part 105). This is not strictly speaking part of the model, but you need one to operate the loom. Meccano reed hooks are like hen’s teeth, but I found what looks to be a similar reed hook here. I’ve not built my loom yet, so it’s not tried and tested.
A sand roller (part 106a). Again, I’ve never seen an original on sale. They are similar to the wood rollers (part 106), but the wood is of slightly larger diameter, and is covered with a perforated thin steel sheet like a fine cheese grater. It’s job is to grip the finished cloth as it comes off the loom, enabling it to be wound onto a wood roller. I’ve made my own, using a wood roller. I wound a strip of paper onto the roller to give it the added diameter. I bought some steel sheet (from here), cut it to size, and perforated it with a fine masonry pin (as used for picture hanging). Hundreds and hundreds of times. Then I nailed it to the roller. It looks the part, and I’m hoping it will do the job. By the way, the original Binns Road parts never had sand on them, although apparently Meccano Spain stuck sandpaper round some wood rollers at some point and sold them.

Here are photos of these parts. No loom pictures yet, as I’ve not built it!

Meccano Clock Kit 2

Spring 2024. The Meccano Clock Kit 2 was sold in the 1970s as a complete kit to build a striking clock using mainly standard Meccano parts. There was a handful of special parts included. I bought this back in the 1970s, built it once, then kept it. Now I’ve dusted it off and built it again. I can hear it ticking now as I type this. I keeps going for a couple of hours, until the weight hits the floor and it stops. If I mounted it in the stairwell to give the weight a longer drop, it would probably keep going for 8 or 12 hours, but it’s never going to manage 24 hours without ‘winding’. I say winding, but actually you have to raise the weights back up. It’s not particularly accurate! I’m still fettling it, as the striking isn’t working yet. It should strike once at 1 o’clock, twice at 2 etc. I may or may not eventually succeed at getting it to strike correctly.

Build notes

Not much to say, other than it needs a lot of fiddling to get it working properly. And sparing application of light machine oil.

Meccano Traction Engine

Early 2024. I’d been looking forward to building the Super Model traction engine, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s not huge, but its proportions are good, and it operates pretty well. And I wanted to put my resprayed flywheel to use.

Build notes

This one went together pretty easily. There were a number of things to fix of course, the first being that the Super Model uses a 1929-style 6 volt motor, and I’ve not got one. Instead I used an E20R 20-volt motor, and extended it upwards by an inch using a couple of 1 1/2 by 3 inch plates. I also had to widen the rear end of the model by half an inch to get the motor in. So the body was 3 1/2 inches wide at the motor rather than 3 inches, narrowing slightly to 3 inches in front of the motor, so the triangular plates join under the boiler as per the leaflet. This solution simplified the towing point as well, as all you need is a couple of trunnions. The leaflet solution is more complicated in order to get the towing point central across a 3-inch plate.

The second area I made changes in was to the cylinder block and pistons. The cylinder block is a small closed box mounted on top of the boiler, and the pistons move in and out of the block. I can’t believe anyone could get this working as described in the leaflet. It’s difficult to build the block as described, as it’s a closed box with angle brackets mounted inside it that need adjusting to get the pistons to move freely through it without hitting the end of the box. And as described there’s no way in to adjust the angle brackets, and no way to adjust the box’s position on the boiler, which you need to do, as there’s very little leeway between hitting the end of the box and disengaging from the bracket at the other end of the box. All of which will become a lot clearer if you try the build! Anyway I redesigned the cylinder block using double brackets for the pistons to run in (which are automatically lined up), and mounting the cylinder block on the boiler using just angle brackets, which gives some front to back adjustment. This meant the pistons ran smoothly…

…after I also replaced the connections at the other end of the pistons. The original design is pretty Heath-Robinson and has many points of failure. I replaced both connections with single-throw eccentrics, mounting both inside the plates I added to extend the motor sides upwards by an inch (see above). Simpler and better than the original design (and probably not practical with the original motor).

Other than that, I made minor changes to the roof so I didn’t need to bend flat girders, and that’s about it. A good model to build.

Meccano Strip Roller

This is a tool rather than a model. I’ve already had to bend quite a few strips and flexible plates, and I’d rather bend them smoothly if I can. They’ll last longer and look better that way. So I’ve bought a set of steel rollers that should enable me to build a rolling mill for strips, plates up to 2.5″, and even flat girders, I hope. So far I can’t get enough power to the rollers, as whatever I fix to the end of the driving roller to drive it just slips. It’d probably bend flexible plates and short strips OK (short strips being thinner than long ones), but it’s not up to longer strips. I’m not even going to try to bend flat girders until I really have to, but there are pre-war Outfit 10 models that need them bent.

So, next step is to file flats on the driving roller axle. Watch this space…

…and when I’ve taken photos I’ll post them here.

Meccano Dockside Crane

November 2023. I’d built one big crane, so the dining room table was starting to look like a dockyard already. What it needed was another crane, this time in blue, yellow and zinc. You can’t have too many cranes. Another 1970s outfit 9 model, and this one went together with no real problems. It looks good, if a bit weedy next to the hammerhead crane. I’ve no idea why there’s a 1″ rod at the top of the revolving column. I didn’t bother fitting one as it works fine without.

Meccano Hammerhead Crane

November 2023. Time for my second Super Model build. I’ve got a Roller bearing and I’m going to use it. Well I’d bought the bearing so I had to build a crane, hadn’t I? I picked the hammerhead crane model because it looked big. And it is. Relatively simple though, and a bit of a relief after wrestling with a double decker bus. And it does look good. And it works.

Here’s where the pictures are going to be, once I’ve taken them…

Build notes

Most of this build was pretty straightforward, apart from a serious mistake in the text. The section on ‘Building the boom’ starts with the sentence ‘The main girders of the boom 7 and 8 are each built up from two 24.5″ Angle Girders overlapping two holes.’ This just doesn’t work. They end up 1″ too short, and even if it worked the traveller would jump every time it hit the overlap. If you butt the girders together and join them with 5.5″ strips the problems go away and everything fits. That took me a long time to sort out, but I got there in the end.

The other tricky bit was the motor cover. It’s fiddly to fit, as it’s more or less a closed box so you can’t get at the inner nuts easily. And I had to keep taking it off to fettle the mechanism. I got there in the end though.

I had to do a bit of modification to stop the gears dropping out: as standard you have to hold the levers in place to keep the cogs meshed. Aren’t rubber bands wonderful things?

Meccano Breakdown Lorry

September 2023. I’d built the double decker bus with the No. 10 bits and wanted to build something else. It was too soon to break up the bus, so I built this breakdown lorry with my blue and yellow bits. It’s a good-enough model, but the suspension arrangement of the back wheels is just weird.

Build notes

The wordless instructions in the 1970s model manual leave something to be desired, particularly with this one. What on earth was supposed to be in the back of the truck in front of the crane? There’s no photo and the diagrams just don’t cut it. Luckily for me I wasn’t the first to hit this problem, and this video helped a lot. It also explains how you really mount the steering column – the diagram in the manual is just wrong.

With the help of Chris Harris’s video the model came together OK. I couldn’t be bothered to sort the barmy rear suspension out. The correct application of the right elastic bands would do it, but really the design is just too silly.

Meccano Double Deck Bus

August-September 2023. I’d really looked forward to building this one, but it turned out a bit frustrating. It’s got a complicated drive train, that I think was based on the old motor chassis Super Model. Anyway, it took a long time to fettle. The finished model looked good, but I wasn’t really happy with it. It needed proper floors on the two decks, and there was only half a staircase. Basically they’d used up all the outfit’s nuts and bolts, so there are some glaring gaps in the build. Anyway I’d have preferred a model looking more like a London Transport RT prototype I think. The finished model weighed a ton. Here’s what it looked like:

Build notes

This was a fiddly build, and there were some gaps in the model – literally. I added the top half of the staircase that’s missing from the model, but lost the will to live and didn’t add the rest of the flooring. The drive train managed to move the chassis along OK, but the extra weight of the bodywork was too much for it. There were a few minor errors in the text and the parts list, but that’s as normal!

Meccano Ferry Boat

I built this one with my 1970s No. 9 Outfit, to go with the Transporter Bridge. Wrong scale of course, but what the heck. So this was February 2023. I’d not built this one before – I guess I’m a bit prejudiced against boat models as they only model the bit that’s out of the water, so they’re more of a toy than a model in my eyes.

I built it anyway, and it was relatively straightforward, with no major tweaks needed. I had to bend a few strips, which I’ve always been wary of, but I got away with it OK. (Note to self: finish that plate rolling machine. I’ve got the rollers now.) Not the most exciting build, but it went OK. And it’s a good-looking model.

Meccano Transporter Bridge

This was my first Super Model build, February 2023. I needed to buy a few extra bits, particularly more braced girders. I wanted to build this one because it was based on the transporter bridge that used to be near here, crossing the Mersey from Runcorn to Widnes. I never saw the original bridge, which was completed in 1905 and replaced in 1961. And before 1905?…

‘On the banks of the Mersey, over on Cheshire side,

Lies Runcorn that’s best known to fame

By Transporter Bridge as tak’s folk over its stream,

Or else brings ’em back across same.

In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up

A Ferry Boat lay in the slip,

And old Ted the Boatman would row folks across

At per tuppence per person per trip.

Now Runcorn lay over on one side of stream

And Widnes on t’other side stood,

And as nobody wanted to go either place,

Well, the trade wasn’t any too good.’

…from ‘Runcorn Ferry’ by Marriott Edgar. Believe that as you will.

Anyway, here’s the model:

Build notes

Meccano parts lists often aren’t accurate – I’m starting to get that now. This time there was a crucial mistake in the text too. ‘Each of the lower girders 3, on which the carriage 30 (Fig. 1) travels, consists of one 24.5″, one 12.5″, and one 9.5″ Angle Girders bolted to Braced Girders 4’ doesn’t work, as the composite girder needs to be 49.5″ long. This took me quite a bit of puzzling out, but I ended up using 3 overlapped 18.5″ girders instead. The carriage kept jumping off its girders, so I replaced the flanged wheels with 1″ pulleys fitted with rubber rings, which worked a lot better. The crank handle used in the mechanism to flip-flop the reversing action fouled the string bracing, so I replaced it with an alternative slimmer solution built from couplings, threaded pins, a 1.5″ strip and a 1″ rod. Those were the main tweaks. The string bracing took some time, but I found it curiously satisfying to do. This build was when I found out that Meccano cranks often aren’t up to the job – the boss often rotates, making them useless as a lever.

Having said all that, I really enjoyed the build, including the challenges. The finished model looked great, occupying the whole of our dining room table. And yes it really did go backward and forwards repeatedly on automatic, including a pause each time to allow for loading and unloading. Eventually.