Meccano - Capabilities

Capabilities

With a Meccano set there was a wide range of models that could be built. Here are the models for which instructions were given in the largest set of the late 1950s, the "Outfit 10":

"Railway Service Crane", "Sports Motor Car", "Coal Tipper", "Cargo Ship", "Double Decker Bus", "Lifting Shovel", "Blocksetting Crane", "Beam Bridge", "Dumper Truck", "Automatic Gantry Crane", "Automatic Snow Loader", "4-4-0 Passenger Locomotive"

On top of these there were instruction leaflets available for:

"Combine Harvester", "The Eiffel Tower", "Showman’s Traction Engine", "Twin-Cylinder Motor Cycle Engine", "Trench Digger", "Bottom Dump Truck", "Road Surfacing Machine", "Mechanical Loading Shovel"

It has been said that the instructions sometimes contained deliberate errors to challenge the ingenuity of its users. However, those involved in their production maintain such errors were accidental, and are no more common than the unintentional errors in other modelling plans.

Since this time, enthusiasts such as G. Maurice Morris and MW Models have taken to publishing their own model plans, ranging from small models up to large and complex machines.

In 1934, Meccano began to be used in the construction of differential analysers, a type of analogue computer used to solve differential equations which has long since become obsolete. Though invented on paper in the 19th century, the first such machine had only been built in 1931, and normally they would be built by specialist manufacturers, at great cost. For example, in 1947, UCLA in the USA installed a differential analyser built for them by General Electric at a cost of $125,000. However, a "proof of concept" model of a differential analyser which made extensive use of Meccano parts was built at Manchester University, UK, in 1934, by Douglas Hartree and Arthur Porter: use of Meccano meant that the machine was cheap to build, and it proved "accurate enough for the solution of many scientific problems". This machine is now in the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London, England. A similar machine built by J.B. Bratt at Cambridge University in 1935 is now in the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) collection in Auckland, New Zealand. A memorandum written for the British military's Armament Research Department in 1944 describes how this same machine was modified during World War II for improved reliability and enhanced capability, and identifies its wartime applications as including research on the flow of heat, explosive detonations, and simulations of transmission lines. After a lengthy period of neglect, a restoration effort began in 2003, and a successful "full run through" of this machine was completed on December 16, 2008.

In 2005, Tim Robinson displayed his own Meccano differential analyser at the Computer History Museum, at Mountain View, California, USA, and Robinson has also built and exhibited two models of Charles Babbage's difference engine, also using Meccano.

In 1990, Meccano S.A. built a giant Ferris Wheel, in France. It was modelled after the original 1893 wheel built by George Ferris at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago and was shipped to the United States to promote "Erector Meccano" after Meccano S.A. had bought out the "Erector" trade name and began selling Meccano sets in the U.S.A. It went on display in New York City after which it was purchased by Ripley's Believe It or Not! and put on display in their St. Augustine, Florida museum. The model, (at the time) the largest (by size) is 6.5 metres (21.3 ft) high, weighs 544 kilograms (1,200 pounds), was made from 19,507 pieces, 50,560 nuts and bolts, and took 1,239 hours to construct. At this mass and size, some deviation from Meccano-only parts was a necessity, to prevent it collapsing (mainly in the structural spokes). The largest model by mass would certainly be in contention but some models have topped 600 kg.

A recent large model, weighing approximately 500 kg and 23m long, was built in September 2009 by TV presenter James May and a team of volunteers who created a Meccano bridge spanning the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Liverpool. As with other models of this size and weight some non-Meccano parts were used. It was built from " 100,000 pieces of real Meccano", taking 1,100 hours, and consisted of a 9 metre (29.5 ft) "swing bridge" section, and a 12 metre (39.4 ft) "drawbridge" section.

Meccano remains a very versatile constructional medium. Almost any mechanical device can be built with it, from structures, to complex working cranes, automatic gearboxes or clocks. Meccano is frequently used to prototype new ideas and inventions. Model realisation using Meccano is limited mainly by the imagination and ingenuity of the builder.