Bryan Acton
Bryan Acton was educated at Eltham College and lived in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire. He was introduced to winemaking by Trappist Monks in Palestine in 1943, while he was on armed service and progressed to being a member of the Amateur Winemaker National Guild of Judges.
Graham R. Astbury
Graham Astbury graduated from the University of Birmingham and is a Chartered Engineer, who has recently retired after a career in the chemical industry providing expertise on the prevention of fires and explosions. With a lifelong interest in both model and electrical engineering, he started re-winding motors and transformers whilst still at school, and has spent the last few years researching into phase conversion methods for his own workshop.
Jon Barden
Jon Barden, a College Lecturer in Electrical Installations, has over 20 years experience in training staff in electrical and mechanical engineering. He has also been involved with the training and assessment of students on City and Guilds courses.
David Boddington
David Boddington had a world-wide reputation as a journalist and author, model designer builder and expert radio control model flyer. His experience in this field ranged from editing modelling magazines, creating and flying models for television series and films, full-size flying activities and the designer of over 500 model aircraft.
Ian Bradley
Ian Bradley, who died in 1995, had a lifetime’s experience in precision engineering and contributed articles to Model Engineer magazine for over 50 years. During that period, thousands of engineers had come to regard his standard textbook The Amateur’s Workshop as the first point of reference to turn to when a new aspect of the hobby presented itself.
Stan Bray
Stan Bray is a model engineer who has written a number of books covering subjects from clockmaking to machine shop techniques and was editor of Model Engineers’ Workshop and assistant editor of Model Engineer magazines.
Tony Brookes
Tony Brookes has been flying (and writing about) CO2 powered models for seventeen years but even with all that expertise he still claims to be learning!
William Clarke
William Clarke was born in Washington DC and has spent most of his working career at NAS Langley with a technical background in electrical engineering, finally retiring from NASA in 1995 after 35 years service. His abiding interest in USN warships combined with his skills as a photographer has resulted in a personal archive of many thousands of photographs which have inspired ship modellers and naval historians around the world.
Martin Cleave
‘Martin Cleeve’ was the pen name of Kenneth C. Hart, a respected contributor for some thirty years to Model Engineer magazine. His painstaking, perfectionist approach to high-quality, accurate work (which so clearly comes through in this book as in all his other writing) led him to design and describe many original lath.
Jim Cox
Jim Cox was Chief Engineer of a well-known electronics company and spent his working life closely involved with electronic and electro-mechanical equipment. He has been a keen model engineer for many years and is well aware of both the needs of small engineering workshops and the capability of their owners. He is also known as a familiar contributor to Internet News Groups under his ‘pentagrid’ signature.
John Cundell
John Cundell is an author and journalist with many years of boat modelling at national and international level. In his capacity as former editor of Model Boats magazine, he is very aware of the type of questions likely to be asked by the less experienced and knows the problem areas likely to be encountered by the unsuspecting newcomer to the hobby.
Peter Duncan
Peter M. Duncan was born in Perth, Scotland. He was educated at Perth Academy and Edinburgh University, graduating in 1959 with a first class honours B.Sc. in chemistry. Married with two sons, he had lived in Quebec, Canada since 1962. On the winemaking front, he founded the Huron Wine Guild, has been a member of both the Canadian and British National Guilds of Judges and used to write a popular weekly column called The Winemaker’s Forum for local and national newspapers.
Roy Ekins
Roy Ekins has been a wine and beer maker for thirty-five years and has been a member of the National Guild of Wine and Beer Judges since 1973. He has taught evening classes and lectured about commercial and home-made wines and beers for many years. For eight years he served on the Committee of the National Association and edited the NAWB magazine. He has several books to his credit.
David Fenner
David Fenner based this practical book on his many hours “road testing” mini-lathes in his own home workshop. After a career of over forty years spent mainly in manufacturing engineering, he occupied the editorial chair at Model Engineer’s Workshop magazine for about five years, relinquishing the role in 2007 to a life in Scotland where he devoted his time to hobby activities and to writing about home workshop topics. His first serious involvement in model making was with control line model aircraft in the late 1950s and early 1960s, taking up model engineering in the late 1970s. His other interests include classic cars and motorcycles.
Tom Gorman
Tom Gorman has spent a lifetime working with small vessels out of Hull and Grimsby on the east coast of England and knows every rivet and bolt of their structure. His enviable reputation as a maritime modeller is the result of numerous medals from craft and model fairs, and his numerous commissions as a modeller.
John Haining
John Haining gave up the family farm to serve an apprenticeship in steam when it was still the predominant source of power in the countryside. An apprentice’s life was a hard one in those days but the hard work and strict training stood him in good stead and led on to further valuable experience gained in the drawing and design offices of Cammell Laird, Joseph the boilermakers of Hyde, and Sentinels of Shrewsbury.
He died in 2005. For nearly thirty years, John Haining (under the pen name “Countryman’s Steam”) contributed a vast range of designs and constructional articles to the pages of Model Engineer magazine. These covered all types and sizes of engine:- steam traction engines for the road and field and standing engines, and the way they worked with ploughs, cider mills, elevators and threshing machines. The articles were always popular with those seeking steam experiences away from the railways, and as a result the author built up an authoritative reputation for the extent of his knowledge in this area.
As a technical consultant to Model Engineer, the author built up an enviable reputation for the extent of his knowledge and the immense trouble he took to reply fully and clearly to readers’ queries and problems.
Harold Hall
Harold Hall was for a number of years the editor of Model Engineers’ Workshop magazine and through its pages, he established himself as a mentor to tyro model engineers worldwide. He is the author of seven books in the indispensable Workshop Practice Series and lives in the Hertfordshire countryside. He commenced an industrial apprenticeship in 1950 at the age of sixteen and worked as an electrical control systems engineer for thirty-five years before becoming editor of Model Engineer’s Workshop magazine in 1991. Following retirement in 1995, he has continued to contribute metalworking articles to almost every issue of the magazine published since then. His crafting hobbies extend beyond model engineering to cabinet making, modelling, marquetry and pencil sketching.
Don Hebbs
The late Donald Hebbs was also a keen wine and beer maker who won many major awards at local, regional and national wine shows. He started making sparkling wine in 1967 and it won three national awards: 1st Prize in 1968, 2nd in 1969 and 1st in 1971. His sparkling wine also won “Best in Show” at the Middlesex Wine Festival in 1970. He was a member of the Amateur Winemakers National Guild of Judges for Wine and Beer and was a well-known lecturer on both subjects.
K. Peter Heimann
After a practical technical career and several years in consultancy, Peter Heimann was able to indulge in his hobby of model engineering. Over many years his interest has shifted from traditional steam power towards clock repair, restoration, design and building. He is an Associate Member of the British Horological Institute and is actively involved with the repair and restoration requirements of the City of Bristol Museums.
Ivan Law
Ivan Law is a very experienced and much-respected engineer who will be known to many readers for, particularly, his lucid and practical demonstrations and explanations over many years at the annual International Model Show.
Dave Line
Dave Line was a British beer authority. An electrical engineer by profession, he is regarded as a pioneer in home brewing during the 1970s because at the time home brewing as a hobby was in its infancy. At the time of his death in 1979 he was 37, living in Southampton, was married and had a son. He was probably the most skilled, innovative and articulate home brewer of his generation.
In a decade of brewing he probably devised and published more recipes for beer than anyone else in the world. Through regular articles in Amateur Winemaker magazine and his first book, The Big Book of Brewing, he was acknowledged as one of the leading experts on home brewing in Britain. People who wanted to brew the type of beer they drink in the pub have acclaimed his methods a major breakthrough in beer quality. He made it possible to brew for the first time commercial standard beer at home using simple equipment.
Pat Lloyd
Illustrator Pat Lloyd is a skilled draughtsman and model-maker whose talents are evident in the 102 full-page sketches he produced for the book Kites.
John Lomax
Cidermakers Michael Pooley and John Lomax (both from Ironbridge, Shropshire) were two of those people whose passion for their work was totally infectious. They were cidermakers for over twenty years and during that time their well-attended apple day teaching courses and demonstrations of the craft at venues throughout the UK acquired a national reputation.
They worked hard to change the perception of cider as a foul, overly strong brew, and to impart their knowledge to the masses on how to produce good quality cider and apple juice. They always made the point at their workshops that knowing something and not doing anything with that knowledge is the same as not having that knowledge in the first place, and urged their students to take their newly acquired cider-intelligence home with them and work with it.
In 1999 they compiled this standard book about “real” cidermaking, which is thorough, practical and inspiring. It is based on their combined experience and expertise and will satisfy the needs of both the amateur and would-be professional cidermaker.
Ron Moulton
Author Pat Moulton was a model-making magazine publisher for almost forty years and a life-long aviation enthusiast. He established the British Kite Flying Association in 1975 and organised three annual kite festivals.
Peter Morath
Peter Morath studied at Liverpool College of Art and was trained as a lithographic artist in the printing industry. A Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, his photography has won many awards both nationally and internationally.
Marc Ollosson
During the 1990s, Marc Ollossen ran a successful home brew business in Bridgend. The shop was not just a place to buy from but also a place for customers to speak to fellow brewers and wine makers with coffee freely thrown in. Not content with just selling kits and ingredients Marc constantly brewed both wine and beer on the premises so that customers could see how the processes worked and to taste the final results. The homebrew shop in Bridgend has now closed and Marc eventually moved from Wales to Norfolk, where he now enjoys the Norfolk Broads and works for a large public sector employer.
Michael Pooley
Cidermakers Michael Pooley and John Lomax (both from Ironbridge, Shropshire) were two of those people whose passion for their work was totally infectious. They were cidermakers for over twenty years and during that time their well-attended apple day teaching courses and demonstrations of the craft at venues throughout the UK acquired a national reputation.
They worked hard to change the perception of cider as a foul, overly strong brew, and to impart their knowledge to the masses on how to produce good quality cider and apple juice. They always made the point at their workshops that knowing something and not doing anything with that knowledge is the same as not having that knowledge in the first place, and urged their students to take their newly acquired cider-intelligence home with them and work with it.
In 1999 they compiled this standard book about “real” cidermaking, which is thorough, practical and inspiring. It is based on their combined experience and expertise and will satisfy the needs of both the amateur and would-be professional cidermaker.
Nick Poulter
Following his conversion from the elderberry to the grape thirty years ago, author Nick Poulter planted a commercial vineyard at Cranmore on the Isle of Wight and by 1984 it was producing 20,000 bottles a year from 30,000 plants. In those days there were only a dozen or so vineyards in England, but now that number has multiplied a hundredfold and the quality of English wine has constantly improved to become as good as any in the world.
J. Poyner
Jack Poyner, a professional involved in all forms of plating for many years, is also a keen model engineer able to recognise the dividing line between what his average fellow enthusiast would consider practical and worthwhile and what is really better left to experts in the field of plating.
John Restell
The late John Restall lived in Twickenham and had been making wines since 1955. He was an active member of his local amateur winemaking circle where he shared his experiences of winemaking with other enthusiasts and he loved to visit wine-producing regions abroad to learn professional methods.
Bill Robertson
He has acted as a technical authority on a wide number of communication aspects and has appeared on TV and on national and international radio broadcasts.
Peter Rouse
Peter Rouse was the pioneering guru of the VHF/UHF listening hobby. He wrote the first edition of Scanners for Argus Books in 1986. He was a professional broadcaster in the Channel Islands and also worked as a BBC radio producer. His interest in radio communications started in his early teens and he went on to work in the radio and electronics industry as an engineer and designer. Peter Rouse died in 1993.
Hartrit Sandhu
Harprit Singh Sandhu, BSME, MSCerE, is an American engineer and the founder of Rhino Robots Inc., where he was the chief designer of the ‘Rhino’ series of robots. In his spare time he is a journeyman designer, machinist & woodworker, whose interest in clock making led him to design & build the spindles described in the book.
Keith Shacklock
Kelvin Shacklock began modelling aircraft at primary school and has retained an interest ever since. He is a member of the New Zealand Model Aeronautical Association and has served as President of the Christchurch Radio Flyers. A self-employed designer and computer graphics artist, he has worked in advertising, publishing and industrial design. He was the stylist for the Hamilton Marine Jet Boat Thunderball, featured in the James Bond movie of the same name.
Martin Simons
Martin Simons, MA, MEd, BSc is a retired university lecturer and lifelong model aeroplane enthusiast. For nearly sixty years he has been actively involved in designing, building and flying models of all kinds, including full-scale sailplanes. His body of work includes Model Aircraft Aerodynamics and Model Flight which are standard texts on aerodynamic theory for aviation hobbyists. Martin Simons’ interest in aviation goes back more than sixty years. He remains actively involved in designing, building and flying model aircraft and full-scale sailplanes. Born in England in 1930, he now lives in Australia where for twenty-five years he was a senior lecturer in education at the University of Adelaide. He has published numerous articles and several books on model flying and was the editor of Australian Gliding magazine for ten years.
Vic Smeed
Vic Smeed was the editor of Model Maker magazine from 1959 to 1977, steering the publication through its development into the present-day Model Boats and acquiring along the way considerable experience of the queries likely to be raised by beginners. In a lifetime of model building and model engineering, he produced scores of original designs for models of all type and wrote sixteen books.
Bill Smith
Bill Smith is a member of Booker Wine Circle in High Wycombe and also a smaller group of enthusiasts called Chilterns Masters Wine Circle. Both circles are part of the Federation of Chilterns and Mid-Thames Wine Guilds. Bill is also a member of the National Guild of Amateur Wine and Beer Judges. As a competitor and a judge, he is involved in wine shows all the way from the local wine clubs, village horticultural shows, Federation and country shows, to the annual show of the National Association of Wine and Beermakers.
Lawrence H. Sparey
Lawrence Sparey was that somewhat rare combination – a professional engineer with what he himself called “an amateur’s outlook” which allowed him to maintain his appreciation of the difficulties of the average workshop owner with his small lathe. He was also a pioneer of model aeroplane internal combustion engines for home construction in Britain of the 1940s. His book represents the accumulated engineering wisdom of a previous generation.
Arnold Throp
Arnold Throp C. Eng., F.I.Mech.E. enjoyed a long and successful engineering career starting with very large steam and oil engines and including high-tension switchgear, mining machinery and machine tools. He has achieved over 55 years of membership of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.
Tubal Cain
Tubal Cain was the pen name of engineer and craftsman Tom Walshaw, the writer of many best-selling home workshop and model engineering guides.
Alex Weiss
Alex Weiss has a PhD in mechanical engineering from University College London and established his own home workshop more than forty years ago, publishing many articles in the pages of Model Engineer magazine. Alex Weiss has been aeromodelling for half a century and has built more than fifty radio-controlled models of which 28 were original designs and 14 were published in RCM&E or Radio Modeller magazines.
As well as monoplanes and a biplane, the list includes an autogyro, canards and deltas. He has also written magazine articles on subjects as diverse as four stroke engines and flutter. The author first went solo in a Chipmunk with his University Air Squadron at Tangmere and his early adult life was spent as an RAF pilot, flying Jet Provosts, Vampires and Hunters, including three years as a qualified flying instructor. Much of his professional experience has been dedicated to the complex subject of teaching people to fly radio controlled models.
David Wooley
David Wooley is from the Wirral, with family connections to the local Cammel Laird shipyard at Birkenhead where, as a boy, the sight of regular ship launches kindled a life-long passion for warships and ship modelling. He has contributed to the Rangefinder column of Model Boats magazine for many years, and his models have been exhibited at national competitions such as the Model Engineer Exhibition.