Woman Builders

My late mother Yvette Etter (from South Africa) built a Great Canadian Railways locomotive called Caribou (featured in your mag some years back). Can anybody tell me if there are any other female builders?

Welkom Brian,

Sorry to hear about your Mom.

Is your Dad still around and at Knysna?

Had a drive in the steam crane he had at the rear of his Jo'burg factory, something he was deservedly very proud of.

Geoff - Goed gaan kerel en alles van die beste

Google "Cherry Hinds Hill"

Julia Olds wrote a series of articles about boiler building recently.

There is of course Jo who posts occasionally on here, but mostly on the Model Engine Maker forum. There's not too many men who would come up to her standard.

Bert

Going round and setting up and commissioning CNC machines I meet a lot of very interesting people from both sexes and all walks of life.

Not everyone wants machinery to build models.

However I have met four female engineers who TBH are very, very good at what they do and not always by CNC.

One thing they all have in common is that they are all very private people and whilst I can generalise none of them would want any details made public.

So if I know four then the chances are there are far more out there just as there are male engineers who's use of forums and being public is of no interest to them.

I think the fact that people are able name individuals tells us an awful lot...

Neil

I think you'll find at least 2 or 3 women on this forum. I have met up with some engineers out there in the 12" to the foot world in every thing from motor racing to helicopters.

Ian S C

Yes I can only think of three lady members, Diane, Jo and Becky.

Julia Old also posts a lot on TT, her Burrell Builder site was very informative for anyone wanting to make kit built traction engines, although no longer on line there are a few printed versions still available and I have it in PDF. She has also extensively covered her build of a 6" Burrell Gold Medal Tractor and subsequent running reports, Last time I spoke with here she was thinking of starting a second one. Always happy to talk models at the many rallys she attends throughout the year.

Jo does some nice work and is always willing to share and explain her methods to help beginners. Hope to finish off some patterns over the christmas to drop off to her for a large scale engine we have been working on.

J

I should possibly re-phrase my question: Specifically, working model LOCOMOTIVES and not including static display and non working locomotives. Excluding tractors, stationary engines etc. Did any other woman world wide beat her to it? I would be ever so grateful if all fundi's would apply their combined research expertise to providing an appropriate answer.

I was thinking of applying to the "Guinness Book Of Records"

Yours in modeling,

Brian Etter

The book "Simple Model Locomotive Building introducing LBSC's Tich" includes photos of a Tich locomotive as well as a part built Juliet, both by a Mrs Ruth Daltry.

The Tich would of course have had to have been completed sometime prior to the books 1968 publication.

Clive

After WW2 there were plenty of women who knew how to use a lathe, and other machine tools, and while most would be glad when they could get home away from engineering work, there must have been a few that grew to like working with metal.

One who comes to mind is a woman in Christchurch NZ. The RNZAF Museum needed to get a magneto rewound, and they found this elderly lady who had spent her time during the war rewinding magnetos, and she was able to do it, and I think pass on the information required if it was required again.

Ian S C

> they found this elderly lady who had spent her time during the war rewinding magnetos, and she was able to do it, and I think pass on the information required if it was required again.

I've just read Chris Stringer's Lone Survivors. One possible cause for the 'cultural explosion' of humanity is that two things happened - first there were enough people to preserve a large body of knowledge and secondly there were enough old people that knowledge that was only needed on rare occasions (e.g. where to find water in an extreme drought) could hang around long enough jump the generations.

Neil

So far there is plenty of conjecture over this subject but nothing proving that another woman built a loco completely on her own? At the time Yvette Etter built her "Caribou" loco "Model Engineer" were so excited that they sent a team out to South Africa to meet her and compile the article which was then published on their return to the UK. From the research I have done Mrs Ruth Daltry was married to an engineer and it is highly unlikely that she built her "Titch" completely on her own? So far all my other research has not turned up any other contenders?

Brian

Well Jo who has been mentioned a couple of times above has two locos sitting at home not sure whether they are all her own work or partly hers

Julia who had the article on the loco boiler has also completed the rest of the loco as far as I know and her other half is not into model engineering although they both do the rallys together.

And I would not mind betting that Helen at Western Steam has also built a Loco.

J

I would bet that very few men have built their engines" entirely on their own."

By the sounds of it she did not make it all by herself, from ME

" After two years of co-operative effort between my husband and myself and after importing our boiler from Birmingham, Caribau is now complete"

Brian do you know what issue this article is in, all I have found is a couple of letters from her in "postbag" and a cover photo that see sent to the mag?

J

Edited By JasonB on 27/12/2014 18:31:21

Hi Jason,

The co-operative effort Yvette refers to was Rene"s (her husband) tutoring and re-design of the boiler. It was felt that the boiler should be given to the gentleman in Birmingham (whom she had met at his workshop some years earlier on a visit to the UK and was by then professionally manufacturing boilers for your members) due to the specialised nature of these boiler design changes.

All other parts including all wheels, connecting rods, side frames, bogeys, cylinders/linings, valve gear, steam pressure valves, steam reversing gears, steam injector valves, steam whistle (true to tone-she built 7 before she was satisfied) etc etc were machined and assembled by her. The only other items not manufactured by her were the BA bolts/nuts.

Unfortunately I will need to dive into our collection of ME's to answer your last question. Will revert.

Best regards,

Brian

The boiler was built by the late Alec Farmer in 1963 and incorporated a combustion chamber. In the introduction to his book "Model Locomotive Boilermaking",Alec explained how he evolved his castellated joint design to manufacture this boiler to the size specified by the designer, the late Martin Evans.

Solid drawn tube was not available in the required diameter and an internal butt strap could not be used as it would foul the combustion chamber. Alec deemed an external butt strap to be too ugly, and schemed up the castelled joint following a trip to the Museum of Transport at Clapham. There he had seen a coppersmith's joint on the the firebox cladding of the loco Old Coppernob.

Dennis