The way things were?

[Ian Kirk]

Hi,

 

Not quite vintage model railways but certainly of the period. Perhaps the model of the Bennie Railplane on the cover will excuse me .   I have taken a couple of scans of this "Hobbies" annual. The property of my late father from presumably the time when he looked like the boy on the cover. I think that we have discussed before the dress code for Fathers and Sons in Model Railway advertisements. This must be what the budding modeller/engineer was supposed to look like. I doubt if many young boys would complete many of the often complex projects inside. Not without a lot of adult help anyway. Amazing how basic everything is and how everything had to be made from scratch.

It is interesting to note from a historical perspective that while Mr F J Camm was editing these hobbies books his brother Sydney was designing the Hurricane fighter. I wonder what they talked about at family get togethers?

 

best wishes,

 

Ian 

[Il Grifone]

Health and Safety would have 'unsuitable for children under 14' on projects like that today (razor blades!) They were probably popular seeing the price of tinplate accessories.

 

The dynamo on the cover looks well beyond the ability of most children. I tried a cheap kit for a 2 pole motor around the age of 9 or 10 but couldn't get it to work.

 

My cap and tie went as soon as possible after leaving school........

 

I had a similar book as a boy - projects included a body for an N2 tank (another one!) from sheet metal and an electric motor. The latter required a magnet from a car magneto (from your local garage!). Long since no longer available at the time and would probably have lost its magnetism once dismantled anyway.

[Old Tearaway]

Sidney Camm designed the Hawker Fury in the 1930's, the Hawker Hurricane, the Hawker Hunter and the Hawker Harrier so he worked through quite some major changes in millitary aviation during his career. 

 

Back when I was a lad we had metal work and chemestry with after school "home" project classes in which we used to make things like steam engines, metal gates, working cannon and gun powder. Some people, including myself managed to contruct some pretty decent working crossbows.

 

We didn't go around stealing cars, playing games on computers and consoles, fiddling on mobile phones, etc. as we were to busy having safe fun shooting things, blowing things up, climbing trees, racing home made go-carts and  enjoying being youngsters back then.

 

We had comics to teach us to read and a bit about history plus informing us of the British Empire's hold on the world and why Britain was God's favourite country on Earth. The comics also reminded us of all the wars that we had fought and who we had beaten the most (France).

 

Because of this we gathered up knowledge & skills relavent and useful in adult life and the workplace.

 

Today's youth struggles to figure out how to unscrew a nut from a bolt, presuming that they can recognise the component items.

 

Back them there were jobs for all and the only unemployed were the traditional scroungers, namely hippies, artists and poets.

 

Nowadays we have the highly skilled and experienced thrown onto the scrap heap.

 

Somewhere along the line, the idiots gained control of everything and it was too late to remove them by the time we all noticed.

[Il Grifone]

The failure of today's children to construct a Meccano crane in James May's programme spoke volumes.......

 

My favourite Eagle annual was no. 3 with a series of model railway projects. (I've even bought a replacement copy (not at 'collector's prices' obviously - charity shop). It wasn't clear that the project for making model barrels involved a lathe to shape them. Luckily Merit came to the rescue (Britain's Lilliput and Master Models were a tad expensive in quantity - not pocket money prices.....)

[brianusa]

As has been mentioned, having a go at todays youth is a favourite  subject especially amongst those of a certain age. However a lot is correct and times have certainly changed since we wore school caps and blazers!  We played with Meccano and Hornby trains (some of us still do!) but nowadays interests have changed, jobs have changed and those with their mobiles and X Boxes will need all the technical help they can acquire to prosper in the future.  Many of us were able to leave school and  gain an adequate salaried job with prospects.  There are few adequately paid entry jobs now and certainly not many with prospects.

 

Brian.

[sagaguy]

Memories!!.Some of us still use Meccano.I built this about 2 years ago but having built it,it was about as portable as a double wardrobe but it did work very well,it was dismantled soon after but thats the beauty of Meccano.

 

 

    Ray.

[peach james]

I'm going to add the following to this:

 

100_1651 by Peach James, on Flickr

 

Lego has replaced Meccano for me- I have up to Set 3, plus some more.  I can't think when I last pulled my Meccano out.  Dad and his Cousin Ian had up to Set 6.  He offered it to me in 1997 or so, and I turned it down.  I prefer Lego, it has different disadvantages to Meccano.  

[kevinlms]

Health and Safety would have 'unsuitable for children under 14' on projects like that today (razor blades!) They were probably popular seeing the price of tinplate accessories.

 

Should 'Health & Safety' be keen on operating a steam engine with rotating parts whilst wearing a tie? Perhaps the item depicted is small, but its potentially dangerous on a larger piece of equipment.

[rockershovel]

I seem to recall the "wizzo company" of Molesworth fame, being suppliers of this sort of thing..... notably a space ship, including an instruction to "watch pater's face as he reads the instructions...

 

 

my recollection of mechanical toys of the Meccano and Hornby Dublo sort, was that they were expensive items requiring considerable parental involvement. I had quite a large collection of Meccano and Hornby dating from the 1930s to 1950s, being a late addition to a large extended family I was a sort of collecting point for such things (as well as hand-me-downs, which even then I didn't particularly appreciate). I don't recall what happened to them, which rather suggests that they didn't figure largely in my childhood. My late father had served in REME and had a varying involvement with models including railways, but again that was a "dad thing" which I wasn't really involved with

 

I rather suspect that the whole "mechanical toys" thing had more to do with a generation of men whose youth had been consumed by force of circumstances, whose present was filled with responsibilities but had disposable incomes for the first time in their lives, than with actual childhood toys..

[jonny777]

Not very railway related IIRC, but I had one of these books with all manner of handy (or not so) things to make.

 

 

[gordon s]

Memories!!.Some of us still use Meccano.I built this about 2 years ago but having built it,it was about as portable as a double wardrobe but it did work very well,it was dismantled soon after but thats the beauty of Meccano.draglinefor web 13.jpgdragline 9 web.jpg

 

 

    Ray.

 

Not only a wonderful crane, but that looks like an interesting railway as well.  Any more pics or write up on RMweb?

[Austrag]

I got my childhood knowledge reading books, left by my deceased father, in the '50s. A few electronics books (he had built a "radiogram" before the war) and a pre-war set of "Wonderland of Knowledge" that I still have although one volume is lost. Too many mindless games these days to worry about knowledge and all it gives. David

[Southernboy]

Wonderful stuff. And I agree on the subject of practical skills lost over time. 

 

Is it that many things are much more complex these days? Or have we simply grown timid of doing things for ourselves? 

 

Years back I wouldn't have shied away from rewiring the flat for instance, but now I feel the need to get 'professionals' in. Or maybe I just got older and less confident?

 

Somewhere in my Mother's attic I have a half-dozen editions of a railway modelling magazine from c.1925 which I must dig out one day. Likewise a delightful series of diagrammes from around the same period on how to make things like wireless cabinets, drainers for your sink and airing horses to hang from the kitchen ceiling. My Grandad made all these things rather than buy them from shops.

 

On similar vein I recall my grandparents having an old large wireless cabinet which they'd converted into a stand for a cutlery canteen. It looked very grand.

 

These days very few would think of repurposing something old. They'd go out and buy something new, and just throw the old item out.

 

Not being funny,  but my grandparents left a decent sum of money simply because they'd been resourceful all their lives, as many of their generation were. And I do sometimes wonder how these days cries of 'poverty' are not so much to do with lack of income, as lack of resourcefulness and lack of recycling old into new.

 

I read a book recently on the practicalities of the Victorian household and found it very interesting. Nothing was wasted, every penny counted. Old paper was used to make things like tapers for lighting the fire / candles. Soot from the grate was used for scouring kitchen surfaces. Etc. Fascinating stuff.

 

Apologies for rambling!

[pete_mcfarlane]

Sidney Camm designed the Hawker Fury in the 1930's, the Hawker Hurricane, the Hawker Hunter and the Hawker Harrier so he worked through quite some major changes in millitary aviation during his career.

I do find it amazing that one person could have a hand in aircraft that served with the RAF from the 1920s to the 21st century.

 

I have this Hobbies annual (and another from the same period) which belonged to late Grandfather. The monorail article sticks in my mind, as do some designs for home made electric motors. 

[jonny777]

Wonderful stuff. And I agree on the subject of practical skills lost over time. 

 

Is it that many things are much more complex these days? Or have we simply grown timid of doing things for ourselves? 

 

Years back I wouldn't have shied away from rewiring the flat for instance, but now I feel the need to get 'professionals' in. Or maybe I just got older and less confident?

 

Somewhere in my Mother's attic I have a half-dozen editions of a railway modelling magazine from c.1925 which I must dig out one day. Likewise a delightful series of diagrammes from around the same period on how to make things like wireless cabinets, drainers for your sink and airing horses to hang from the kitchen ceiling. My Grandad made all these things rather than buy them from shops.

 

On similar vein I recall my grandparents having an old large wireless cabinet which they'd converted into a stand for a cutlery canteen. It looked very grand.

 

These days very few would think of repurposing something old. They'd go out and buy something new, and just throw the old item out.

 

Not being funny,  but my grandparents left a decent sum of money simply because they'd been resourceful all their lives, as many of their generation were. And I do sometimes wonder how these days cries of 'poverty' are not so much to do with lack of income, as lack of resourcefulness and lack of recycling old into new.

 

I read a book recently on the practicalities of the Victorian household and found it very interesting. Nothing was wasted, every penny counted. Old paper was used to make things like tapers for lighting the fire / candles. Soot from the grate was used for scouring kitchen surfaces. Etc. Fascinating stuff.

 

Apologies for rambling!

 

 

Don't apologise. I think you are spot-on; and it is not rambling just re-iterating the common sense attitude of that era.

 

I remember my grandfather still making tapers for lighting fires in the 1960s, and it had to be done 'his' way; very tightly folded so that they did not open up, and tapered as the name suggests then twisted at the end.

 

In our materialistic throw-away world we must admit that the advertisers have won. We are led to believe that old-fashioned means humiliation by our peers and that is feared as a fate worse than death. Hence we must throw out everything and live our lives in mimimalist splendour, with everything changed to suit "fashion trends" which are a way of getting us to buy new versions of things we threw out 30 years ago.

[APOLLO]

Ah what an era the 60's were !

 

I had my 4' x 3' Tri-ang TT in my bedroom, brother had an 8' x 4' Tri-ang in parents bedroom.

 

However we set up our Chemistry set on the kitchen table, complete with Bunsen burner fed from a rubber tube trailing the floor from a 1/4" bulb end gas tap (remember them ).

We also had the obligatory Mamod stationary steam engine, Meths fired. We wondered why the chemist gave us funny looks buying a bottke of Methylated spirits every week !!

The mamod was often "integrated" into the Meccano, and other toys also. Dismantling old TV's, and anything else worth dismantling, even dad's old motor bike once (probably worth a fortune today). Great days.

 

We survived - and so did the house (just) !!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

[kevinlms]

Don't apologise. I think you are spot-on; and it is not rambling just re-iterating the common sense attitude of that era.

 

I remember my grandfather still making tapers for lighting fires in the 1960s, and it had to be done 'his' way; very tightly folded so that they did not open up, and tapered as the name suggests then twisted at the end.

 

In our materialistic throw-away world we must admit that the advertisers have won. We are led to believe that old-fashioned means humiliation by our peers and that is feared as a fate worse than death. Hence we must throw out everything and live our lives in mimimalist splendour, with everything changed to suit "fashion trends" which are a way of getting us to buy new versions of things we threw out 30 years ago.

Unfortunately, a lot of such is made in such a way that it cannot be reused for another project in the same way. Often the plastic casing, is such that is next to impossible to glue back together.

 

In the paper today, there was an article on e-waste in 3rd world countries.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/world/inside-delhis-gadget-graveyard-where-the-wests-ewaste-ends-up-20160107-gm1h7z.html

 

Difficult to see how much of the equipment, can be reused. What use are 20 year old PC's & 10 year old mobile phones? With the phones, the networks are shut down for the older generations, certainly here in Oz, the old 2G towers are going to be shut down later this year. So the simple (no internet capability) phones, favoured by 'Grandma's', will become yet more junk.

[Guest Lyonesse]

Memories!!.Some of us still use Meccano.I built this about 2 years ago but having built it,it was about as portable as a double wardrobe but it did work very well,it was dismantled soon after but thats the beauty of Meccano.draglinefor web 13.jpgdragline 9 web.jpg

 

 

    Ray.

You may have seen it, but Neil Fraser's Meccano centrifuge deserves an honourable mention.

[Old Tearaway]

Actually 20 year old and over PCs are more useful to the hobbyist than a more recent model as they come with a useful parallel (the big D socket on the back) port and have the old ISA card slots inside.

 

The individual pins on the parallel port have addresses that can be activated or read via a simple BASIC programme to control and automate useful things, such as a model railway.

 

One will find that the Bernard Bambini press book "Interfacing PCs and Compatibles" (BP272) shows how simple it is to hook up stuff to the parallel port.

 

Building custom made cards to insert into the ISA card slots is a tad more complicated for anybody outside of the electronics engineering profession as there is a lot to carry in one's mind when concocting said card to perform some desired task through a few lines of BASIC.

 

Not all computer games are rubbish..... there are virtual model railway and train driver simulators to play about with.

 

I enjoy playing Kerbal Space Program which is where one runs the little green men's (The Kerbals) equivalent of NASA. It involves designing everything, running a budget, a lot of planning, designing ancilaries such as rovers (and even moon trains if one wants), exploring, gaining science / research points and data, etc. Let's just say that NASA, ESA, etc. have provided a lot of input and even play it. It makes one appreciate just how hard space travel is and becomes the farther out one goes. There is a whole alien solar system to explore and survey and mine. 

 

The physics are authentic as are the crashes and explosions.

 

I can remember the first time I successfully landed a lone Kerbalnaut on their home planet's nearest moon (Mun). This had taken many hours / days of trial and error with a few launching disasters, ships falling apart before they even made it into space, crashes, etc. I felt that I'd finally cracked it..... then followed designing a rescue mission as my lander didn't have enough fuel to reach orbit if it lifted off. The rescue mission lander turned out to have a similar problem plus it fell over, which led to yet another rethink and a better design which then required a new design of lifting rocket.

 

Some folks, on U-Tube, show off what they have built in the game which includes trains for carrying cargo on far off worlds between landing sites and elsewhere. The guy to watch is a astrophysist called Scott Manley, who is a scotsman living in the US and lecturing at some university there.

 

The hardest thing to learn is how to actually fly a spacecraft as it requires a lot of instrument flying to avoid disorientation. learning about orbits and mastering rondezvous with other objects in orbit (can be extremely frustrating to start with).  

 

It's one of those games where one is stumped by a problem, not play the game for a while, have a eureka moment and play the game to try out the solution.... sometimes success, sometimes one is able to witness the graphics explosions,etc.

[sagaguy]

Not only a wonderful crane, but that looks like an interesting railway as well.  Any more pics or write up on RMweb?

Thanks guys,iwill post some pics of the layout soon,it doesn`t run very often,i`m more of a builder than a runner,truble is,it takes a bit of cleaning before it runs properly.The Meccano dragline is the model that was on the front of the later instruction manuals,replacing the Pinyon drawing of the giant block setting crane which,incidentaly whas printed back to front!!!.I did build this model in the late 1980`s but it was big & not a particularly good model,i believe there are instructions on the market for a version that works.One of the other models i plan tobuild when i get round to it is the model travelling crane that was on the rear cover of the Meccano Magazine in the 50`s.

 

                        

 

 

Hope i havn`t bored you too much,

 

                             Ray

[stovepipe]

If some inspiration is needed, a great many of the Meccano Magazines can be found on-line:

 

http://meccano.magazines.free.fr/covers.htm

[jonny777]

My problem with Meccano was that I failed to read the assembly instructions correctly for large items such as tower cranes.

 

I would get about twenty steps further on, and then realise that I should have added a longer bolt into the hole ages back because something significant needed to be screwed to it.

 

There were only two courses of action, undo all of my hard work back to that point and start again; or kick the whole thing over and stomp out of the room. Invariably, I chose the latter.

[Il Grifone]

Should 'Health & Safety' be keen on operating a steam engine with rotating parts whilst wearing a tie? Perhaps the item depicted is small, but its potentially dangerous on a larger piece of equipment.

 

Undoubtedly not! Probably the whole idea of a steam engine is anathema to H&S, with or without tie.

 

The device depicted is electric however using two solenoids as 'cylinders' with a crude commutator on the flywheel shaft. Besides the risk of catching one's tie in the flywheel while trying to persuade the beast to start, it would probably blot out everyone's radio and TV in the neighbourhood once started.

 

Pedantically, the telegraph pole is incorrect as the footrests should only start at ladder height to prevent unauthorised climbing - the attraction to children would be irresistible! - early H&S!

[Il Grifone]

Wonderful stuff. And I agree on the subject of practical skills lost over time. 

 

Is it that many things are much more complex these days? Or have we simply grown timid of doing things for ourselves? 

 

Years back I wouldn't have shied away from rewiring the flat for instance, but now I feel the need to get 'professionals' in. Or maybe I just got older and less confident?

 

Somewhere in my Mother's attic I have a half-dozen editions of a railway modelling magazine from c.1925 which I must dig out one day. Likewise a delightful series of diagrammes from around the same period on how to make things like wireless cabinets, drainers for your sink and airing horses to hang from the kitchen ceiling. My Grandad made all these things rather than buy them from shops.

 

On similar vein I recall my grandparents having an old large wireless cabinet which they'd converted into a stand for a cutlery canteen. It looked very grand.

 

These days very few would think of repurposing something old. They'd go out and buy something new, and just throw the old item out.

 

Not being funny,  but my grandparents left a decent sum of money simply because they'd been resourceful all their lives, as many of their generation were. And I do sometimes wonder how these days cries of 'poverty' are not so much to do with lack of income, as lack of resourcefulness and lack of recycling old into new.

 

I read a book recently on the practicalities of the Victorian household and found it very interesting. Nothing was wasted, every penny counted. Old paper was used to make things like tapers for lighting the fire / candles. Soot from the grate was used for scouring kitchen surfaces. Etc. Fascinating stuff.

 

Apologies for rambling!

 

No apologies needed (I am also guilty!)

 

Incidentally, you can't re-wire a flat now, even if you want too, you have to be professionally qualified - H&S again! You are allowed to replace a switch or socket but that's about it.

 

I have a new consumer unit lying around, bought when we moved several years ago, but the paperwork etc. involved to replace it means the old rewirable fuses are still in place....

 

(Don't repair it, if it ain't broke!?)

[jonny777]

 

Difficult to see how much of the equipment, can be reused. What use are 20 year old PC's & 10 year old mobile phones? With the phones, the networks are shut down for the older generations, certainly here in Oz, the old 2G towers are going to be shut down later this year. So the simple (no internet capability) phones, favoured by 'Grandma's', will become yet more junk.

 

 

Yes, although I wasn't thinking particularly of electrical equipment when I wrote my post; I was thinking more of clothes, furnishings and what many people these days would identify as 'clutter', but IMO add to the homeliness of a place.

 

There is even a bed advert on tv that now insists that mattresses must be thrown away after, at most, 8 years use. Now I realise that if everyone followed this advice their profits would skyrocket, but that was the point I was trying to make when I said that the materialistic advertisers had won.