Wonder Models

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 395, 2 July 1928, Page 16

Wonder Models

Perfect Cruiser Not Five Feet Long SPLENDID LOCOMOTIVES Wonders of patient effort and enginering skill were shown in an out-of-the-way shop on Saturday evening, when model engineers had their annual reunion. The exhibit, which took everybody’s fancy, was a 4ft 6in. oil launch, perfect in every part. Mr. S. A. Moren spent nearly five years of his spare time in constructing the engine and building the shapely hull of the Aotearoa, as pretty a craft as ever sailed the Waitemata. The engine, which is about a span high, is a four-stroke with reversing gear and clutch, and watercooled On a trial run before the boat was properly finished she did * about seven knots, and now she is capable of more. Steering wheel, engine controls, even the switchboard which turns on the cabin and deck lights are there in perfect proportion, and the hull has all the brass fittings of a 27-foot cruiser, It is an amazing sight to see Mr. Moren flick over the fly wheel and hear the tiny engine roar into speed. Then there was a model of a big North-Eastern green and black locomotive. built by Mr. Charles T. Jonas, president of the society of model engineers, who is a secretary by occupation. It also took five years to build. It is 4ft 6in long, and Mr. Jonas thinks it could pull four or five adults. The design was taken in some miraculous way from an illustration in a children’s book of railways, the scale being threequarters of an inch to the foot, and it is perfect in all the intricate driving and reversing gear even to the regulation smoke-box. Pumping its own water from the tender and fired with benzine, it is capable of getting up a steam pressure of 1501 b to the square inch. AIRPLANES ALSO Airplanes, telescopes, minute engines of all kinds, were on the benches. Mr. G. Spencer showed his hydroplane with its £ h.p. petrol engine, capable of 3.000 revolutions, and Mr. L. Gamble a model steam pinnace. An L-class locomotive, of the New Zealand Railways type, was exhibited by Mr. C. Auger, and Mr. J. Graham, secretary of the society. showed a splendid model traction engine The gold medal winning locomotive, built by Mr. H. Davison for the Christchurch Exhibition was on show, and Mr Frank Roberts had a section of his electric railway system, a country station with coal and water depots in runnns order. A beautiful piece of work was the compound marine steam engine with counter-weighted crank shaft, bull: by Mr E. J. C. Reston. one of the young exhibitors Master Foster showed an excellent model of the railways L vugon. The energetic organiser. Mr. J A. Lawler, was responsible for the show.