THE METTLE
FOR METAL
REMINISCENCES OF
A MODEL ENGINEER
By
DENNIS HERBERT
Copyright © Dennis Herbert 2016
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
The moral right of Dennis Herbert has been asserted.
ISBN-13: 978-1539604617
ISBN-10: 1539604616
To friends, past and present, and members of the ‘Elmdon Model Engineering Society’.
Also the trustees and members of the ‘Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Trust’, who give so much of their time for the benefit and enjoyment of others.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
This book has not been created to be specific to any individual’s or organizations’ situation or needs. Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. This book should serve only as a general guide and not as the ultimate source of subject information. This book contains information that might be dated and is intended only to educate and entertain. The author shall have no liability or responsibility to any person or entity regarding any loss or damage incurred, or alleged to have incurred, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book.
CHAPTER ONE
Model engineering is now a hobby that is mostly dominated by the ageing male. Also, few people at the time of writing are being trained in basic ‘hands-on’ metalwork in our schools, or industry. Whilst I would hope that I am wrong, I do feel that this can only bring about a gradual decline in miniature engineering. That is, other than buying self-assembly parts that are commercially made. This would indeed be very sad, as model engineering is an art form which can be totally absorbing, relaxing, and self-satisfying.
I therefore feel that it may be an asset if I could offer just a few words of encouragement to any younger people who may feel daunted at attempting to take steps towards getting involved with this wonderful pastime.
I do feel qualified to offer some advice as no one could have embarked on a lifetime of model engineering with less than me; I left school without any academic qualifications whatsoever, just an awful desire to use my hands. My sole accolade was to once come top of the class in a technical drawing examination. Regrettably, this achievement gave me no self-satisfaction whatsoever; I had indeed misread the paper and made alterations to the required drawing that were unnecessary. The teacher apparently thought that I had shown initiative and marked my work above all others.
I also have to admit that nothing that I have made has ever won any prizes. And yes, like many other modellers I have come home from model engineering exhibitions feeling totally demoralised; seeing the extraordinary work that others can achieve quickly nurturing thoughts that I should stick to gardening! Totally discouraged, I have indeed locked my workshop, often for days, only returning to the bench just as rust was beginning to take over.
Some magazine articles can often be disheartening too. Published photographs showing glistening components stood on pristine lathe beds without a vestige of swarf can be discouraging, when reality just isn’t like that. Whilst every effort should be made to keep things tidy, just drilling a hole makes some swarf and this is something you do have to live with. My many years of experience have quite often found that little of interest has emerged from some of the most elaborate of workshops. Yet the work of craftsmen with a treadle lathe in the corner is likely to leave anyone agog.
However, the secret is to enjoy what you are doing, do your best, and always strive for improvement. Success and self-satisfaction will come with experience.
I bought my first hand tools in 1949 and I imagine that there are few amateur engineers who could now claim to have started to build the Trevor Shortland design 7¼" Gauge G.W.R. ‘King’ Class locomotive at seventy years of age. I therefore feel that with my seven decades of amateur engineering experience, I can offer many younger people some words of support regarding our special interest. I do not have a sophisticated workshop, no digital readouts or the like. Likewise, I have no bandsaw and have not yet resorted to laser cutting; indeed, my ‘King’ mainframes were cut out with a hacksaw on a workmate. If I can do this in my seventies, then a younger person should have no bother given a little determination. A drop of oil on the saw blade and it is amazing the ground that can be covered in a short time. Obviously, jobs of this calibre will not be done in a single session.
My ‘King’ 7¼" Gauge chassis, cut out with a hacksaw at seventy years of age.
In my schooldays we were given just a single carpentry lesson a week, where I would often look on with envy as the brighter boys in the class were allowed to treadle the woodturning lathe. In fact, I had never seen a metalworking lathe before finishing my education. Also, my father’s very basic tools resided in an apple crate in the garden shed along with the chickens during World War II; these hardly inspirational to any young engineer! His metalworking tools amounted to a cold chisel, hammer, and a hacksaw – without a blade. I would cringe whenever he humped this loaded apple box, red-faced and legs apart, out of the darkness of the shed. After raking over the surface he would inevitably upturn the box until every item he termed useful would flood over the yard. Old cycle and pram parts, countless recycled screws, their heads chewed or bunged up with paint, even down to old collar studs. Totally predictable, when the job was done, he would stand upright and pull on his waistcoat silver chain so that his pocket watch emerged from his pocket.
“Goodness! Is that the time? Put these back in the box, there’s a good lad.” An hour later I would still be fishing washers from the cracks in the yard and ball bearings from out of the drain.
Without any academic qualifications, particularly maths, it was unlikely that I would ever have made my way in engineering. However, I eventually left school with another great desire; my dream was common to many a young man of that time, that was to become an engine driver. I did eventually realise this dream by tracing my father’s footsteps. We both spent a whole lifetime as footplatemen and looking back, I would have changed nothing. Interested in trains since infancy, this career was to give me years of experience with steam locomotives before their sad demise.
Where my desire to do engineering came from was a complete mystery. Both my grandfathers died when I was six years old and it was only many years later, when my brother got interested in genealogy, that I discovered that engineering ran through both sides of my family. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was a toolmaker, indeed the family history indicated that there were ancestors who trained under Matthew Boulton and James Watt. My grandfather’s oldest brother also manufactured ‘Ravenhall’ motorcycles; a survivor is displayed in Coventry Transport Museum today.
On my father’s side, my relatives came from Wiltshire and a number worked in the Great Western Railway Locomotive Workshops at Swindon. So my desire for engineering was obviously in my genes.
Having no engineering training whatsoever, it would be unwise for me to begin to dictate to anyone the right, or wrong way, to do engineering; I can only share with anyone interested how I personally went about certain workshop tasks. Some methods that I have used over many years would probably make a time-s
erved engineer squirm. Nevertheless, model engineers have to always use what means are available to them, often in a very limited workshop. I tend to use the principal that as long as you do not damage your tools, you have the sight in both eyes and five digits on each hand at the end of the day, how you go about any task is acceptable if the end result is satisfactory.
Granddad Ravenhall – Toolmaker.
The ‘Ravenhall’ motorcycle on display at the Coventry Museum.
In my younger days, unable to get any advice or guidance from anyone, I did lose an awful lot of blood whilst learning. I would therefore stress that machine tools can be very dangerous in the hands of the untrained. Please, be safety-conscious at all times. I do have to admit that I was lucky to reach the age of twenty-five having all my fingers and the sight in both eyes!
Care must also be taken to rationalise one’s time and not allow this absorbing hobby to become an obsession. Shutting yourself away in the workshop and losing track of time is so easily done, those closest to you can soon begin to feel neglected and resentful. Model engineering is only a hobby, therefore loved ones must come first and work around the house and garden does need to be attended to if relationships are going to remain stable. Compromises are also essential if future regrets are to be avoided.
Whilst on the subject of relationships, noise can be a problem, particularly from a wooden garden shed which would tend to act as a sound box. A concrete floor is much more resilient to sound, even so, it is better to work at appropriate times to maintain the entente cordiale with close neighbours. Riveting a tender or flanging boiler plates can be very absorbing, but extremely annoying to anyone relaxing in the garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon!
Foremost, I would urge any potential young engineer to join a local model engineering society. Here, any amount of the older men will be available to offer advice and perhaps help you out of difficulties. Obviously, you must have a basic workshop, or at least access to one. I would also advise anyone not to buy castings and drawings and then expect to farm out various parts to be made by others, this will quickly make you very unpopular with other members of a society and folk will soon begin to avoid you like the plague! That is, if you do not show any eagerness to at least have a go and invest some of your own time on the project; you must make an impression that you are trying. A few years ago a young man actually did come to me with a roll of drawings and the castings for a small locomotive and asked if I thought he would be able to make it with a Black & Decker!
A further advantage of being a member of a society is that as the older members pass on, materials and tools then tend to come on the market at very reasonable prices. It is often preferable that items of a late engineer’s workshop go to a good home, rather than a dealer. There will also usually be someone in a society who can advise you on where to get the best deal for materials etc. This will be essential if you have household costs and a mortgage to pay. My first recollection of any attempt to do any model engineering came when I was eleven years old. On a rare occasion, when I was ‘Home Alone’, I resurrected a model steam engine from the garden shed. Some years earlier an older cousin had given my brother and I the moderately sized engine which our dad used to run for us fuelled by methylated spirits. When it was running at speed, our dad fed it with enough oil to take the ‘Coronation Scot’ from Crewe to Carlisle. Unfortunately, the boiler water level gauge glass was now cracked. As the engine was of German manufacture and we had been at war with Germany, inevitably a replacement part was unobtainable. The gauge glass formed a ‘U’ shape and was simply pushed through rubber seals into the end of the boiler, the glass then held in place by two screws. My logic was that I could remove the water gauge altogether, block off the holes and therefore run the engine. I deduced that I could always test whether there was any water in the boiler by opening the small tap fitted to one end of the boiler.
My neighbour loaned me his father’s soldering iron, so I then set to work removing the boiler from the engine. I made a good repair by soft soldering a brass plate over the holes left by the removal of the broken water gauge glass. Delighted with my handiwork, logic again said that I must test the boiler before I replaced it back into its saddle. The boiler was cylindrical, about three inches in diameter and some nine inches long, the outer barrel being rolled up from brass sheet little thicker than tin plate. I filled the boiler with water and popped it on the gas stove. Satisfaction was achieved, as there was no sign of any leaks as pressure rose. Then, just as a feather of steam began to show from the safety valve, there was a bang and who-ooosh!!! The plate that I had newly soldered on blew clean off the end of the boiler, leaving two gaping holes for the steam to escape. The boiler immediately launched itself like an untied balloon in the direction of the first wall of the nine feet by nine feet kitchen. I dived for cover under the large porcelain sink whilst for the next long seconds the boiler did several orbits of the kitchen, the exactness of my rocket science making Professor von Braun look like a bungling amateur.
With silence restored, I emerged from cover. My prototype ‘Sam’ missile had homed in on saucepans, crockery, and condiments, my mother’s favourite china teacup now amongst the shards on the red quarry tile floor, its handle still hanging on the brass hook screwed into the edge of the shelf! The atmosphere had become clammy; condensation ran down the cream and green painted brick walls. Water now dripped off the fresh newspaper which lined the shelves. It was therefore now necessary that any remaining time, until my mother returned, be spent on a damage limiting exercise. Nevertheless, prolonged effort failed to avoid the inevitable ear bending, particularly as the consequences could have been tragic.
I eventually started work as an engine cleaner at Tyseley Engine Shed, Birmingham, along with a school friend, John Millman, who was also a keen railway enthusiast. John was soon eager to make a Gauge 1 model of one of the then newest Great Western locomotives, the Hawksworth 4-6-0 ‘County’ class. He also made me aware of a shop on Moseley Road, Birmingham, where he could buy the necessary drawings and castings; this was in the early days of A. J. Reeves. In a nutshell, John’s enthusiasm soon rubbed off on me and so I became hooked on a lifetime of model engineering. I had at that time no idea that it was possible for an amateur like me to attempt such work in a home workshop.
John eventually met his wife to be and lost interest in model engineering for a time, that is, until he retired. Regrettably, he left the railway, along with many others, during the Beeching era. This was a very demoralising period at the onset of dieselisation. John then emigrated to Perth, Australia, where in later life he became president of the Castledare Miniature Railway. During this period, he made several very fine 7¼" Gauge tender locomotives.
I began to invest part of my ten shillings’ pocket money in hand tools and also bought the fortnightly ‘Model Engineer’ magazine for 9d. After spending 6d a day on cups of tea and dips in the fat in the canteen, and in addition having to pay my trade union dues and sick club fees, there was little money left to invest in any larger items. My father insisted that I paid into the sick club to guarantee that my mother at least got her housekeeping should I go down with illness.
John Millman, his sons, and his first 7¼" Gauge loco.
One of the first larger purchases that I made was one of the early ‘Wolf’ electric drills to come on the market. This was the precursor of a number of unwise investments in the tool line that I was to make. I was gullible and inclined to fall foul of concentrated advertising. The drill rotated at such speed that it would put holes in timber quicker than a .303 rifle bullet. Drilling metal was a different kettle of fish, at such a high speed my carbon steel drills heated up so quickly that their ends sometimes began to glow red-hot! My whole set of new drills all soon looked rather like well-sucked sticks of seaside rock.
In those days, no one that we knew owned as much as a vacuum cleaner; indeed, the houses had no power points for such luxuries. Any electrical equipment was usually plugged into the light socket, on
ce the bulb had been removed. Therefore, the whining from my new power drill was soon to puzzle close neighbours to such an extent that they crept round the back entry and peered through the privet hedge to investigate. Also, within an hour of owning the tool, Walter next door complained that the drill was ruining his enjoyment of Wagner, by obliterating the reception on his very envied 10-valve superhet radio. Walter’s complaint was no doubt justified, the motor armature probably blotting out the radio reception of the whole district!
As interfering with broadcasting was bordering on a hanging offence at that time, more pocket money was then necessary to send the new tool back to the manufacturers for the fitting of a radio suppressor. When the drill was finally returned it had a piece of equipment hanging on the lead the size of a kilogram bag of sugar. It now needed two hands to hold it, one to support the suppressor! This wasn’t the only drawback; my father began to grumble about the electricity that I was using. However, by this time I was now giving my mother regular housekeeping, this amount therefore had to be raised to cover the cost of the electricity and keep the peace.
I originally joined the Birmingham Society of Model Engineers when they were based in Sheldon, Birmingham, but compulsory military service was soon to intervene and the society ground was then also sold for redevelopment. The society moved out to Earlswood, which was some ten miles out in the country from where I lived. Few people of my standing were car owners at that time, so remaining a member sadly became impracticable.
The beginner does need to choose workshop machinery with care, particularly if you are on a tight budget. Today there is so much on the market which can be a great asset in a workshop, but certainly not essential. It is therefore a good idea to ask other long-term model engineers what their priorities would be and what they would find most useful. For instance, a four-jaw independent chuck will hold many shapes, whilst a three-jaw self-centring chuck will hold only round or hexagon material.
The Mettle for Metal Page 1