Inspired by the builders of the past

With regard to your editorial in the December issue and ‘instruction manual’ construction features. I fully agree with your correspondent’s preference for these – if it had not been for Doug Hewson’s wagon-building series I would not have taken out a subscription to EIM.

I found his drawings and building instructions first class – not only did he show how to build the wagons, he also showed how to build the jigs to make the parts.

I purchased a set of drawings and his materials and started construction of a BR 20-ton brake van. A petrol tank wagon came next followed by two wooden wagons. All the floors and sides are single planks of American white oak (cut from kitchen cupboard doors). The three-hole wheels and axleboxes are machined from cast-iron bar stock, the strapping came from a college scrap bin.

At present I am building an iron mink gunpowder van – I have enough wood left to make at least four more wagons, possibly a ventilated fish van.

Building Anthony Mount’s Verto steam engine and boiler gave me the confidence to construct a freelance horizontal twin-wheel steam engine entirely from scrap – nothing was purchased for this engine, just leftovers.

With Doug Hewson’s series having appeared 25-plus years ago and Anthony Mount’s series of the Verto 12-plus years ago, why not repeat their work for the young engineers that were not born when model engineering was at its best?

Graham Hughes

The Editor replies; Thanks for sending in pictures of some superb models Graham. Reprinting old series has been considered but it is not that easy to accomplish – the means by which features were produced in the early days of EIM was very different to today and even if the original material is available it may not always come up to modern reproduction standards.

What do other readers feel about period build series being reprinted? Would they welcome their presence or feel short-changed? Meanwhile I repeat what I said last time – if someone is ready to produce an ‘instruction manual’ build series, I would be more than happy to print it...