Category:Prestacon Model Engineering: Difference between revisions

'Prestacon (~1947-1950) was a metal construction system, superficially very similar to the better-established Juneero sets,which had been around since before WW2.

The September 1950 issue of Meccano Magazne carried a half-page advert from Gamages (just for one month) proclaiming that they'd bought up the stock and were selling it off at half price: this presumably marked the end of the product.

Comparisons with Meccano-like systems

Advantages over Meccano

Like Juneero, the fucus of Prestacon was a patented multi-purpose tool that could bend and punch metal, so that instead of buyng a set of pre-punched metal strip components to build your model (like Meccano), you instead used the tool to make the specific parts that you needed. This was arguably closer to "proper" engineering and metalworking than Meccano's approach, and to make a largeish model you didn't have to buy huge sets of components, many of which you'd never need, want or use -- you could fabricate just the parts that you needed for a specific project. The results could also look more realistic, as the models wouldn't be riddled with unneccesary holes.

Disadvantages with respect to Meccano

The problem with Prestacon's approach, of only making holes where they were strictly needed, and permanently fixing the parts together, was that after having made a model the user was stuck with it: there wasn't an easy way of disassembling it to reuse the parts and make something else. If you bought a kit to make a truck, and you wanted to play with that truck, then that was fine: however, if you didn't particularly want to keep the truck after you'd made it, and wanted to play by going on to make other things, then perhaps somethong like Meccano was more sensible.

Similarities with Meccano

Some "specialist" parts that could not be realistically be made by the owner were included with the sets, including a steering wheel, some rather nice large vehicle wheels with heavy tyres, and a surprisingly thorough selection of gears.