Meccano Hex Shocker.

[orienteer]

Used to love Meccano. It was my ambition to own a number 10 set (the biggest), but £50 was a fortune in the 1950s, beyond a paper boy's wage, over £1000 in today's money.

I did buy clockwork and electric motors though, to drive my car chassis through a centrifugal clutch, crash gearbox and differential.

Now I can afford it, it's not available!  Maybe my predilection for spaceframe Moultons is a throwback to those days...

[toekneep]

I once new an elderly couple who had their own hobby rooms. Hers was full of embroidery and sewing stuff and his was full of Meccano. The last time I visited he was just completing a working model of the above. Wonderful it was.

[Hummers]

Make that brass screws and those elusive grub screws.

H

[Rhys W]

That must be the one in the North East. I pass the only other one in the country quite regularly. A few years ago we used to clubruns over it (bikes went for free) but I don't think it's transporting anymore.

I once cut a pair of one-piece profile tribars in half, so I could set the clamps inboard of the bartape to avoid damaging it, but then the armrests were too close together. I'd just rescued the remnants of my Meccano out of my parents' attic, so I fashioned some nifty extensions out of it. I had admiring looks at the start of the club 10, but the steel plates bent as soon as I rested my forearms on the pads, and the all the nuts and bolts worked loose somewhere between the turn and the finish line. Oh well.