180^th Meeting of the Transvaal Meccano Guild

(Saturday 18th October 2003: Fuschia Room, Jabula Center, Sandringham)

Model report (By Chris Els)

Peter Mathews

Snowdown Railways Locomotive Chassis

Peter Matthews demonstrated the chassis of his now modified Snowdown Locomotive.

He was having problems with slop developing in the 19:1 reduction gearbox.

He added a bearing to it which has helped a lot.

Parts Cleaner / Drum Roller

Peter recently purchased 2 set 10's. The owner had coated all the parts in Vaseline to stop rust.

The parts have stood for a good few years and the Vaseline has hardened onto the parts.

After much experimenting, Peter found that Turpentine and rice worked best to clean the Vaseline off.

Peter showed us a modification he had done to his tumbler. He epoxied an angle girder inside the jar to help tumble the parts.

Without the strips the parts just rolled around on the bottom of the jar.

Once done, rinse the parts in hot water and leave to dry in the sun.

Use a magnet to pick out all the pieces from the rice.

Henry asked if you can add sugar to taste!

Ross Ballington

Infra Red Control Racing Truck

Ross has been a member for 8 years, and this is the first time he has brought a model along!

Ross jokingly told us the reason he bought the model was that the ages on the box is 4-8 years old,

so he might be able to finish the model.

The control has 5 sound effects : Engine start, Hooter, Brake effects, a radio and wheel spin effects.

Dick Anstee

Automatic Level Luffing Grabbing Crane

Dick brought the grab along of the crane he is busy building at the moment.

He explained how the grab works :

- As the grab reaches the top of its travel, a knot in the string causes the grab to open thus emptying its load.

- Pull up some more, the catch releases and you can lower the grab.

- As the grab hits bottom, wind it up again and the grab closes around its load and can be raised up again.

Dick reports a problem working on the Level luffing mechanism :

The mechanism works fine and the jib is perfectly balanced.

Once all the sheaves have been strung up, the mechanism cannot overcome the friction in the sheaves and it binds.

Pieter Gouws

Erector Flatbed Truck

Pieter showed us a simple flatbed truck built from a 1929 Erector set he owns.

The truck is extremely light due to the Erector parts being mostly aluminum.

Vertical Steam Engine

Originally designed by Brian Rowe.

Pieter built it 9 years ago and has recently stripped it, cleaned all the parts and powder coated some and reassembled it.

The model runs on a synchronous motor for extended running at model shows.

Anthony Els

Chinook 47CH

Originally built by Jan Ringneld (Meccano Gilde Nederland).

The model is very neat, although Anthony comments that it is very difficult and finicky modeling at this scale!

London RT Bus

Originally built by Terry Stuart (Canadian Meccanotes March 2003).

The model is motorized with a MO motor through a 19:1 reduction gearbox.

Of note is the miniature "differential". One of the new 19T pinions running on a triangular shaft engages a

miniature plastic collet to provide transmission of power from the propshaft to the rear axle.

Henry Coppens

Double Overhead Cam 4 Cylinder motor

Henry explained the intricacies of his excellent double overhead cam 4 cylinder motor.

- 4 Valves per cylinder

- Cams act directly on the valves

- Cam chain tensioner

- The crank is made up from 2 collars bolted together.

Note the picture describing the possible types of cams you can fit to his engine to suit your needs!

Demo Motor Chassis

Henry explained how he was looking through the standard mechanisms manual and the supermodel leaflet of the motor chassis.

He recons that these concepts were out of date and decided to put together something demonstrating more modern motoring concepts.

Henry demonstrated the following modern principals to us.

- Working limited slip differential.

- 5 speed sequential gearbox with reverse and gear indicator. A sequential gearbox is used in modern racing cars. You have to go through 2nd gear to get to 3rd etc..

- Electrically driven gear selector.

- Full floating axles

- Fully independent suspension.

- Floating caliper disk brakes on all 4 wheels.

- Clutch.

- Rack and pinion steering

Note the new Exacto 12v motor used to power the gearbox.

Chris Els

Traveling Gantry Crane

Chris Els presented his model of the Supermodel #24, the traveling gantry crane.

The model is fully remote controlled through the use of a 2 channel radio control.

- One channel is used for the reverse and forward function on the main motor.

- The second channel is used to change between the function desired : travel, luff and slew.

This is done using Dave Heathcote's 4 function gearbox as seen at meeting 177.

LED's on the gearbox light up as each function is engaged to give visual confirmation from a distance.

Kobus Kanfer

Autogyro (Autogiro) Copter

Kobus built this model from pictures of the original built and patented by a Spaniard Gierva circa 1923.

The original generated forward motion through the foreword propeller.

As momentum builds up, the top blades (which are unpowered) begin to spin by wind force.

As the blades spin faster, they provide the lift needed to keep the aircraft in the air.

The model is powered interestingly enough by a 20v Cricket ball motor.

Graham Coombe

'A' Frame Beam Engine (Modelplan #63)

Graham showed us his rather large 'A' Frame beam engine designed by Philip Web.

The model has all the usual features of an engine of this type with Flywheel, Governor, Watts linkage, Valve gear etc.

One feature on the model was the plastic collet from the plastic Meccano series he used as a guide for the plastic rod running

in the steam cylinder. Notice the compact Socket Coupling as well.

The model is very neatly done in Blue / Zinc / Yellow.

180th Meeting of the Transvaal Meccano Guild