Just attempted to build up a stocking filler Meccano 'Maxi Kit' of a bulldozer. Now Im 37 and an engineer by trade but I've had to give it up for the night half way through-too fiddly and frankly it looks bugger all like a bulldozer.

Tonight is probably the only time I've ever felt sorry for some students-the ones James May had building his bridge.

Does anyone actually buy Meccano nowadays?

Got some meccanno for my birthday today and have just built a helicopter with my 3 year old daughter,twas a piece of cake but it was all plastic pah!

Built a tiddly little tractor yesterday(tractor fetish!) – took bloody ages,and yeh!,plastic – shamefull

got the same set as Rich and son wanted the off road trike thing – easy

I have been known to build rotating holders for lasers using meccano instead of buying expensive specific holders for research 🙂

My brother gave me this for my christmas:

http://www.mailorderexpress.com/Meccano_Special_Edition_Super_Construction_Set.asp?aid=froogle08

It's fantastic I'm building a crane, gave up on a forklift after it went Wrong. I never had meccano as a kid, I was a lego sort of a guy but I love the solidity of this stuff.

I have been known to build rotating holders for lasers using meccano instead of buying expensive specific holders for research

Indeed. There's a chap who lives round the corner who designs and builds fairly high tech measuring equipment that ends up in Nuclear power plants and science test beds and he swears by meccano for holding everything in place in his test configurations.

We use meccano to teach the basics of mech eng to first year elec-eng students, but it's pretty useful all the way up, due to the versatility of it.

I've got one of these for christmas, I'm just waiting for the dining table to be free for long enough to get building it.

I used to have a set of 30's Meccano, the red and green style with brass nuts and bolts and pressed steel wheels with painted on tyres. It came with instructions to build 30's MGs and traction engines. I loved it. I made a lot of stuff with it. I gave it to a farmer friends son who was went on to build the cantilevered bridges and cranes. It got me interested in engineering and gave the the confidence to rebuild this.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mcmoonter/1932MorrisMajorSix#