Neil Wyatt spent four days at this year’s MMEX at the Warwickshire Event Centre.
The highly successful 44th Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition took place from Thursday 12th to Sunday 15th October 2023 at the Warwickshire Event Centre, with thousands of visitors in attendance.
The Society of Model and Experimental Engineers and Model Engineer/Model Engineers Workshop celebrated their 125th joint anniversary at the exhibition. There was also a number of other special attractions this year including the lecture programme, special exhibit displays and the reintroduction of live demonstrations.
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The exhibition showcased hundreds of fascinating models in competition and display classes and on the club and society display stands. The winner of the overall best model in the exhibition and the Chris Deith Memorial Trophy was Mike Sayers with his 1927 Delage 15.S.8 GP engine.
Model Engineering clubs and societies were well represented with some 30 stands with hundreds of quality exhibits on display. The best Society Display winners were:
1st Coventry Model Engineering Society
2nd Hereford Society of Model Engineers
3rd Society of Model & Experimental Engineers
Outside attractions included the Fosse Way Steamers, where a wide selection of live steam scale model engines were in action for the enjoyment of thousands of visitors.
2024 dates for your diary are Thursday 17th to Sunday 20th October again at the Warwickshire Event Centre.
Tooling at MMEX
For some reason, hobbyists are often rather slow to share their home-built tooling at model engineering shows. Perhaps this is because such items are often built for practical use rather than as display items, so they can appear utilitarian or even ‘agricultural’. Ironically, such items are often of as much interest to the average hobbyist as the spectacular working scale models. Fortunately we found some interesting tooling at the show to share with readers.
The Hereford Society of Model Engineers put a lot of effort into supporting young engineers and have helped several of them to secure apprenticeships with local firms. The stand had some well-made examples of their work. There was also an excellent and very nice sharpening jig for larger drills on the stand, which was demonstrated to me by its maker, Wally Sykes.
The Gas Turbine Builders Association displayed a range of tooling used in building their jet engines. Much of the work involved sheet metal forming, and also a lot of manual milling – using jigs rather than CNC, much to the surprise of many people.
There was also a popular display by the Society of Ornamental Turners, featuring the complex multi-geared chucks for creating astonishing decorative patterns.
No show is complete without a Quorn Tool and Cutter Grinder (designed by Professor Dennis Chaddock) the photo shows Allen Berman’s fine example on the SMEE stand. Also on the SMEE stand was a case with a selection of smaller tooling for various purposes including a ball turning tool and a nice fingerplate by Graham Nickson, as well as an unusual sculptural artwork, ‘Urchin’ by Mary Crabb, made from woven copper.
The Coventry Model Engineering Society displayed a robust raising block for elevating the vertical spindle on a Centec 2b milling machine by around 100mm, shown next to a gauge 1 Collet Mogul. The photo shows a well-finished Kennet tool and cutter grinder on the Coventry MES stand. Also on their stand was a nicely cased knurling tool made to a design featured in MEW issue 72.
The show did have a good attendance by sellers of tooling and accessories, although those selling complete machine tools were thin on the ground. However, as has been the case in recent years Myford attended and had some of the very limited supply of their new (not refurbished) machines – a brace of Super 7 lathes. It’s hard not to think that a company selling entry level machines could do a brisk trade at such a show, with no direct competition.
On the tooling and accessories side, plenty of familiar faces were present including JB Cutting Tools and Home and Workshop Machinery. There were also several stands specialising in used items, The Engineers’ Emporium and LA Services featured a treasure trove of interesting objects.
Model Engineers’ Laser were exhibiting a wider range of laser cut products, including some interesting sets of small spanners suitable form working in awkward spaces, (you can bend them to reach deep inside locomotive frames, for example!)
The Model Engineers Workshop and 3D Printer Demonstrations
Martin Evans, editor of Model Engineer and I (Neil Wyatt) enjoyed meeting many, many readers at the Mortons stand and the SMEE stand, where I was demonstrating two 3D printers, the Creality Mage Pro and the Creality K1 Max.
The quality of the Mage Pro prints astounded people, but they were also amazed by the rate at which the K1 Max was working – I had planned to focus on engineering objects, but in the end the Tyrannosaur skull attracted far more attention (kids were much better than adults at identifying it!) Unfortunately I didn’t get any really good photos, but I will be featuring the K1 in an upcoming article.
I’d particularly like to thank Roger Froud, Stewart Hart, Duncan Webster, Roger Backhouse, Chris Gabel and Bob Reeve for their excellent talks. Attendance at the talks was much more than our expectations. Unfortunately we had some problems with sound that were only partly resolved by the end of the exhibition, it was noisy and the room had a lot of echo, limiting how loud we could have the PA without feedback. Stewart in particular was affected on Friday morning, which was the busiest time and the background noise was loudest. Next year there will be a larger room with better soundproofing, and I will get hold of a clip microphone.
