Pre-war No.6 set...

Just lately a lot of talk here at Laughton Towers has been about the modern stuff. Hardly surprising as there is a lot going on out there currently as the new owners of Meccano settle in to their new shoes. Sets disappearing and all sorts of deals around as the old stock and the current production of sets (that were already in the pipeline at the time of purchase) emerge on to the market. All this activity has rather skewed the content of the blog, and taken attention of late.

The number 6 set as found - click on the image to enlarge

To address the balance, here is some of the traditional stuff to get your teeth into! Six months ago I was talking to a fellow Meccanoman who told me about a No. 6 Meccano set he had found at a provincial auction as part of a lot. He said it was in a wooden box and although he thought it not to be complete, it looked like most of it was there. As he was more interested in the other items in the lot he wanted to just move this on to someone who would appreciate it. This week we met again and money was exchanged for Meccano. We are now the proud owner of most of a 1920s Meccano No. 6 set.

The lower layer of parts - click on the image to enlarge

I like the dark red and green of the 1920s Meccano and it is not often that we find it in nice used condition,like this, that is good to build from. It is either really rough, bent and very rusty or it is immaculate and worth a fortune to a collector. This is 'builder' quality and as builders ourselves, it is exactly what we look for. I know the spoked wheels are missing from the set, as you can see, but they are around, built into a model that will be dismantled this week and will follow on to be reunited with the set.

Nice set of channel segments

Some of the parts have been repainted rather heavily and will either be replaced with parts in original finish or will be suitably refinished and lightly distressed to match the rest of the set.

There is a good number of original nuts and bolts included in a small plastic box - a later addition! The interesting thing is the complete set of eight channel segments that all look in good condition. I now need to go away and do some homework to try and date the set and select the correct contents list so I can set about checking and making up the set to be complete.

We have a fair bit of Meccano from this period, but this is the first time we have had anything like a complete set, let alone a decent sized one. The fact that it has been used is not a
problem as it all cleans up really nicely after a wash and a buff-up using Sue's furniture polish trick she gleaned from our friend,  Mick Burgess, a few years ago. The same treatment was given to the parts used to build our little steam saw I built a year or so ago.

Pre-war steam saw...

This was built a while ago using parts from our box of pre-war Meccano that we have been rooting out of collections we have purchased over the years. The saw uses later nuts and bolts as we did not have many contemporary ones at the time. The plastic box of lightly rusty nuts and bolts, that came with our latest acquisition, are a bit of a bonus for us and will clean up beautifully after a wash in the ultrasonic bath (sounds grand but cost a few pounds from Aldi) followed by a soak in rust remover, lightly oiled and given a 'scrunch' - as  my mate Dunmow Dave calls it - in an old towel. I will post some pictures as we go along cleaning up this set.

Modern (ish) meccano used to build a classic model

Now we have this set, it has just occurred to me that it would be good fun to build another Steam Wagon (see HERE) using this set... Now there's a thought, wouldn't that look good all in contemporary colours? We could even race them...

Ralph.

Restoring the set starts here with the nuts and bolts >>>