Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Vintage Tinkertoy Manuals








Not finding anything like this online, I decided to post this manual, found among some old toys my brother Ted sent me a while back. This is so much better than the sheet they provide with modern tinkertoys.

Updated  (09/19/21)

Additional manuals with more complicated designs can be found below:

Models for the vintage "Teck" & "Major" sets
photos; 4 page color PDF of "Teck" & "Major" manual

Models for the vintage "Big Boy" and "Grad" sets
photos; 4 page color PDF of "Big Boy" & "Grad" manual

If you appreciate these manuals, why not add to our "Tinkertoy Engineers' Relief Fund" -- we'll post & scan new manuals as we find them! Or maybe we'll just go buy an ice cream!  Venmo link for ice cream fund here.  

Don't miss the videos below.  Thanks!




And here are some YouTube movies of a"Big Boy" building project in action




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw1JINFAFBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOjXCUK_d0


Tinker Toy Jack-knife Bridge (from the Teck & Major manual)

Have fun! If you make something cool, please write me about it!



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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kristen,
Bless you! I gave my granddaughter a set of ticker toys for Christmas and the one page of pictures are useless. I have been looking everywhere remembering the good old days of the 1940s and the instructions that came with my set. And the instructions that came in the early 1970s for my kids.
Thank you, thank you.
Betsy

Anonymous said...

I'm getting this for my son for Xmas, and I'm so happy you posted some great blueprints! Thank you!!!

Kristen F said...

The new sets are okay, but if you want to build these things, you should really find a vintage set on eBay. They are pretty inexpensive and come with lots of parts that they don't make today. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for doing this. My son loves it, "because it is so awsome."
Merry Christmas

Kristen F said...

I may try to publish some more of these manuals -- some really complicated designs are in there.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU! Only place I could find these online!!! Better than what comes with the new bins for sure. Our kids thank you too :)

Anonymous said...

My childre4n are 5 and 6 and they just found my old Tinkertoy set from the '70's. They finished making all of the things on the package and wanted me to "google some more". Thank you for compiling this.

Kim

Jami said...

Thank you for posting these. I just found them and my son and husband are having a blast with them. You're right. They are so much better than what comes in the new sets.

Darren said...

I just wanted to say thanks for bringing back the kid in all of us.My son and I will have a blast building with theses plans.Makes me want to go out and buy and couple more sets, there is a few missing pieces we dont have. Where do you buy something like this?

Anonymous said...

Thanks! I used to have these manuals when I was my children's age.

AJ said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to post these!
I was rather amazed by the difficulty of finding design manuals for a toy that's been a kid favorite for generations and is still in production.
Here's a page with links to over a dozen high-quality scans of Tinkertoy manuals (directly from Hasbro).
http://www.jobogames.com/hasbro_rules.html