The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nuts and bolts.

[2] It was a model construction kit consisting of perforated metal strips, plates and girders, with wheels, pulleys, gears, shaft collars and axles for mechanisms and motion, and nuts and bolts and set screws to connect the pieces.

[3] The first construction sets had parts that were rather crudely made: the metal strips and plates had a tinplate finish, were not rounded at the ends and were not very sturdy.

However, the following year strips and girders were painted dark green, the plates Burgundy red, while the wheels and gears remained brass.

[6] In the early 1960s, Meccano Ltd experienced financial problems and was purchased by Lines Bros Ltd (who operated under the brand name "Tri-ang") in 1964.

In an attempt to redefine Meccano's image, the colour scheme was changed again, this time to yellow and black plates, with silver strips and girders.

With unions threatening all out industrial action if there were any job losses, Airfix shut down the Binns Road factory,[9] bringing to an end the manufacture of Meccano in England.

With younger model builders in mind, many theme sets were also introduced, including the "Construction and Agricultural" 200-Series & 300-Series, the "Space" 100-Series, and the "Dynamic" 400-Series minisets.

In 1994, additional theme sets were introduced and a pull-back friction motor was added to the Plastic Meccano System.

These unchanged standards and complete interchangeability of parts results in many modern models functioning perfectly with Meccano components that are more than 100 years old and vice versa.

In late 2013, the company also opened a public "Meccano Lab" play space and R&D centre, in Calais, France.

[18] In January 2025, Spin Master announced it was licensing Meccano to British toy company Addo Play under a long-term agreement.

The current range of Meccano electric motors are small DC types designed to run on domestic batteries.

Adult enthusiasts tend to use a wider range of high-performance motors that are better suited to powering large models.

Their elements are mainly made of thick stable metal in order to fit to the general approach of Swiss Quality.

The Krugozor (Russian: Кругозор, "Outlook") plant in Moscow produced some sets which included electrical motors and gears.

[citation needed] Unlike the Czech Merkur sets, the Soviet ones used mixed Metric and Imperial measurements despite the latter having been abandoned in Russia since the 1920s.

A similar machine built by J.B. Bratt at Cambridge University in 1935 is now in the Museum of Transport & Technology collection in Auckland, New Zealand.

[24] After a lengthy period of neglect, a restoration effort began in 2003, and a successful "full run through" of this machine was completed on 16 December 2008.

[24] A memorandum written for the British military's Armament Research Department in 1944 describes how this same machine was modified during the Second World War 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.

[27][28] It has been said that this machine was used in preparation for Operation Chastise, otherwise known as the "Dam Busters raid";[29] However after extensive enquiries and literature searches over the last few years, no evidence can be found that the Differential Analyser no.

In the late 1980s, with an Erector Set, various old toys, and bits of jewellery, Jack Kevorkian jury-rigged a machine he called the Thanatron (later renamed to the Mercitron.)

Three bottles were suspended from a beam: one filled with a saline solution to open a patient's veins, another with barbiturates for sedation, and a third with potassium chloride to stop the heart.

The model, the largest at the time, was 6.5 metres (21 feet) high, weighs 544 kilograms (1,199 pounds), was made from 19,507 pieces, 50,560 nuts and bolts, and took 1,239 hours to construct.

[33] At this mass and size, some deviation from Meccano-only parts was a necessity, to prevent it collapsing (mainly in the structural spokes).

The fully motorised Krupp 288 Bucket Wheel Excavator (as used on large opencast mining) is complete with auxiliary conveyors.

Almost any mechanical device can be built with these systems, from structures, to complex working cranes, automatic gearboxes or clocks.

Modern dedicated publications include: Constructor Quarterly, The International Meccanoman and the ModelPlans series of instructions.

In Sydney, Australia an overhead gantry with directional signs and traffic lights erected in 1962 is named the Meccano Set.

[41][42] Arthur C. Clarke mentions his childhood fascination with Meccano and his return to it as an adult in his 1989 memoir, Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography.