My Early Model Engineering Years In U.K.

Setting up and running my model engineering workshop here in Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand reminds me of my first introduction to model engineering in the UK many, many years ago.

I was about 15  years old and still in school when Dad bought me my first lathe.

It was a worn-out 3 1/2″ Drummond flat bed lathe. The headstock bearing were so worn that you could lift the spindle off the bottom of the bearings by hand. It was only kept in place by self-weight, so cuts had to be light or you lifted the spindle.

The leadscrew was so worn at the headstock end you could actually see with the naked eye the difference in thickness of the screw thread at both ends of it.

These was no topslide and the tool holder was made up of plates of steel welded together and eventually the welds failed.

Still being school I had little money and couldn’t afford to buy all the drills, reamers, taps and dies etc that you need for real model engineering. Most of the drilling was done in the lathe with the workpiece supported by the tailstock barrel. I eventually bought a drill-press holder for the Black and Decker hand drill.

I made my own cutting tools out of old carbon steel hand files.

Despite all this I managed to make a 3 1/2″ gauge rolling Juliet tank engine chassis. (Rolling because it had wheels. No cylinders or valve gear)

It was make do and improvise.

Model Engineering (for me) in Thailand is like that. Not because of lack of money (although the very high cost of importing from the UK does make it almost prohibitive) but because of lack of suitable suppliers. (Or more correctly lack of knowing where suitable supplies are and this is being put right now through the Resources Section of this website)