The Perpetual Demise of the Model engineer

[LukerParticipant @luker]

This is one for all the members of a live steam or model engineering club. This article was published some time back in Model Engineer, and I’ve just uploaded the first part to Patreon (free public access), for a wider readership. Hopefully this will be useful to some of the clubs out there…

https://www.patreon.com/posts/perpetual-demise-131876309

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I seem to remember reading it at the time and felt it assumed that the “model engiineer” was a person who just built locos and ran them on a track and that the title would have been better as “The demise of the model loco orientated club”.

Model engineering covers a far greater range of subjects, one only needs to look at the results of the recent survey to see that only 30% of readers belong to a club and that live steam locos were towards the bottom 1/3rd of what interested them. Also only 10% want a long series which is what it takes to describe the build of a loco.

There are also the large number of people who don’t consider themselves model engineers but who have a home workshop which is a “tool” used for their other hobbies such as RC, clocks, car/bike restoration, etc. As well as those that just like to restore machines and make tools.

Even those that do make “models” may just enjoy the actual making and not want to run the model much after an initial test run or two to satisfy themselves that it works. It then goes on the shelf and they move onto the next one. For these there is a lot less reason to join a club particularly if their main focus is running locos and maintaining the track to raise money for the upkeep.

Those that make Traction engines and want to run them are probably better catered for at steam rallies which often have a miniatures section than they would be at a club. Likewise those that make open crank hit and miss, hot air, etc will fit right in at the various rallies where similar full size engines are on display.

So maybe it is just a demise of one part of the hobby not “model engineering” as a whole and not helped by the attitude of some that Locos are the only form of model engineering.

[LukerParticipant @luker]

Valid points.

Most of the article actually deals with broadening the normal ‘live steam loco club’ definition and bringing other aspects of the hobby into the fold. The article gives examples of applied small scale engineering in making parts and badges for an old Harley in my back yard etc. The article shows how videos can be used to promote ME (in that example it was a large stationary engine being started).

Personally, my interest in live steam loco’s is due to the complexity of the design and difficulty in making all the parts for corrosion etc. Steam loco’s contributes a small percentage of my builds, but does give me a chance to practice certain engineering fundamentals that aren’t a consideration in IC etc.

The live-steam-scratch-builders are the rock stars of model engineering, anything less than a complex 5000hour build is singing in the shower 😉

 

 

[Dave SParticipant @daves59043]

I’m not a “model engineer”, I’m one of the others who happen to like making “things” as an alternative to the digital day job.

I attended a couple of meetings at my local club and it was just to (I hesitate to say it) old and boring. I have little interest in small steam locos, so I didn’t join.

My “club” is a selection of forums like this and Reddit.

Dave

[parovozParticipant @parovoz]

Our ME club is growing with membership increasing over the last few years. Our younger members are embracing modern manufacturing methods and we encourage different activities. YES there is still a big railway and a locomotive core, but our membership are involved in a broader range of activities. We have boat builders, car restorers, stationary steam engine folk, model railway ( HO and N ), Armoured vehicles, etc.

But I do think that ‘Old and Boring’ could be levelled at clubs. We as model engineers need to encourage all forms. Listening to the chat between our members, we are enthusiasts of ‘engineering based’ interests in the multifaceted way of engineering in general and we must embrace all enthusiasts that come to our club. I like to think that we do ‘reasonably’ well at our own club.

Our railway, whilst now very extensive, owes more to civil engineering than mechanical engineering 🙂

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Anecdotally at least, Dave S raises a common point. Although obviously we cannot condemn all clubs by the bechavour of just one, it does seem some are so centred on railways that other interests dare not cross the running-shed’s threshold.

It may be that some will welcome the clock-makers, the ornamental-turners, the buidlers of traction-engines or radial aero-engines; but no obviously, so deter by omission rather than commission.

There are though dangers by no means confined to model-engineering or any craft hobby, clubs; those of cliques, proprietorial attitudes and unfriendly individuals. I think these more “fatal” than other means to a demise.

The first is obvious: small herds who regard themselves as somehow special even within the club, and do not welcome newcomers. The visitor who chances to meet only the clique, which tends to form among the regulars anyway, will son be put off by the unwelcoming attitude.

The proprietorial attitude is often linked to the clique. This can develop among individuals who have spent years and quite possibly a lot of their own money (indirectly, by their own transport or tools costs) building the club’s assets and/or serving on its committee that they regard the place as their own.

The unfriendly individual might genuinely be friendly but shy and not easily sociable towards strangers, so appears standoff-ish and unwelcoming although manages somehow to fit into the club in his or her own way. Far worse though is the type who thinks him or her self special and although perhaps rubbing along with fellow-members, or has a peculiarly abrasive sense of humour. This type can seem (or be) very arrogant, deterring all but the most determined and understanding, potential member.

 

I have seen examples of all three, in different clubs; not all in model-engineering.

My own, and another, caving clubs offering self-catering accommodation to guest clubs, both suffered from the cliques and the “proprietors” at various times in the past, giving both clubs a bad reputation that tooks some time to dispel.

One, only one, member of my own model-engineering society was so rude to three members who had driven some twenty miles from their homes, bringing a locomotive with them, to help at a public event that the three left! The loco owner was particularly sensitive and the others reported to me he was badly hurt by being told “I say who runs on our tracks” – which was not even true.

.

All three forms of misbehaviour can have a very deleterious effect on any club, be it arts-and-crafts, outdoor-pursuits, sports or simply a social-club with no specific hobby.

 

However, I think things have changed within model-engineering, and to the better.

For example, another society to which I belong was founded several decades ago by people whose own branch of the hobby was not really understood or accepted by many clubs. Now though, I think more railway-based clubs are more accepting of non-railway interests. My home society has slowly developed from almost exclusively railway-based, to numbering more miniature traction-engines than locomotives – plus stationary engines – among its members; of whom we have more than in the past. Some of the owners have both road and rail steam! So too, many of the club stands at the exhibitions, display wide ranges of models, tools, clocks and so on.

 

Jason’s point about railway-based clubs revolving around having to operate the railway to raise money to maintain the railway, is valid, because it can make the club look as if that is all it does.

In the end though, a society devoted to a hobby is a bunch of people who should be sociable in sharing their hobby, and how healthy the society is, especially including welcoming new members, is very much down to the people within it.

 

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Model Engineering has always been a broad church, and old editions of the magazine show it’s focus changes over time.

Some model engineers assume ‘model’ means making small copies of things, but that’s only one definition.  Judging by the content of the early magazine issues, there wasn’t much interest in making small copies, and modelling steam locomotives only became popular 25 years later thanks to LBSC   Percival Marshall was a clever chap.  I think he preferred the other meanings of model: a very good example, and something or someone that deserves to be copied by others. Likewise, he didn’t insist that engineers be scientifically trained and formally qualified: rather he left the door open to the wider definition of “someone with technical skills”, and not just mechanical either.  Nothing narrow about early ME!

My oldest ME magazine is mostly about full-size electrical, wireless and motorbikes, plus a smidgen of railway news.  There’s nothing about making ‘small copies’.   Back then, seems most ME readers were interested in futures and innovation.  Across the 20th Century we see shifts of interest involving radio, boats, model aircraft, IC and electric motors, scientific instruments, photography, and steam.   For about 10 years ME was dominated by Traction Engines.  Now there’s considerable interest in retro repairs and old-school workshop methods, and not many build long-term projects.   This too is a temporary phase, and I could argue today’s Model Engineering is narrow and stultified compared with a century ago.

The challenge is that the world is moving on.  The hobby isn’t dying, it’s changing.  Youth are more interested in current technology than basic metalwork.  The danger is we damage the hobby by trying to sell youngsters chuff-chuffs, HSS, Imperial, ancient tool brands, Whitworth, hobby metalworking and the glories of British smoke-stack industry.  Youngsters consider most of that irrelevant, and they are not wrong!.

Luker’s article has considerable merit – it suggests ways of attracting new blood.   Jason is right too – ME isn’t all about locomotives!  Though I don’t know what the balance should be, I’m certain the answer isn’t resisting change!  We have to adapt, and that’s hard.

Dave

 

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The ‘people problems’ mentioned above are not ME related and are prevalent in every group, club, or society such as Churches, Women’s Institutes, garden clubs, housing residents’ associations, and probably every company business. It is human nature.
However 99% of MEs agree it is all encompassing and the only time you see the ‘trains only’ accusation is in articles and forums from a few individuals with a chip on their shoulder wanting to create controversy.
The USA equivalent of this forum and magazine is Home Shop Machinist which is more obviously not model steam oriented.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’m not sure what magazines Dave is looking at but Vol1 of Model Engineer & Electrician while still covering a broad range of subjects certainly has a far amount of “model” content. I’ve three engines drawn up from these few early mags that may at some point get built and they are Model engines not the fractional horse power working engines that are also featured ouite a bit in the adverts along with ads for model loco and stationaly engines.

Anyone wants to have a read then the first volume can be read on Archive.org You may just need to register to get more than the first few pages but it is free.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Intertesting what Jason says about the figures in the survey about loco builders as the latest mag has 22/3 pages of loco articles an 80 page mag of which 18 plus pages are adverts.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

[…] Anyone wants to have a read then the first volume can be read on Archive.org […]

and the subtitle clearly describes the target demographic:

a journal of mechanics and electricity for amateurs and students.

 

MichaelG.

[ShugsParticipant @shugs]

Some years back my son, who was just starting his teens, began to seriously developed his interest in model car kits. There was a local model railway club nearby which, on a Tuesday night, let out its room to a model aircraft club (not its workshop/machine room). The aircraft club members built plastic kits, the same as my son and I thought that there has to be a crossover in methods and techniques. I contacted the club and asked if he could came along, because of his age it was agreed that I should also come along. We tried it for 3 weeks but as no one spoke to him or even smiled any form of welcome, we gave up. Made me realise that Nevil Shute’s “Trustee from the Toolroom” was pure fiction.

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