Erector Sets - I Never Had One As A Child. Did You? I Do Now.

[scloyd]

I always wanted an erector set when I was a child, but for some reason Santa never had one on his sleigh and one never showed up on my birthday. I recently stopped at a resale shop looking for pipes and left with this erector set. Complete with all the pieces and all the paperwork for $8.



I can see how this would be fun for a kid with little fingers, but for an old man who needs reading glasses and who has fat fingers...not so much fun.

Did you have an erector set as a child and did you enjoy it?

 

[aquadoc]

I did not but I too wanted one.

 

[mso489]

As the old saying goes, it is never too late for a happy childhood. I played with an erector set at my friend's house. I had Lincoln Logs, and those little white plastic bricks that were precursors to Leggos. $8 sounds like a good price. Even as a kid, it seemed an Erector Set required a lot of squinting and patience. The most fun I had, along these lines, was to get let loose in my neighbor's dad's basement shop. We built fleets of ships using the ship profiles in "The Bluejacket's Manual," the Navy publication. I'd built some preformed plastic models, but it was more fun to hew models out of scrap lumber, using bits of window screen for radar antenna, and rows of small nails as the main battery. I built a pretty nice biplane model from scratch.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes, and yes. Never got anything good going with the electric motor.
Lincoln Logs were great, though, and I remember the white plastic bricks, molded green roofs, and window and door treatments.

 

[condorlover1]

Loved them. In the U.K the sets were called Meccano. We used the punched steel struts to form the inner skeleton of the first V2 rocket me and my cousin built using old vacuum cleaner tubes flattened out to make the outer shell. It was a miracle we didn't blow ourselves up, but boy could we build great rockets. Happy days and then I discovered tobacco and women and it all went down hill from that point!

 

[ray47]

Yes and it got bigger then the both of us.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Loved them. In the U.K the sets were called Meccano. We used the punched steel struts to form the inner skeleton of the first V2 rocket me and my cousin built.... << Snipped bits out >>

I thought only the Germans built the V2's.... But sounds industrious, you young rapscallions.....

 

[scloyd]

It was a miracle we didn't blow ourselves up, but boy could we build great rockets. Happy days and then I discovered tobacco and women and it all went down hill from that point!

 

[augiebd]

In Canada we also had Meccano. Spent many hours building all kinds of things. Also spent a lot of time building go-karts out of scrap wood and lawn mower wheels.

 

[warren]

I did and I did.

 

[olkofri]

It's the first time I see something like that.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Hell yes! Erector sets were rad. Lincoln logs were a favorite as well, I used to make old western towns with them and have my toy soldiers fight the indians (I didn’t have cowboys for some reason).

The buildings always took a beating, and at the end godzilla (me) always came and ruined the battle (and the settlement) for both sides.

Ah childhood. You never appreciate it enough while you were there and you can never go back. One of the saddest things about sliding down the long, shallow, irreversible slope into adulthood. Oh, to go back, if only for a day. No amount of booze, schmooze, or anything else can quite equate to the smell of grass stains on jeans after some backyard kickball, walking home in the dusk a half hour late hoping mom won’t be too mad.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Yep. Erectors, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Legos, had all of the construction toys to keep my habit of deconstructing things around the house at bay.?

 

[rmpeeps]

Yep, had Erector sets in the ‘60s.
Graduated to bigger stuff; the latest was a 60 million dollar natural gas processing plant.
Erector sets were more fun.

 

[olkofri]

No amount of booze, schmooze, or anything else can quite equate to the smell of grass stains on jeans after some backyard kickball, walking home in the dusk a half hour late hoping mom won’t be too mad.

Well, I'd disagree, but then again, I started drinking before I was 10. Memories of that sherry bottle being slowly drained whilst my parents were none the wiser... ahhhh!

 

[alaskanpiper]

Well, I'd disagree, but then again, I started drinking before I was 10. Memories of that sherry bottle being slowly drained whilst my parents were none the wiser... ahhhh!

Haha, I had a few sneaked sips of sherry myself from the high shelf when I was a lad, haha.

 

[tavol]

I had something similar but it was made out of wood.

As a young child before I was old enough to go to school I went round to my grandparents house during the day so my mother could go back to work. Very occasionally my grandfather would come back from work for lunch and I would harass him relentlessly until he stopped eating his lunch and would build me a wooden crane, for some reason it had to be a crane. We would then play with the crane until he had to leave work, the very second he left I would dismantle the crane in an effort to learn how to build it and every time I'd be unable to rebuild the crane and I'd have to wait until next time he'd come back for lunch and then I'd harass him relentlessly until he'd build me that crane again.

He died before I went to school and I have very few memories of him and most of them are of him building a crane out of a wooden erector and not eating his lunch. They're very happy memories.

 

[mikethompson]

At first I thought no, nothing like that and then,

In Canada we also had Meccano.

yes I did have that! Just a small set, but I do remember the little screws. We definitely had LEGO, that was out go-to building toy.

 

[scloyd]

I had something similar but it was made out of wood.

As a young child before I was old enough to go to school I went round to my grandparents house during the day so my mother could go back to work. Very occasionally my grandfather would come back from work for lunch and I would harass him relentlessly until he stopped eating his lunch and would build me a wooden crane, for some reason it had to be a crane. We would then play with the crane until he had to leave work, the very second he left I would dismantle the crane in an effort to learn how to build it and every time I'd be unable to rebuild the crane and I'd have to wait until next time he'd come back for lunch and then I'd harass him relentlessly until he'd build me that crane again.

He died before I went to school and I have very few memories of him and most of them are of him building a crane out of a wooden erector and not eating his lunch. They're very happy memories.

Nice story Tavol. I would bet that was your grandfather's favorite part of the day.

 

[condorlover1]

I thought only the Germans built the V2's.... But sounds industrious, you young rapscallions.....

Our one was only four feet tall. Erector sets gave the skeleton and the aluminum skin was pop revit to the frame. The top and bottom sections were installed as separate pieces of construction. The middle section held two tanks containing isopropyl alcohol and reduced hydrogen peroxide braced to the inner frame to stop the pressurized tanks moving. The lower section contained two gyroscopes for the guidance vanes purchased from Hamley's in Regent Street and the electrics that provided the power for the pump and the repurposed model plane jet engines.Great fun but rather expensive since it was a single use item!