When Michael Faraday in Great Britain and Joseph Henry in the United States both discovered electricity at roughly the same time nobody knew what to do with it because nothing in the world worked on electricity.

During the thirty or so years that followed, 1831-1861, the great experimenters of the day tried to use this new discovery by copying steam engine design and practice and nearly all the early electro-magnetic engines that were developed are of reciprocating design and incorporated beams, connecting rods, flywheels, etc.

Although these engines worked and are beautiful in operation they were very inefficient and were quickly replaced by revolving armature engines.

The breakthrough to the revolving armature was made by the Frenchman Paul Gustav Froment. He placed the armature plates onto the revolving flywheel and thereby increased the efficiency and led the way to the modern electric motor.

The models made by the Old Model Company Ltd represent this part of the History of Engineering and are based on original engines that can be seen in various museums around the world.

All of our fully working engine kits are electro-magnetic and work on batteries. Almost all the parts are made in England, have their own unique serial number and are individually hand-packed in West Sussex and then sent directly to you.

Designed for easy assembly with hand tools.

• You won’t need machinery or soldering for our kits, just hand tools.
• Each kit comes with a comprehensive instruction manual which is detailed and illustrated.
• Our specially designed packaging transforms into a practical and neat assembly jig for you to use and build. Makes moving it around the house very easy and keeps all the parts in one place.
• The parts come in numbered plastic bags which correspond with the assembly stages in your instruction manual.
• We also supply you with an extra spares pack of the smaller parts in case you lose any during the construction and with a BA spanner tool as you probably don’t have one.
• All our model engine kits are clean, do not produce any unpleasant smells, are reasonably quiet and work on safe low DC voltages, typically 4.5 volts.