Miniatures packed into library
Fitting more than a dozen trains and some aircraft engines in a small room would usually be akin to lunacy.
But with the tagline ‘‘we can make it smaller’’, the Palmerston North Model Engineering Club was never going to have much trouble achieving the task.
The Palmerston North City Library was full of trains, aircraft engines and more on Sunday afternoon for the club’s biennial Model Mee exhibition.
Everything from model trains to small aeroplane engines were on display, while the library put its Meccano collection out for those wanting to make their own creations. There was also a table dedicated to more odd creations, such as an engine that ran on a bungie cord and another that had a beer can as part of its chassis.
Club member Cynthia Cooper said she had been a fan of black tank engines her whole life. There were 29 different clubs around the country, each with its own quirks.
The Nelson club, for example, had a pond, so spent lots of time making miniature boats, she said. ‘‘If you can make it smaller, or just want to have a go at making it smaller, you can give it a go.
‘‘Some things won’t scale down, because you can only make pipes so small before they don’t work.’’
While inspiration could come from anywhere, Cooper said most people would copy full-sized trains, planes or boats. ‘‘Sometimes you can get the original plans and scale them down and sometimes you have to work from photographs, which is much harder.’’
Another member, Richard Lockett, said the aircraft engines took ‘‘precision engineering’’, but kitset models were a good place to start.
It was a good hobby for those wanting to hide in a ‘‘man cave’’, he said. ‘‘Most engineers are introverted sort of characters, who like to hide away in their sheds and do this stuff without bothering people. You have to have the right mindset for it. You’ve got to have an attention span, and some people struggle with that.’’