Ilkeston Model Funfair display a great success with the Public, TV and

During the last week, a large scale model of a fully operational Funfair has been open to the general public and attracted not only a large audience of local people (and visitors to the actual Funfair in town) but also the attention of the local BBC East Midlands Today TV Crew and a BBC Radio Derby roving report.

Staged at the ever popular Malcs Models store on Bath Street, Ilkeston, the event was hosted by Brett Grubey and Ian Atkinson, who were able to display their magnificent handiwork to the visitors.

The working models are all Scratch-built Items taking countless hours of painstaking construction using a wide range of materials often found on the real life Fairground Machines.

At first glance it seems impressive that they look and work as accurately as they do, but as in many things in life that first glance doesn't reveal just what is needed to build these me machines, and on closer scrutiny it's not just engineering in metal, wood and plastics that the scale modeller has to master, but there is also the tricky solution of how to miniaturise the complicated mechanisms, motors and actuators that make them all work, along with a detailed knowledge of electrics and electronics in order to light them all up and make them run like the real thing on the display.