[Billzilla]

Hi.
I posted a new thread days ago, it was yet to be approved by a moderator but I haven't seen it appear yet.
Did I accidentally break one of the rules?


Edit - I see that it's there now, thanks!

[Billzilla]

No tech support either ... ?

Anyway I see this thread is getting views, here's what I was trying to post.
_____________


Hi, first post, etc.

On & off for a couple of years I’ve been trying to find the brand of toy I had back in the late 1970’s. It was like a Meccano kit but definitely not from Meccano.

I had two, I’m pretty sure they were from the same company, one was a mechanical snake and the other a kind-of tank-like machine that used a walking dragline style mechanism to move along.

Both of them had to be assembled, like a Meccano kit, but were not intended to be made into any other type of machine.

The snake was three main parts, each part being about 200mm long (I think! It was a looong time ago) with a hinge at each end of the middle part. The mechanism made the ends move left/right and with the wheels underneath they’d work so it’d move forwards a bit like a snake. Had one or two small electric motors to make it all work.

The other machine was quite complex, and one thing I do remember clearly is that it’s the thing that made me first start swearing so it’s got great sentimental value.
It had three main sections, a large middle section that held the complex mechanisms, motors, batteries, and controls. The pad on the bottom was about 200mm (?) long and about 100mm or so wide. The two sections on the sides were also that long but the pads on the bottom were much narrower at about 30mm (?) or so.

The middle section had the controls at the front, on a quadrant-type system, with three or maybe four levers that you’d move up & down over detents to make it go forwards, backwards, and turn.

All the metal parts were Meccano-like but plated with nickel or chrome.

They may well have been Japanese, I’m not sure but I’d hesitantly guess so.

I’ve used as many search terms as I can think of and quizzed ChatGPT as well, but no luck so far.

Can anyone please help? I’ll attempt to draw the two machines if that’ll help, though with my drawing skills it might not be a positive thing.