page_title: Mamod
section_title: SC, SE and Minor series stationary engines (1937-79)
hierarchical_section_title: Mamod / SC, SE and Minor series stationary engines (1937-79)
caption_attribution_description: English: A shot taken outdoors on a wooden table showing the Mamod SE2 of 1949, complete with flat base.
context_page_description: Mamod is a British toy manufacturer specialising in manufacturing live steam models. The company was founded in 1937 in Birmingham in the UK by Geoffrey Malins. The name is a portmanteau of Malins Models. Malins started off making steam engines which were sold under the Hobbies brand name but he soon started selling them under the Mamod brand name. The first models produced were of stationary steam engines. Much later the company also began creating models of road rollers, traction engines, steam wagons and other steam road vehicles. These models were aimed at the toy market, so were simple to operate and ran at low boiler pressures for safety but were not accurate scale models.
  Most Mamod models use simple but effective oscillating cylinders, usually single-acting. Some of these engines have regulators either in the steam feed or exhaust but many others run unregulated or have a simple reversing mechanism to alter the cutoff, thus controlling the power/speed and direction of the engine.
context_section_description: The range has its origins in 1936 when Geoffrey Malins started to make engines for Hobbies of Dereham. His engines were loosely based on the Bowman engines that Geoffrey Bowman Jenkins had made for Hobbies until 1935. The main difference between the Bowman and the Malins was that the latter were smaller, only came on metal bases and all except the SE1 had the chimney attached to the top of the boiler, known as a locomotive style chimney. From 1937 Malins decided to make his own range of engines as well as those he was producing for Hobbies. With the exception of a few small detail changes  - such as lighter shade of paints and a Mamod badge - they were almost identical to the Hobbies range. The difference between Mamod and Hobbies became somewhat blurred; a Mamod badged SE4 could be found in the 'Hobbies colours'. This was the very beginnings of a philosophy which meant that the engines had to be sold and out the door. Unsold engines meant lost profit and nothing was wasted. Any differences between the two ranges had all but disappeared by 1940.
  With the onset the Second World War, Malins association with Hobbies firm in Dereham came to an end, and the SC series of engines were the last steam toys to be sold under the Hobbies mark. Malins had also realised he could make much more money by concentrating on his own engines too. With hostilities increasing the St Mary Row factory was put into mothballs and war interests took over.
  After the war the business was revived and by 1946 a limited range of steam toys was being made - the SE1, SE2, Minor 1 and tools. The pre-war SE3 and SE4 were dropped along with the short-lived twin cylinder Minor 2. Apart from the Minor 1 (now usually called MM1), the engines made in immediate post-war period had base-mounted chimneys. The boiler mounted chimney soon returned though, during 1946. In all other respects the engines were the same as before the war. The SE1 and SE2 were only produced in this form for a few months; post war rationing meant that it was harder to replace materials used in production and so the SE1 and SE2 changed back to the locomotive style chimney. Apart from colour changes, the MM1 continued almost unchanged. Until 1948, the tools still used flat bases and cast iron bodies. 
  By 1948 the SE range had received its first real update. Mamod branded brass engine frames and hot-stamped brass flywheels were introduced and the SE1 and SE2 received a regulator as well. 
  Also introduced was the new Minor 2 (MM2). This had a single cylinder engine unit and was a larger version of the MM1. All engines continued to use wick burners with either 1, 2 or 3 wick tubes. 
  By 1949, with the move to Camden Street, the firm had acquired a pressing facility and the expensive brass engine frames were replaced with pressed steel ones. The design was similar to those found on some Marklin engines. The boilers on the SE1 and SE2 now had a little superheating. The SE2 retained its regulator but the SE1 lost its. The MM1 engine became the first engine in the range to have a raised pressed base. The range remained in this form until 1953, when with the introduction of cheaper Mazak as a material, the brass flywheels were gradually replaced. This is typical of the Malins Engineers approach in ensuring that the models were always updated and changed to keep the price point as competitive as possible. In that immediate post-war period there were many other manufacturers making steam toys, such as Plane Products, Cyldon, SEL, Luton Bowman and Burnac.
  At the start of 1954 the SE range all received raised bases as well as cosmetic updates and changes. By 1958 all but the MM1 had received the new vaporising spirit burners, which had first appeared in 1957 with the introduction of the all new twin cylinder SE3. Again there was another round of cosmetic changes with updated boiler bands and fireboxes. Combinations of these old and new parts can be found in the 'transitional' engines of the late 1950s period (e.g. the SE1, 2 and MM2). By the mid-1960s the engines were using pop rivets for the engine frame
caption: A 1949 Mamod SE2 engine showing new pressed steel engine frame and superheated boiler.
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