Customer Reviews

Erector Multi Model Construction Set

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this for my son's 10th birthday, product marked 8 and up, as he greatly enjoys this sort of toy. The parts are extremely well made and obvious care has been taking to ensure of the fit and finish as well as proper quantity of the parts in the box. It comes with all the tools that will be required for construction; no additional tools required. The educational value is virtually limitless. It is possible with some imagination, and maybe another set, to create structures both complex and simple. These are the positives.

The negative (singular) is unfortunately the daunting level of dexterity required to make even one of the models outlined in the instructions. Even I found it challenging having to hold this nut while turning that screw and all the while trying to keep these parts in place. This is the reason I rated it only a three. My son despite his best efforts is unable to complete some of the steps without my assistance. Granted this is not many; however, for the age rating given I would expect something simpler.

Most challenging steps can be overcome with a judicial application of planning the assembly of whatever the offending piece(s) may be. I will concede that this gives a very good excuse to spend more time with your child and that is always a good thing.

In summery this is a versatile construction set with near limitless possibilities. If your child is interested in constructing for imagination then this is bound to keep them entertained for hours. If (s)he plans to build from the instructions be prepared to provide some assistance. I firmly believe these problems could have been overcome by better step-by-step instructions, "beefier" (wider, thicker) parts, or simply raising the recommended age by a few years.

We purchased this erector set for our 7-year old son for Christmas. He began playing with it at once. He is mechanically minded so he was excited about the possibilities of things that he could create. The bolts and nuts are small and a little difficult to use, even for me. It may be a good idea for the manufacturer to include a set of tweezers. I had to help a great deal with construction; but, our son is very interactive in helping. This is an opportunity for together time and a teaching in working together. I like that most all of the construction pieces are metal. It makes the set more durable. Some of the plastic pieces are not in exact proportion with the metal pieces which makes construction more challenging. However, this opens up opportunity for alternative ideas of how to manipulate something to make it work (taking the lemons and making lemonade.)The directions included are pretty easy to follow. I had to go back and reconnect a part more than once after I realized that I had bolted something in the wrong hole. Over all, I think this is a good toy. Reason being, it gives itself to creative, problem solving thinking (for adult and child, alike,) and, if your not in a hurry, an opportunity to do something creative together. If neither you nor your child are not mechanically inclined it will be frustrating.

I got this for my kids since I remembered how much fun the sets were back in the 80's.

The quality went down drastically! The beams are no longer flanged at the ends so they bend more easily. The models shown are too detailed for my children to follow so I had to do all the work (each model that I built took about 2 hours but it was great time spent with the kids). The tools that are included will do the job but there is too much balancing required so I had to use pliers to hold the nuts in place.

While they were playing with the second model I built; one of the command cables snapped. When I took the model apart many of the beams were bent and it looked like the holes wouldn't match up if we tried to build anything else.

My parents still had one of the sets that I used for years and it appeared to be in good condition. I took that instead for my kids and returned this one.

Purchased for my Grandson remembering my Erector set days over half a century ago. Many parts missing and twice the quantity of other parts. The packer grabbed two bags of one set of items and omitted the others. In other words--unusable. There is no number to contact the manufacturer, only email which they didn't answer. Waited two weeks and found another email contact which they didn't answer either. The buyer is on his or her own if theres a problem. This is not in any way the quality of the sets of the past. Pretty much stamped out Chinese junk. Beware.

I got this for my nine year old at Christmas. Haven't had lots of time to work with it, but so far it seems like a good purchase. I thought that I'd end up doing a good amount of the work, but my son has been able to do quite a lot on his own. He enjoys working with his hands, so this seems to be a great fit. This set requires following written directions and a bit of patience, so I think it's a good skills/learning experience as well.

My grand-nephew has a great interest in becoming an architect. The set was out of the box and a plane built before you know it. He was thrilled with it. Great quality for a relatively inexpensive set. I may go on to getting him more complicated sets now.

A few things to note -
This is one of the more difficult sets to build. I say this having built the motorized crane, the plane in the multi model 10, and the propeller plane in the 10-model set.

For this set, of the 15 sets pictured I've made two, the featured excavator and the tow truck. Both were royal pains. The cables and springs that control these sets are difficult to properly tension, and the sets like to fall apart due to the shaking when moving. Also the treads aren't very forgiving. Pull too hard and they'll tear.

The excavator was pretty straight forward to build, at several steps you may want a friend to give a third hand. Also make sure that any bolt that doesn't look like is supposed to act like a hing, make sure you tighten until stuck. Otherwise with the slightest bit of use, it'll fall off. This set took me about 90 minutes to build.

The tow truck had several steps that were confusing, and at least one step that was just outright wrong. It wasn't until looking at the final image that I was able to correct it. Unfortunately the cables don't do very much in this build. For this, and the difficult tensioning is the reason I'm rating this 4 stars.

I know the box says 8+, but I would not recommend this for anyone under 10. The instructions are much more confusing than k'nex or lego.

The toy is as great as I remember it but the instructions lack in detail and hard to follow for a kid. The plastic parts a flumsy and not durable.

I remember having an Erector set and not being able to make much. Luckily I now have a creative and mechanically inclined younger cousin. I love family get-togethers since now I can watch him build things with this set and I get to help! He's made most of the sets in the booklet but prefers to build from imagination. I'm hoping he'll take this passion and maybe get into those Goldberg machine contests in a few years!

my grandson loves to build and this is just one more way that he can create his own master piece..