June Club Evening.
The decision to alter the venue to the Christchurch Centre from the proposed trip to the Puffing Field was inevitably a last minute one but as the rain came down, it was the right one. Numbers were good, as if a drop of rain would matter. Our chairman had offered a short presentation and I had by me an emergency one as well. So the stage was set and we started off with our Chairman.
He had a Useless Box, constructed by himself which consisted of a box with a switch, which when thrown, a lid would open and an arm snake out and turn the switch off. Hence the name! Mike went through an analysis of why, how and when such a box might enrich life. We were introduced to the insides of the box containing a motor and arm and circuitry, please note there was no Arduino board involved.
The family moment came when the chosen whimsical toy animal had to be butchered in the name science to allow the functionality of the box. The gearbox ratio was such that the speed of operation was measured in milli seconds and in a time less than a blink, it was all over.
A short video of Mike's Useless Box can be seen HERE.
Anyone interested in copying or proposing improvements should contact our chairman!
I was the second offering of the night. I had brought in a fishing boat which had previously been a decorative ornament. I found the model on the For Sale site Gumtree, I immediately fell in love with it and the price of just £12. An enquiry to the seller said she would rather someone would come by and pick it up. As the model was in Scotland I was not going to do this!
The following day I sent her another message saying if she changed her mind I was still interested. I said my intentions were to have her sailing for the first time and that myself and various other grandads gathered on suitable Wednesdays to get together, chew the fat and sail our boats.
She came back and said she could not resist the story and said she would dispatch the model for £20 and I said Yes Please. The model arrived 3 days later and it looked even better than the picture. I reassembled it and had some bits over, which was a surprise. By now we were on email terms and she sent me the picture that accompanied the Gumtree ad which revealed where the bits all went. If you want to know how to slip an email address into Gumtree messages, I will tell you off-line!
I expected to have a problem as the boat had been assembled, scratch built from plans, with no thought for the possible ingress of water. But first I had a need to see inside, the construction was ‘bread and butter’ and had been done very well. Also as expected the cabin had not been glued down and came away easily revealing a large cavity below. This was good news. To be on the safe side I decided to check if she floated. I took everything off of the deck, thinned down some varnish and poured an egg cup full inside and swirled it around. I waited a bit and the held her vertical and the remaining varnish poured out of the apparently sealed bows. It became clear that the fitted prop tube and shaft were too slack around the bearings and I removed them.
New shaft and motor were fitted, and a brass rudder constructed, and with more varnish to seal the inside wood I thought I hade done all necessary. But when set up with radio and rudder servo she did still have a leak. An enquiry on a model boat website had one of our own members Rob reply, and he suggested I try Eze-Kote, a water based resin coating, and with 3 coats of this and matching the red paint of the rudder area it was back to the lake.
She floated and did not leak but needed a slight increase in speed. Batteries, or more correctly cells, have fixed voltages and I was using a 6 cell (7.2 volts) NiMh battery, an extra cell would do it but weight and balance would be a problem. As current consumption would be too, I decided to try 8 cells and limit the input voltage with a Buck converter.
On testing and setting up the output voltage to 8 volts the plug and play of modern electronics all worked! However, the chosen ready wired batteries had labels that grossly exaggerated their capacity, so we shall see how they perform on the lake!
My presentation over, we had a few minutes before the tea break and Rob took the opportunity to give an update on the construction of his ‘Marlin’ river cruiser boat which now had undergone a painting process and Rob hoped that he would have it fully completed in time to display at our club model show in September.
After Rob finished there was a general air of catching up with each other over the tea and biscuit break during which Mike C showed work-in-progress on his Arduino controlled tank commaner figure. Intended to be a dynamic feature on his popular Tiger Tank model, it utilises no less than seven miniature servos to animate the figures torso, head, arms and hands to make lifelike movements, it may also be possible for the figure to issue pre-programmed verbal commands...that will be interesting to hear!
Frank brought his HO gauge American locomotive which he demonstrated on a rolling road and played some synchronised sound effects that are programmed into the loco to add another dimension of realism. A short video of Frank's loco can be seen HERE.
I spoke to a new possible member and was pleased to see Matthew V who was between terms at university. We did have another presentation lined up, a few had left due to weather conditions but many remained and were enjoying a conversation and it was all going well so we let the presentation ride until another time. There was a flow out of members around 22.00 hours.
My thanks to all that made the evening work, tables, chairs and tea and coffee all done with such automatic precision. We will be at the Christchurch Centre again in July, the subjects still being worked on but probably the smaller scale in trains and small commercial and steam and electric boats for August. Details as soon as they have been formalised.
Regards to all.
Roy Verden 11th June 2026