At Ally Pally - not Knitting & Stitching

The big hall at Alexandra Palace looks rather different when the Model Engineering Show is on - where are the closely-packed booths of traders that we're used to seeing at the Knitting & Stitching show?

These traders are selling  milling machines, rods and bars of metal, precision instruments, grinding gear and springs and all that ...

Mostly, though, the displays are by clubs and societies strutting their stuff. Some models are made from kits (don't knock it, kits take skill too), and some of the models are made from scratch - and they are truly amazing, taking years to make. Here's a couple under construction - that wonderful metal will eventually be hidden under careful layers of paint -

 

There was plenty of steaming action, also at 00 scale (which is tiny!) - water being added with an eyedropper -

 Other model set-ups, raptly admired, included one that has everything made of lego, and a tube station with three (historical) kinds of trains -

We were glad to see that there are still Meccano enthusiasts -

and that Meccano is being put to uses like these specs with windshield-wipers -

There's human interest a-plenty, not only in the participants and visitors, but in the tiny figurines added to the models -

Personnel on a 1:72 model of HMS Warspite

A life on the ocean waves for a girl and her dog

Many if not most of the people attending were men past retirement age - which of course is when you have the time to spend on your passions - and many were families, with enthusiastic children. Start young enough, and when you grow up you can work a digger -

 or develop a business taking a racing-car set-up round to social events -

 Finally, some amazing machines - they (and the skill-sets their use requires) seriously knock the socks off long-arm quilters, and the various saws and drills that the Resident Carpenter brings home -

 It would definitely be a luxury to have one of the machines that drill holes in anything -

First you need a shed.