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Part 45: Double bent strip

45	Double bent strip	1907	-	6	6	4	N°5

The parts

(Part details)

Chronological variations

The very first nickel-plated double bent strips had curved corners, particularly at the bottom, as you can see on the left-hand example in this picture. After 1916, the corners were made much sharper as in the right-hand example, and all subsequent parts were made like this.

This part was (fairly obviously) made from the 2½'' strip part number 5. You can see how this is the case, as the versions after 1973 change from radiused ends to truncated ends along with part number 5. Subsequent variations in matt brass and iridescent also have these ends, which can be seen in the main photograph at the top of this page.

But life is never this easy – Ed Barclay has helpfully (!) supplied examples of both army/combat multikit and matt brass parts with radiused ends. Certainly it is beyond belief that the matt brass ones were made from pre-1973 blanks. I can't think of any reasonable explanation for these, can anyone else?

Clive Weston has also come up with an MME-style double bent strip. With a start date of 1907, it is certainly possible that this part was introduced before the change to solid steel strips, but this would have to be a very rare part indeed, only produced for a few months at the most. The example shown in the table below looks good, and doesn't immediately appear to be a mutilated version of a part 2.

Variations and oddities

None known

Dealer spare parts boxes

The picture shows an early post-war pack of double bent strips, in medium green, wrapped in brown paper. Later these were packed in the usual yellow boxes, as the example to the right with the light green label, identifying light green parts from 1958 onwards.

Individual part numbers

Part numbers for the parts on this page are as follows:    Unique part numbers
For identification, each variation has been given a suffix to the main Meccano part number. These suffixes consist of a two-character code for the colour, and if there are many variations, a further number and sometimes letter code to identify each variation. See the bottom of the 'Parts' page for further details.

You don't need to worry what the codes are, just click on any one for a photograph.

The button above turns on and off the display of DMS numbers (where they are known). The DMS (Development of the Meccano System, Hauton and Hindemarsh) published in 1972 and added to in 75 and 82, suggested part numbers for every variation of every Meccano part. These numbers aren't perfect, but they are recognised and also referenced in the EMP (Encyclopedia of Meccano Parts, Don Blakeborough).

Description	from	45
Double bent strip, folded tinplate MME-style part	07	.mm
Double bent strip, curved corners, nickel plated	07	.ni
Japanned black, curved corners	15-16	.bk
Sharply angled corners, nickel plated	16	.ni1
Dark green	27	.dg
Medium green (pre-war)	33	.mg1
Gold	34	.go
Medium green (post-war)	46	.mg
Light green	58	.lg
Nickel plated	62	.ni2
Zinc with radiused ends	66	.zn
Zinc with truncated ends	73	.zn1
Olive green (Combat multikit) ¹†	76	.am
Olive green with radiused ends ¹†	76	.am1
Blackened steel (Combat multikit) ¹†	76	.bs
Matt brass	78	.mb
Matt brass with radiused ends	78	.mb1
Iridescent	79	.ir
		ALL

Note: ¹ It is not known with any certainty when the olive green and blackened steel varieties were used in Combat multikits, nor why there was a change. Further research needed, do you have an unopened Combat multikit that you can date you could tell us about? It seems certain that olive green is much more common than black.

Please send us pictures of missing parts! Hints and tips for pictures
Take a picture of the part in very good light, preferably on a plain yellow background, without a flash but with a tripod.
Ideally, trim the picture to about 150 pixels per inch of the Meccano part (unless the part is particularly big or small), save it as a reasonably good quality jpg file with a filename of exactly the part number, for example 19b.ni1.jpg, and email it to us by clicking on 'Contact us' at the top of the page. Thanks!

• A greyed-out box shows that no part exists for that colour combination.
• Part number codes with a green background have an attached picture of the part, just click once on the code to show a photograph of that part in a separate window.
• Parts marked "†" were temporary or economy parts, or existed only within specific themed outfits. The previous part continued throughout or afterwards.

Further information

Rob Mitchell      (at 2:36am, Fri 11th Feb, 11)

Calais-produced 45s are noticeably narrower than those from Binns Road. A sample of several from each source showed Calais types to be about a millimetere less than Liverpool and made from thicker material which means the room available inside the 'U' is considerably less. This was revealed when used to form a bearing for a Coupling; the rotation angle wasn't great enough in the Calais types.

Jason      (at 10:46am, Sat 9th Aug, 08)

Part number 5 changed to "truncated ends" in 1976 Reply: You're absolutely right, sorry about that. Confusing the date with the change to five-hole 2'' strips, and not checking what I was writing...

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