Member Profile

More about me:

I'm still very much a novice at model engineering, despite having been 'thinking about it' since teenage days. Back in the 1960s I was student engineer with W H Allen of Bedford. This period included 12 months in the old Lincoln works of Wm Foster, which had just been taken over. I visited all parts of both works for long enough to see what was done, but not long enough to learn how to do it ! However I can claim that I was there when we had a heavy engineering industry in England. Having realised that it was the historical, not the future, side of engineering that interested me, I switched to agriculture/food processing till recently retiring early for health reasons.

A 40 year friendship with R H Clark, author of many books about steam on road and rail, lead to him bequeathing a number of historical model engines to me. Shortly afterwards I inherited an early ML7 and various other bits and pieces, which stirred me to take the SMEE training course – which I can't recommend too highly.

Apart from the reciprocating steam engine, my other great mechanical love is the Brough Superior motorcycle – again thanks to Ronald Clark. I've been lucky enough to own Broughs since my school days, when ordinary people could afford to buy them!

Unfortunately I'm better at 'thinking about it', also reading about it on page and screen, than doing it. Progress is slow, but helped and inspired by this forum.

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