Winter Maintenance - Is yours Meccano No. 7 ?

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Peter Sallis, he of Wallace and Gromit & Last of the Summer Wine fame, chose as his luxury to take to the Desert Island the
Meccano No. 7 , oh! come on you know the one that came with the wooden cabinet, you know the one that rich boy had at the bottom of the road !

When I am working away in the 'winter' boat yard I often think that my boat is a Meccano No. 7 - Pretentious ?
 
It was actually Meccano No. 10 that came in the 4 tier wooden cabinet.
I had No.5M (with an electric motor don't you know!) as a boy and hankered for a 10 for ever!
The holy grail of Meccano was No. 10!!
 
Still got the electric motor & 20 V transformer. i also have the clockwork motor
My meccano was bought as a small kit - No 4 i think-& each Xmas I had the add on kit to take me up to No 10 plus a couple of extra gear sets
As i did not get the wood cabinet my father had a cabinet made with extra wide top. It had drawers with trays for the components
i still have it & it is used to this day to make models on
Somewhere I think i have the steam engine which was fun & squirted hot water everywhere & stunk of meths
those were the days
 
Last edited:
mickywillis said:
It was actually Meccano No. 10 that came in the 4 tier wooden cabinet.
I had No.5M (with an electric motor don't you know!) as a boy and hankered for a 10 for ever!
The holy grail of Meccano was No. 10!!
Click to expand...

The cabinet would have been nice. I still have the 2nd-hand mish-mash I was given ~60 years ago and added to over the years. After all, I might want to build something useful, like the coil-winding machine I built (driven by one of my electric motors) when a transformer shorted out...

Never tried building a yacht with it, though!

Mike.
 
Up until 1934 there was no NO. 10.

You must be a very young man? OR lady, I don't want to appear sexist !

It is said that the loss of the use of Meccano to Lego has harmed the mechanical skills development of children. Hey Ho !



816swim said:
Peter Sallis, he of Wallace and Gromit & Last of the Summer Wine fame, chose as his luxury to take to the Desert Island the
Meccano No. 7 , oh! come on you know the one that came with the wooden cabinet, you know the one that rich boy had at the bottom of the road !

When I am working away in the 'winter' boat yard I often think that my boat is a Meccano No. 7 - Pretentious ?
Click to expand...
 
Even now I occasionally look longingly at No.10 sets on eBay...

I started with a No.2, then a No.4El, a large box of second hand stuff, a 6 speed 12v motor, small and large clockwork motors, the mechanisms set, and the electronics set (basically a focussed bulb, a relay, and a photocell), and the electromagnets set which included solenoids, fibreboard meccano components, various contact strips, and lamps and holders...
Left the whole lot in the loft of a rented bungalow in North Uist when I split from the first wife.
Don't half regret that... !
 
Originally there were nine basic Meccano outfits (numbered 00 to 7).

In 1934 these were replaced by eleven outfits, labelled 0, A to H, K and L.

The old No. 7 Outfit became the L Outfit. The No 7 (and subsequently 'L Outfit') is still regarded as the best of the largest Meccano outfits.

In 1937 the alphabetical outfit series was replaced by a numeric series, 0 to 10, with the biggest ('L Outfit') being substituted by the smaller and slightly inferior 'No. 10 Outfit'. Although reduced in size, the No. 10 Outfit became Meccano's flagship set and remained relatively unchanged until it was discontinued a half-century later in 1992.

So Peter Sallis wanted what was regarded as the best outfit from Meccano's heyday and wasn't seduced by having an inflated number (No 10) for an inferior set.
 
Oh how I hankered after a set No10, mine was a mishmash of sets and I used to look longingly at the meccano leaflet. My favorite things to construct was cranes and tipper lorries (dad had a haulage company)! I have 2 daughters now and have bought a couple of the modern sets and put them through meccano time with dad every now and then and, as a DT teacher still feel meccano is one of the best construction kits for developing skill and problem solving/designing with structures and mechanisms. I will be looking on ebay then for a set No10!
 
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