[modeleng] New Member - Rod Clarke

Thanks for your welcome note Alan.

I served a "Sandwich" apprenticeship in Instrument and Control Engineering 
with Negretti and Zambra Aviation in London, in 1959-1963, which gave me 2.5 
years at the workbench and machine tools, but sadly ;-) led to an 
engineering degree which meant that I was unable to use any manual skills at 
work for the next 40 years.

With a growing family and limited space, I compensated by scratch-building 
locomotives in 4mm and 7mm scale until I retired as Chief Engineer of 
Pickering A Nuclear Generating Station in 1998. I only mention this because 
I used to be amused at the reactions that my hobby caused among professional 
engineers responsible for huge pieces of equipment, who had rarely seen a 
machine tool, let alone used one.

After I retired I got some of my skills back by working for 8 years on the 
volunteer restoration of the Handley Page 'Halifax' aircraft at Trenton, 
Ontario,  where we worked with antique machine tools which had been 
generously donated by the local Native Indian trade school. The aircraft had 
spent 50 years at the bottom of a Norwegian lake and was badly corroded. In 
many cases we had to reverse engineer fragile corroded remnants for which we 
had no drawings, and then machine the replacement parts. Lots of fun!

For the last 10 years I have also been writing the history of the Ontario 
narrow gauge railways in the 1870's, "Narrow Gauge Through the Bush". With 
publication done and more spce in the house I am at last free to get into 
live steam modelling in Gauge 1.

I have only a small lathe (TAIG Micro Lathe II Model 4500) with a home made 
milling attachment, which is certainly suitable for 7mm modelling, but will 
be challenged by Gauge 1 work. Accordingly I am making my start by building 
a Great Central Railway Jersey Lily 'Atlantic' from a parts kit based on the 
Paul Forsyth drawings. Once I have got that completed and running, I shall 
see where that takes me in terms of new tools and projects.

Rod Clarke
Whitby, Ontario

 

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