Interlocking

The Midlands Model Engineering Expo is really the last vestige of model engineering shows in the UK, and was sequestered into a barn-style building just outside Leamington Spa.

The drive was a little too long for comfort, being around 2.5 hours each way – particularly since the exhibition, while full of passionate attendees and demonstrators – was not huge.

Displays

By the entrance were the competition display stands, with a broadly equal split of railway and non-railway prototypes, though the former were almost exclusively 3.5″ gauge.

Adjacent to the display stands was the G1MRA and Gauge 1 3D Circle, a lovely group of people and with whom I whiled away a couple of hours chatting. There are some very clever people on the group working with cutting edge rapid-prototyping tooling, it really feels like something a younger tech-savvy generation would enjoy – but I feel that G1 still has that reputation of being solely for the retiring country gent.

One stark exhibit was the way in which PLA distorted in the sunshine – whether that was because it got lasered by a conservatory window or through normal use is debatable, but has driven me to purchase a filament dryer to see if I can get PETG behaving a little better in my setup.

Templot has long been the gold standard for finescale track design, and has recently come out with printable track pieces. Those on display at the G1-3D stand were designed in CAD to the precise needs of G1, and looked brilliant.

Model Engineering Clubs

There were a number of model engineering society stands, unfortunately most of which were crewed by people who didn’t appear to have much interest in being there or promoting their clubs – it felt quite performative, though the exhibits were astonishing.