Scottish Minimeet 2025

A somewhat late overview of the Scottish Minimeet, which occurred on Saturday 20th September.  Held at the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineer's Almondell Clubrooms, the day saw members from across Scotland bring their layouts and projects for viewing and friendly discussion with like minded enthusiasts.

Jim had brought Kirkallenmuir on a rare excursion from the Borders.

Kirkallenmuir has been widely written about in this Blog and by Jim on RMWeb and the 2mm Magazine.  it portrays a fictitious Lanarkshire mining and market town to the south of Allantown, set in the early 1900s, whilst the regal locomotives of the Caledonian Railway ruled the irons.

From the Pits of Lanarkshire to the Mills of Lancashire, Stuart had brought the first section of Lydgate Viaduct.  This NFine layout being one of four linked dioramas Stuart is working on based on a series of real locations.

This is a real example of how the railways are set into the landscape, with the eponymous viaduct dominating the scene, whilst the Mill buildings fill the foreground - these buildings looked massive by themselves, but look just right set into the landscape.

The railway will operate on multiple levels - the mainline running over the viaduct and around the main scene, whilst a branch line, serving the mill, will run down into the foreground.  All of the main roads are fitted with the magnorail system and will run a regular bus service!

Alistair had brought along his first 2FS layout.  This serves as a testbed for track construction and laying, as well as some scenic materials

Angus had brought RNAS Glencruitten for its first public appearance north of the border - based on several real life locations, the layout shows a WW1 era Airship Station and the affiliated infrastructure for keeping a facility running.  Pride of place is a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm airship, used for coastal defense around the British Isles.

Showing significant progress since its last outing at the 2023 Minimeet, Simon had brought Glenfinnan

This is a model of Glenfinnan Station on the West Highland Line Extension to Mallaig.  All of the trackwork and structures are modelled on the real locations, with several 3d Prints from Graham helping to populate the scene.

Pride of place, or at least, at the tail end of the passenger service, was Simon's award winning LNER Coronation Beavertail Observation Car.

Also of great interest was Simon's solution to fiddle-yards in the form of two train tables, one at each end of the layout, allowing the full trains to be reversed by spinning them around!

The Gentlemen of the North East Area Group had brought a scenic section of their layout Dunallander.

The whole layout will be at the Elgin Model Fair on the 1st and 2nd November and is well worth a visit if you are free - Elgin is a lovely wee town and worth a visit in itself!

Graham manned the door, keeping an eye on the Bring and Buy sale.  He was a very persuasive salesman, and not many made it past his table without their hands dipping into their pockets.

Anthony's Port Jubilee had made the trip up from the North East.  This is a working diorama of a Highland Railway, made for the 2mm Scale Association Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge.

Martin had custody of Mearns Shed, and can be seen diligently attending to his duties...

The Usual suspects were present on Mearns Shed, Alisdair's Jumbo, C16 and Black Five now requiring new shed-plates fitted for the time they've spent here.

There was however, a few visiting locomotives that caused some excitement amongst the regular viewers

Bob had brought a BR Standard 9F up with him.  This beast was probably one of the most photographed locomotives of the day and was a stalwart runner.  A number of people were heard asking Bob about re-runs of the etches to make them.

Bob had also brought some pre-grouping North Eastern Railway locomotives

Alisdair had also brought a GNoS Railway Locomotive to complete the Pre-grouping lineup. 

This meant that only the Glasgow and South Western Railway wasn't represented from the Big Five Scottish Railway companies, with this example of the GNoS, the Caledonian Jumbo and NBR C17..  Although not pictured, several of Alisdair's Highland Railway locomotives have graced the irons (or at least nickel sivlers) of Mearns Shed in the past! Perhaps a challenge for the next Minimeet?!

As well as the layouts on show, and the bring and buy stand - there was a lot of talking, sharing experiences, hints and tips and plenty of inspiration to think about.  I know that I went home and made more progress on my own nascent layout in a few days than I had in the last several months!

I think I speak for all involved when I extend my thanks to Alisdair for organising the day and his efforts throughout the day.

Likewise my thanks to Graham and Angus for some of the photographs shamelessly stolen from RMWeb.

October 2025 Forth and Clyde Area Group meeting

Late autumn sunshine greeted Alisdair, Alastair, Alastair, Simon, Graham, Jim, Stuart, John and northern visitor Tony at Almondell for the monthly 2mm group meeting. After the flurry of the Scottish mini-meet two weeks ago, this was a calmer occasion, with quite a lot of work apparently under way.

Alisdair proclaimed Mearns Shed was open for a running session... except that nothing would run. Nothing for it but to get busy with the tools and multimeter. Point blades seemed to be a repeat offender.

Once normal service was restored, Alistair took the opportunity to do a bit of route (and controller) learning.

Stuart was working on a Peco bridge kit.

Alastair had Solidworks open - no, it's not Templot! - laying out a turnout for his South Queensfery project. His mojo was apparently fortified by the mini-meet, to the point of joining MERG in order to make his own DCC controller. 

Chris has moved on from his Raithby 4F to a L&Y 2-4-2T kit (Nigel Hunt, I think) on which he planned to made a start. The first problem was to tell the fold lines apart from half-etched features. This took some puzzling over prototype photos. By the end of the day, however, he'd satisfied himself which were which.

Jim worked on his own etch for a signal post for Dunallander. Overetching had caused a pivot plate to fall off the post, so he set about fabricating a replacement.

Simon had started on a rake of Caledonian bogie coaches picked up at the mini-meet Bring and Buy.

He also had had a response to his plea for Gresley observation car prints and was working on two of them.

Much concentration evidently required. Or was it brute force?

Some running of locos on Mearns Shed did actually take place.

Meanwhile, Graham worked on extracting dimensions from photographs for a station building, and John asked questions about his planned J39 chassis build. All in all a busy meeting.

Graham had also been to the North East Area Group's recent monthly meeting at Bournmoor, which featured Nick Mitchell demonstrating use of his Chinese watchmaker's lathe and gravers to turn 2mm parts - for the demo, he chose a bogie pivot. The demo was much enhanced by the video camera projecting his actions onto a large screen. The camera also almost entirely blocked Nick's view of what he was doing, which made it all the more impressive. Nothing bad happened and the part was successfully produced!

The lathe is a China-branded version of the same design sold in Europe under the "Vector", advertised as an inexpensive precision lathe (a complete setup costs over £5k). The China version requires some fettling but costs much less, and the accessories can be acquired over time. Nick mentioned the importance of a smooth motor - he uses a Chinese example, but the countershaft which transmits the drive to the lathe headstock is second-hand.

Nick explained how to grind (with an oiled India stone, which is grey, and a roller guide to get the correct angle) and hone (with a dry Arkansas stone, which is white) the graver to the correct lozenge shape, with a slight top rake on one edge (that's it next the red mark: the graver is upside-down in the photo):

He makes a quick dimensioned sketch of the planned part, with a work sequence, so he can refer to it as required and concentrate on the machining. The work is roughed out using a conventional lathe tool in a lantern toolpost, then the graver is used to slowly finish the part to the required dimension, working with the graver on a smooth-edged flip-over toolrest and its "lozenge" face towards the workpiece, plus a loupe to see detail when required. Dimensions are checked with digital calipers and once satisfied, the workpiece is parted off using a Swann-Morton scalpel blade (repurposed for the task with a grinder, then honed). The use of saliva as lubricant on brass, and 2.4mm-shank drills held in a collet in the lever tailstock, was noted.

Things finished with the famous NEAG Big Tea, which was Graham's real motivation for going to the meeting. And it were champion! Munching and chatting took priority over snapping, so no photographs. Go for yourself and see.

 

 

September 2025 Forth and Clyde Area Group meeting

Alisdair, Alastair, Graham, James, Stuart and recent recruit Derek gathered at Almondell for our September get-together.

James had brought the latest version of his Mearns Shed view-blocker warehouse for approval.

Once given the ok, he started on cutting out and glazing the windows.

Alisdair had been working on cassettes for the "fiddle stick" which attaches to Mearns Shed for exhibitions. Doll's house hinges and SR4 PCB were used to make a cassette which protects locos as they are lifted. Several hacksaw blades were apparently ruined in trying to cut the SR4.

Alastair was advancing his fleet of 3D printed North British wagons.

Stuart was painting an impressive flight of canal locks, for which he'd combined three laser-cut kits. This brought the detail out nicely.

Graham was working on a 3D model of Glenfinnan signal box, intended for Simon's model of that location which will appear at the Scottish mini-meet at Almondell in two weeks' time on Saturday 20th September, between 1100 and 1630. If you are in the area, be sure to stop in and say hello. ESME's Almondell site is on Drumshoreland Road near Broxburn in West Lothian, postcode EH52 5PF.

 

 

August 2025 Forth and Clyde Area Group meeting

August already: the year speeds by, and next month - Saturday 20th September to be precise - we have the Scottish Minimeet. The weather was fine for our August meeting at Almondell but numbers were slightly down, perhaps due to holidays. Alisdair, Alistair, Nigel, Jim, James and Graham were present.

Nigel was assembling finescale motion for a Farish Ivatt 2MT tank, from (I think) a Nigel Hunt etch.

He also had for inspection an interesting little 4mm scale project, aimed at solving the perennial problem of what to do when an exhibition-standard model is retired, a potential long-term display site has been found as an alternative to scrapping it, but for one reason or another the operating rolling stock is not available. Nigel found he could scan a side elevation drawing of a loco, draw a basic sketch over it and give it volume in CAD, and use a 3D filament printer to produce adequately-accurate, non-functional models quickly and cheaply.

James had a mock-up of the view-blocker building he volunteered to produce for Mearns Shed, to disguise the fact that the shed itself is only two bays long. The blocker started out as a tree, morphed into a store, then a tenement (Scottish apartment block), and finally a multi-floor warehouse (since there is no space for a tenement's drying-green). L-shaped, but with the back of the L cut away so it's in low relief, it is more effective in actuality than in the photo - taken without the proscenium arch in place. 

A new shed building is under construction, incorporating lessons learned from the first iteration. Graham has upgraded and printed new parts and Jim has provided new etched windows and roof-lights.

Jim has been working on etched platform seats for the Grampian group's "Dunallander" project. He showed us the latest etch sheet, bristling with things like picket fences, signal posts and arms, and telegraph-pole crossbars in addition to the seats. 

He then settled down to solder up the two designs of seat (simple, as used by all the pre-group Scottish companies, and fancy, as used by the Caledonian).

There were a few fights with the carpet monster on the way, but the results, even before cleaning up, were impressive. These seats are awfy wee.

Alistair was completing the final part of the backscene for ESME's N-gauge layout.

 

Alisdair has a Fairburn tank which he'd acquired damaged for a bargain price, repaired, and now wished to finescale. Plenty advice was on hand. Graham had a variety of 3D-printed buildings for Simon's "Glenfinnan" layout, and coach bodies for Alisdair. Both of these initiatives escaped the blog camera, however.

Alisdair also handed out responsibilities for the minimeet. There will be quite a few interesting layouts there: Kirkallanmuir, Lenabo, Glenfinnan, South Queensferry, a lump of Dunallander have all been invited, Mearns Shed will be running, and a bring-and-buy stall. If you're in central Scotland on 20th September, we would love to see you at ESME's Almondell clubroom (EH32 5PF) between 1100 and 1630. Full details in the August/September 2mmSA newsletter.