Washers - nice one Screwfix

[James Hart]

Didn't there used to ne a poster on here with a trained ferret for that job?

[Lobster]

memories... David

[Lobster]

Oh, mine were regularly used for various NSPCC-unfriendly tasks till they got too big... best one was fishing bits off the bottom of an internally self-destructed concealed loo cistern which had been rendered totally inaccessible to all but a tiny arm by a joiner/plasterer combo many years previously. Saved me a day's work I reckon (or should I say, postponed, as it will no doubt happen again sometime)

SWMBO knew nothing about it!

David

[Richard Savage]

Anyone remember Lott's Bricks? Stone blocks used to build almost arts-and-craft-style cottages.

Richard

[Mary Fisher]

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

You can still get them - or something very similar, from Hawkins Bazaar, no doubt among others.

www./hawkin.com

- search on bricks.

Mary

[John Rumm]

I seem to recall going though a progression from "Bilofix" - a sort of nicely made wooden meccano, with plastic nuts (red) and bolts (blue), then a brief but ultimately unsatisfying experience with the plastic Jr meccano, before a moving on to the years of bliss with the "real thing"!

[John Rumm]

Made me think of "Linka" though:-

can create some very realistic stuff with it.

[Andy Hall]

You sure it wasn't a remedy for an upset tummy? :-)

Yes it was good. I had a small set for a long time and did a lot with it and then was presented at about age 7 with (I think it was) a number 6 or 7 set that a doting uncle without kids of his own had given me for a christening present or something like that. Talk about eyes like saucers.

I'm convinced that the manual dexterity learned from Meccano as well as simply creating things was something that just doesn't happen so much any more.

.andy

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[Andy Hall]

There was something very similar to that, that was on the market when I was a kid - late 50s early 60s. It was advertised in Meccano Magazine and some of the DIY magazines IIRC. There was a picture of a boy of about 8 or 9 with his father (smoking the obligatory pipe of the era) making the bricks and then building houses with a tiny trowel to put on the cement. The models could be taken apart by dunking them in water - but the bricks remained intact for re-use

I can't remember the name though.

.andy

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[Richard Savage]

Hi Mary,

yes, well they are similar. But Lott's Brick are a lovely smooth, dense white/cream stone. The roof boards are printed paper etc etc. Must get up in the AP's loft an exhume the set.

Crumbs aint nostalgia great

Richard.

[Andy Hall]

Presumably the same Lott's that did chemistry sets?

.andy

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[N. Thornton]

Bako? Google said a wooden wiggling caterpillar... but that doesnt sound anything to get exicted about.

NT

[N. Thornton]

Bako? Google said a wooden wiggling caterpillar... but that doesnt sound anything to get exicted about.

NT

[John Rumm]

Or something to cure red and blue nuts perhaps... ;-)

6 or 7 was a quite "serious" set IIRC!

I got a set No 4 from my godfather.... it seemed to be positioned so as to have just too few of all the best bits to make the really good things in the project book :-((

However I twisted enough arms to get bought a No.5 expansion kit, and that made it far more useful.

In fact reading through the meccano catalogue then, was an experiance not unlike reading the Axminster one now ;-)

(always wanted, but never got, the posh motor set with the opto source and sensor)

[Mary Fisher]

Yes, but it's not what it used to be ...

I bet I'm not first with that one though.

Mary>

[Mary Fisher]

Well, if you want exictment you need to be able to spell :-)

It should be Bayko.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

I think that that was a bit later. I had an E15R motor with gear set and then later a Meccano Elekrikit.

was brilliant because you could make all manner of electromechanical devices like motors, generators etc.

.andy

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[Andy Hall]

==================^^^

:-)

.andy

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[Richard Porter]

The kitchen foil is Baco (British Aluminium Company). I remember Bayko but never had any myself so I hadn't a clue how it was spelled.