Meeting reports

Meeting on 29th June 2024

We held our Summer Meeting and AGM at the Cardiff Model Engineering Society Club House. Our committee Chair and member of the Model Engineering Society, Steven Tyrer, welcomed us with an enthusiastic (and particularly optimistic) manner. We were then quickly brought back down to earth, with a warning, as he introduced the first of our member presentations… do all horological meets start with a baby photo I wonder? Cue member Ed Cloutman, with a fascinating tale of his life because “now you’re here and you can’t get away”. As far as we are all aware Ed is of sound health and doesn’t seem to be departing this earth any time soon but giving us the grand tour of his life whilst still here is better than getting it second hand after the funeral! Thank you Ed. It was indeed a very enjoyable and entertaining insight into a person’s passion for horology, not to mention astro-photography, engineering, ecology, model locomotives, electronics, sailing and more! We hope a book may be in the pipeline!

​

Following on from Ed, sadly with no baby photo, committee treasurer Tony Panes brought along his latest acquisition that’s been keeping him busy. A Henry Williams eight-day longcase c.1750, standing some 7ft 5½ inches tall, to which Tony is applying some much-needed restoration. The hood retains some of its beautiful walnut/fruitwood blind fretting for which Tony is remaking the missing sections and

debating if once it had been coloured,

possibly green with red silk backing?

Tony’s handmade scratch stock 

 will help remake a missing moulding.

A fabulous project and we look forward to seeing the results.

​

​

​

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

Our third member contribution came from Steven Tyrer, as he explained

the work he has carried out on his Quorn cutter-grinder. Made on one

milling machine and a Myford Lathe, with

10 new collets for the different wheels/stones to fit on,

it’s been a year’s project.

The final outcome “moves every way imaginable!” and is perfectly

finished in a beautiful Myford green!

​

​​​​​

​​The AGM followed with few changes and committee members happy to continue in their current roles. If anyone is interested in joining as a committee member it’s a fairly low input role mainly helping with suggestions for speakers and generally bouncing ideas about. Please see full AGM minutes for more details.

​

‘Drilling Small Holes’, by Alan Cobb, started with the dictionary definition of eccentricity: deviation from an established pattern or norm, which when you are working with minute holes of 3 thousands of an inch in diameter is incredibly important. Alan continued to explain how he used a jewelling tool and then a watchmakers lathe to get the hole centred correctly.

​​

​

​

​

Secretary Brian Coles gave us a lovely history of Russian ‘Jockele’ clocks.

Jockele being the name for a small wooden framed Black Forest

clock first made c.1790. The Russian versions, first manufactured in

1943 and called Khodiki, bear some interesting similarities to the

20th century evolution of the German Jockele. Brian has written

a small article which goes into more detail, soon to be found on the

Society’s website. Thank you Brian!

​

​​

​

​Gareth Luckwell brought along a 19th century ‘mystery’ measuring tool and kept us guessing! It looked like a small Vernier gauge, but without the Vernier scale! Curiously it had metric and apparently ‘inch’ divisions. Looked at carefully, the inches were slightly long… French inches of course! Most of us had never seen a ligne gauge before (for measuring the size of watch movements), let alone an antique one.

​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

Alan took to the stage again with a selection

of horological items, my favourite being a WW2

leather aviators strap to hold a pocket watch in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan also brought along a selection of pocket watches and a single hand 1750’s birdcage movement in need of some attention; luckily Brian was on hand to play Sherlock Holmes and advise on the missing parts.

​

Finally Lyn Elson and Meg Hall ended the day following Alan’s theme of various horological interests. Lyn’s late 18thC pedometer captured everyone’s attention. Appearing to be a pocket watch at first glance, but inside a William Payne 1831 patent mechanism gathers the rack teeth with every step (or gallop of your horse). To ‘calibrate’, for example, one would take a walk with pedometer at the hip, and upon reaching a mile make a note of the step count. Now every future walk can measured working off the initial mile count. Certainly a much more attractive accessory than todays Fitbit, but how incredibly frustrating to lose your PB by accidentally resetting it at just the touch of a button… perhaps not so dissimilar to todays version after all?

​

Meg Hall brought along a few homemade essential tools of the workshop including a drawplate, a countersink and a ‘steel tube in a sleeve you hit to get a sure bush fit…’ – it also helps to avoid marking the clock plates. Meg also brought a proportional sector used for clock making. The instrument can be used to measure a wheel and work out the diameter and tooth count for the corresponding pinion. Simple. Luckily the sector passed the test when we had a go; Ed corroborated, “It works!”. Phew.

​

And here endeth the day. Thank you to everyone for your contributions to the day; we look forward to the next meeting, in Grosmont, with speakers Dennis Radage and Anna Rolls. See you there!

​

PS, did I mention we got to ride on a model train? We did. It was brilliant!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

Meg Hall