Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition 2024

Thursday 17th to Sunday 20th October 2024.​

Warwickshire Event Centre, A425, Southam Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 1FE

www.midlandsmodelengineering.co.uk

THE Show for Model Engineers​

We look forward to welcoming you to one of the UK’s largest model engineering exhibitions.

There will be over 30 clubs and societies present displaying hundreds of exhibits covering a wide range of modelling skills.

There will also be nearly 40 of the leading model engineering specialist trade suppliers, all waiting to meet you and provide everything you need for your modelling activities.

SMEE will be presenting some practical workshops again this year which will focus on a beginner’s project Elmers No 19. Over the duration of the exhibition the team plan to make multiple sets of the parts and build a number of running examples as the show progresses.

For the more experienced model engineer there will also be demonstrations of more complex techniques as well as a range of their famous models on display and a chance to meet the members and learn about their training courses, programme of meetings and membership.

The competition and display entries are now open, and the entry form can be downloaded below.

At this year’s exhibition, the John Stevenson Trophy will be awarded in association with Model Engineers' Workshop and the www.model-engineer.co.uk website. This competition is awarded for excellence in practical and useful workshop equipment. For more information on the competition and how to enter your work see www.model-engineer.co.uk.

The Association of Helicopter Aerosports will be at the exhibition with an indoor static display, simulator, and outdoor flying demonstrations! The static display will cover various types and sizes R/C helicopters and the simulator will allow visitors to have a go at flying R/C helicopters. Weather permitting the AHA will also have an outdoor flying demonstration of scale model helicopters. Models included in the flying demonstrations are a 1/8 scale MH-65 Dauphin, a 1/7 scale Bell UH-1B Iroquois (Huey) and a 1/8 scale Westland Lynx HMA Mk8.

The lecture program is also shaping up and the full schedule will be announced soon!

There video of the show on Youtube, eg:

Some most impressive work.
You folks over yonder got talent.

I like that Viking boat too.
Lots of serious effort to set up a show like that.
Thanks for posting; great video !
.

Charles
Many thanks for the video. You did a great job of showing most of the models and capturing the atmosphere. The really good improvement from last year was the venue lighting. This year you could actually see the models!!!
I agree with GreenTwin re the effort in organising the event so lets hope it will continue and not die like the London shows.
I would be interested in comments about other shows in the US and elsewhere re the age of the attendees. For this show there were not many younger visitors and I would guess the average age to be 65+
Thanks again
Mike

Charles Lamont said:

There video of the show on Youtube, eg:

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting Charles, can't get over how few people were around the show compared with my previous visits.

Mike Ginn said:

I would be interested in comments about other shows in the US and elsewhere re the age of the attendees. For this show there were not many younger visitors and I would guess the average age to be 65+

Click to expand...

I see this as a serious problem in the US, and I took note of this at the 2019 NAMES show.
I call it the "blue hair club", with all due respect; walkers, canes, crutches, etc. (I am not exactly a spring chicken myself, and have a cane).
No young people in sight.
At another show (Soule, in Mississipi), they bring in busloads of school kids, and so some of them have actually seen my display, and the return the next year with an engine they have built themselves.
I am not sure how we connect with the younger crowd.
I do let all the school kids touch/rotate/operate all my engines, and thus it becomes a learning affair, and they have a physical feel for how the engines operate.
If we don't connect with the young folks, it won't matter how nice the engines look, there will not be anyone who attends the shows and looks at them. They won't even have any concept of what they are, or what they did/do (they don't have this concept now I am afraid).

I let the school kids play with my patterns, castings, etc., anything to get some hands-on experience, and generate interest.

A few of my thoughts.....

Edit1:
The Soule Museum also has a separate event every year, which is a Maker's Faire, and I have attended that several times.
I bring out patterns, castings, etc., since foundry work is definitely making something.
There are more young folks at the Maker's Faire than at the regular yearly show at Soule, and there are all sorts of activities at the Maker's Faire that are hands-on, and allow the kids to actually make/create things, and take those things home.

The knowledge has to be passed to the next generation.
My dad showed my son how to build his own steam engine, and they built it together in my dad's shop.
My son was about 8 years old at the time.
.
Edit2:
The competition at model engine shows is ok, and I understand how it adds excitement and interest to a show (except when Cherry Hill shows up), but at some point the model engine builders must pivot towards saving the hobby, and advertising things at the shows that involve young people building engines, or learning to build engines.
I know a little of this goes on, but not enough to sustain this hobby.
Every kid that attends a show should leave with a small beginner's engine in their hands.
At one show, a kid kept admiring one of my dad's little engines, and after a while, my dad picked up the engine, handed it to the yound boy, and said "Now it is yours". How many model builders would do this? (photo attached)
That is one way that model engine builders are born.
.

In the UK the models are judged to a criteria and if more than one meets that and scores highly enough in any class you will get an award so there could be more than one Gold in any class. It is not 1st,2nd, 3rd so you could still get a Gold if she shows up.

There are also options to enter your models as "loan" which means you are just showing them for shows sake and not hunting for gongs. Though it has been known for organisers to ask for loan models to be put into the competition if it is not well supported.

The show was certainly busier when I was there Thursday moring, not sure when that video was taken but it does start to thin out towards the end of the day so that is actually a better time to film or take photos as you don't have people in the way.

Charles Lamont said:

There video of the show on Youtube, eg:

Click to expand...

Absolutely fantastic. I have so many questions and no way for answers. I am always so amazed that the British have the positive culture of getting off their silly phones and going to see these type of events and MAKIING something interesting. Does anyone go to the wine competitions?

Well done Charles

For the record, it is not my video, I just posted a link.

I was there on Saturday, and there were plenty of people about, but it was not packed.

There is definitely a striking contrast between the US shows and the UK shows.
The UK folks have some stunning work for sure.
.

Charles Lamont said:

I was there on Saturday, and there were plenty of people about, but it was not packed.

Click to expand...

I was there on the Friday and it was packed!

GreenTwin said:

If we don't connect with the young folks, it won't matter how nice the engines look, there will not be anyone who attends the shows and looks at them. They won't even have any concept of what they are, or what they did/do (they don't have this concept now I am afraid).

Click to expand...

Go out to a competition of high school robotics clubs and I think you'll see plenty of kids that are passionate about designing, creating and operating mechanical stuff. They may not be making scale models of long-obsolete things from the past but they are developing skills that let them build things that sprang from their imagination. Will some go on to be model makers? I would guess so. Also, you could make a case that 3D printing is like a gateway drug into metal working. As the world becomes ever more digital, there is going to be some number of people that get satisfaction from making real, physical items.

And I think that we may have to accept that in-person shows are a pre-internet concept. I'm not saying that is all good but the time and cost to travel to a show are very real. In that same time, and for no additional cost, I can pick and choose videos on Youtube or threads on a bunch of forums. With no geographic limit.

Craig

GreenTwin said:

There is definitely a striking contrast between the US shows and the UK shows.
The UK folks have some stunning work for sure.
.

Click to expand...

So why do you folks think there is the contrast between the UK and US shows (I have not been to a US show). Also is there really a difference in standards of work - and if so any ideas why?

trlvn said:

Go out to a competition of high school robotics clubs and I think you'll see plenty of kids that are passionate about designing, creating and operating mechanical stuff. They may not be making scale models of long-obsolete things from the past but they are developing skills that let them build things that sprang from their imagination. Will some go on to be model makers? I would guess so. Also, you could make a case that 3D printing is like a gateway drug into metal working. As the world becomes ever more digital, there is going to be some number of people that get satisfaction from making real, physical items.

And I think that we may have to accept that in-person shows are a pre-internet concept. I'm not saying that is all good but the time and cost to travel to a show are very real. In that same time, and for no additional cost, I can pick and choose videos on Youtube or threads on a bunch of forums. With no geographic limit.

Craig

Click to expand...

Thanx for that. What you say is all true--only one missing component: personal interaction and drinking a cup-o with a cigarette.

Mike Ginn said:

So why do you folks think there is the contrast between the UK and US shows (I have not been to a US show). Also is there really a difference in standards of work - and if so any ideas why?

Click to expand...

I don't know so much about the difference in standards, but I believe the Americans simply have too many other "fun" things to do, like watch tv, or eat potato chips, or go to mcevils for a fat burger or kill themselves with fentanyl. In short, I believe we Americans in general take the "bait" that we all have to "succeed" and success is how much $$ you have made. Well, ridiculous as that really is, too many people fall for it and believe in the rat race. The problem is that 98% of us CANNOT possibly succeed that way.

So the way to success is NOT thru$$ but rather self-fulfillment. Seriously. My belief is that people with hobbies are worth 100X as much as the living-dead sitting on the couch, gobbling potato chips, ordering out for fat-burgers even too lazy to answer the door for the fat-burger delivery boy! And as awful as it is, "America leads the way".

However, it is welll known in biology (and most of the the other -ologies) that arouind 15% of all plants and animals (even rocks and metals and non-living things) are what is called "deviant". This is not the colloquial meaning of a crazy, hatchet killer or a mad marijuana smoker, but merely an orgainism that isn't exactly like the other 85%. For instance, in 1834 or thereabouts, 85% of the moths in parts of Britain were white, the rest black. The next year, it was reversed! So what happened? I bet you Brits know the answer.

The industrial revolution revolved and the soot from the coal covered the trees providing a perfect back drop for black moths and a perfect target on the backs of white moths for the hungry birds. So my perch on all this bird/moth question is that those of us with constructive things to do are like the hungry birds and the living-dead are like the moths. If we look carefully at all cultures and all countries I believe we would actually see the same phenomenon shaped by culture and circumstances-only America has the $$ to feed the lazy, incompetent, self-worthless, living-deadbeats. One would never have seen such a phenomenon in soviet Russia during Stalinist times. I thimpfk I would rather be here, now than there then, no matter the deadbeat phenomenon.

Mike, I doubt that I answered your question but maybe a bit of light on it. I'm just curious, tho', do you thimpfk I should write a book or be a standup comedian?

Mike Ginn said:

So why do you folks think there is the contrast between the UK and US shows (I have not been to a US show). Also is there really a difference in standards of work - and if so any ideas why?

Click to expand...

Some of the things that jump out at me are the painting on the locomotives and the steam tractors.
I generally don't recall seeing such eleborate paint work here.

Some of the models are more complex than what I have seen at shows here, such as the compound steam engine.
Overall, there is much more of an air of formality and neatness in what is displayed on the tables, as far as vendor material.
At the 2019 NAMES show, there were a number of vendor tables with literally piles of iron castings.
I have not attended any other large model engine shows here in the US.

Not that one type of show is better or worst than another; just different.
The BOB's (best of the best) are extraordinarily good on either side of the pond as far as engine quality.

One advantage of modeling in the UK that I see is that there are a number of old steam engines that remain, and many are operational. I think the steam engine displays in the UK museums are probably far more indepth that anything found in the US.
Steam engines and technology in general had a big head start in the UK, and the technology was very advanced before the technology began to get more developed in the US. Most don't seem to particularly care about preserving out technical heritage here.

And there is the Stuart model engine heritage that goes back quite a ways in the UK.

One of the advantages of having a less formal type of show in the US is that (for the Soule Museum show) you can show up with an iron foundry, put it out in the grass, operate it, and cast parts while people are standing around watching.
Soule is the factory and foundry where they made the Speedy Twin engines, and so not technically a model engine show, but they (and I) do display model engines at that show.
Since I built my own iron foundry, and cast my own engine parts, I am keenly interested in teaching that technology to others, for the sake of knowledge, and also for the sake of making one's own gray iron engine parts; this knowledge needs to be preserved. Soule has also had cupola iron demonstration pours.

I like to watch model engine show videos from around the world.
With the high res video cameras these days, it is interesting to browse the videos and look closely at the interesting things on the tables. One show I saw had an (outdoor) operational model V1 engine, and it was very loud.
.

I wonder if part of the difference in Quality is due to the English judge the entries and award prizes. The judging may include a critique.

I would say maybe only 25% of the models in the videos or images on line were in the competiton classes so unlikely to be that.

I have seen as good quality work over the years from photos and video of the US shows but lets face it an engine that is being run is unlikely to look as good as one that has been cleaned up for static display as oil and exhaust muck does not do much for presentation.

Jason,

Maybe.

I think though that the judging creates an atmosphere or expectation of excellence. We tend to run what we brung. I'm also surprised at the number of engines on static display and wonder how many of them ever ran.