BAYKO Base Links

BAYKO was a modular system, capable of building anything from a simple garden seat on part of a single Base, to a massive skyscraper spread over dozens of Bases.

This meant that BAYKO had to provide something to fasten the Bases together - they couldn't expect everybody to screw each Base down to a wooden board - hence the Base Link was born.

The first design [left] was clearly inspired by engineering principles...

...the use of 2 holes on one side of the joint helped in 2 ways : -

► Accurate alignment was easy to achieve.

► The framework of Bases was held very rigidly.

The Base Links were secured using brass screws and nuts.

The earliest Base Links were actually solid brass and had square corners.

The majority of the early Base Links were chromed, with rounded ends, but there are also examples of bare metal, both with, and without, a thin copper coating.

The actual Screw size is 5BA with, as you can see from the photo, small square Nuts.

In 1939 Plimpton relaunched BAYKO in the 'New Series' format, which included a complete redesign of the Bases to a new, smaller size.

The new Bases required new Base Links [right] to fasten them together.

These new Base Links were provided with a receiving thread so that the screws are secured directly into them, eliminating the need for separate nuts.

There was a slight change in the design, around 1949 - the photo [right] shows the early, slightly flatter design at the bottom, and the later, 'shapelier' version at the top - click anywhere on the image [right] to see a larger image.

After the takeover, MECCANO continued with exactly the same design until the end.

These Screws were size 4BA.

In contrast to the Base Links, the Bases themselves were produced with significantly more variety...

Both types of Screws, and the Nuts for the earlier type, remain available from specialist screw supliers, though not the B & Qs of this world. Just be careful with the 5BA as some of those supplied are slightly too long, and will scratch whatever surface the model is put on - don't say I didn't warn you!

Hollow Rods

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