Models I Have Made For Others
Many of our members build models using a variety of materials and methods.  One of our 'senior' members looks back at some of the models he has made over the years as gifts for other people.
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The pictures above show two views of a Dolls House made for my daughter when she was 8 years old. Having spent a whole winter doing the carpentry part I was angling for a little model engineering so built a hand pump that lifted water into the kitchen sink from the reservoir below. After many years the dolls house continues to give pleasure to the succeeding generations.
A few years later I made a steam powered tugboat for my younger son who is seen here launching it under power in Queens Park. The superstructure of the boat was modelled closely on the tugboat then in use in Poole Harbour which I was allowed to board one afternoon for a photo session.
At one stage three of my grandchildren were hooked on a childrens TV program about Rosie and Jim, a pair of “came alive” puppets owned by a friendly bargee living on a narrowboat called 'Ragdoll'. I decided to make each of them a 'Ragdoll' as you see in the photo.
In the early years of my professional career, my boss allowed me to have a little “go” from time to time on the department’s Myford Super 7 and I became hooked! Over the years that followed we became good friends and many years later after he had retired he invited a group of us to gather one evening to celebrate his 70th Birthday . I decided to make him a gift and chose the simplest of the Stuart horizontal steam engines, the ST50. This makes up into a delightful model which I set to run for him that evening on the dinner table!
I worked regularly with a close friend in Bournemouth for over 25 years who was a keen sailor, so when he retired I chose to make him a small cannon, drawings for which had appeared briefly in Model Engineer.
The last model I am describing nearly finished me! I started when my elder son  was born, to build the ME 1” scale Traction Engine, not 'Minnie' but the one by Henry Greenly that appeared long before in 1933, for which drawings and castings were then available at Bonds 'O' Euston Road. Having at that time built nothing other than a Stuart V10 I had no idea what I was taking on! To cut a long story short, it was given to him, only partly completed, on his 21st birthday and finally finished and painted for his 40th!

Where have you heard that story before?!
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