CHAPTER
IX.
FRANK HORNBY'S LATEST INVENTION.
Frank Hornby's latest invention is an electric motor. This motor is the most powerful and reliable for its size ever introduced in any country in the world. It is not just an electric motor, built by an ordinary manufacturer. It is a Meccano Electric Motor.
It is interchangeable in that it can be adapted to almost any kind of working model. That is, when you are building a train, or a bridge, or an elevator, or a lift-bridge, or a draw- bridge, or an electric locomotive, or a Ferris wheel, or a tower or any other form of engineering in miniature, you will have an electric motor which can be made an integral part of your machinery. It has the Meccano equidistant holes (meaning the little round holes each one-half inch apart) for coupling it with the rest of your Meccano system. Furthermore, if it does not give as much power as you want, you can take the gear wheels and shaftings and even a worm gear and other parts of your Meccano outfit and build up gearing so as to make the motor as powerful in its leverage as you want it to be.
When the Meccano Electric Motor is correctly geared, as shown in the picture on this page, it will lift thirty pounds dead weight. It is also furnished with extra gears and has a starting, stopping and reversing lever. There never was a boy who did not like to see the wheels go round. Anything that moves is interesting. Any piece of machinery which just stands still after it is completed, is not nearly so interesting. You want your Meccano toys-your Meccano-cal engineering-to do actual work, to lift weights, to run the machinery. A crane must move, must lift things, must carry them around and put them down.
An incline plane car must run up and down as it takes coal out of a mine, or ascending the steep side of a mountain. A draw-bridge must lift or turn around, a Ferris wheel must revolve, an Eiffel tower must have an elevator running to the top and back. And another thing, the practical boy is not satisfied to simply see the wheels go round, He wants his machinery-his Meccano-cal engineering - to really work, to really do something worth while; not just move. Now with this marvelous little Meccano Electric Motor, everything can be made to move, to work. A derrick can be operated with it.
The electric locomotive can be made to run along the track, with power supplied by batteries to the third rail. It can even be made to draw other cars along the track. An elevated railroad can be built and trains run along just like a real elevated railroad. A subway-you can really build one under the ground-with trains, trolley cars, a machine shop with drills, planes, die stamps and other machinery, can all be run by this powerful little motor. You can build a merry-go-round, scenic railway, roller coaster, and a Ferris wheel and make them run just like the real ones do at the circus or fair. Every boy wants to be clean and strong and useful. The only reason he is bad, is because he is not busy with something in which he is interested.
Meccano is not only a great educational force, but is a great moral power in making boys' characters strong, so that they will grow up to be useful, successful leaders of men. Meccano electrified is a remarkable character builder, be- cause it keeps the boy interested, it teaches him and it amuses him.