While I design most of my own models, sometimes I also been build “off-plan”.

Occupying myself during lockdown, I was drawn to the impressive double “Big Wheel” fairground ride that featured in Geoff Wright’s wonderful Cavendish-series volume of old Meccano Supermodels. It doesn’t use a huge range of parts, but what it does use, it uses in quantity! Twenty-four 18½” Angle Girders, for instance, or twenty-eight in this version. The wheel rims consumed thirty-two 5½” Curved Strips, and each “boat” includes six ½” x 2½” Double Angle Strips, four 2½” Stepped Curved Strips, four 3″ Strips, four 2″ Strips, four 2½” Strips and four 1½” Strips. Common enough parts, but with sixteen boats in all that made ninety-six Double Angle Strips for a start. At current prices good parts would cost north of £750!

In my case it meant a lot of renovation of many old parts from the scrap store. The original used a long-faced 6v Motor but I opted for an E20R and relished the familiar smell of the motor in action, but wanting this to be a display model capable of long-term running, I replaced this with a small and quiet mains induction motor.