Sight, brings back memmories. Me, 'Kenner Bridge and Building' sets, a winters' day would pass and suddenly it was dinner time. I'm sure I had lunch in there somewhere. My creation was almost to the ceiling and covered 8 square feet! Oh, wait, that's not true but to me in the 3rd grade it *felt* that way. It was ginormous!
Never had that kind of stuff. I had to build my own. Then watch my 9 little brothers destroy it for FUN!
My brother and I had Kenner's Girder and Panel sets and played with them for years. He had the set featuring the "Skyrail" monorail and I had the Bridge & Turnpike set which was perfect for my Matchbox cars. Fun times.
My oldest brother had the Kenner Hydro Dynamic building set and it was great until the oil we used to lubricate the pump motor attacked the plastic and the impeller fell apart. As far as I know, it is still up in one of the storage rooms in the house. Doug
Ahh, the dreams that have been dreamt, fostered by such things... I have a grand-nephew who has done some amazing things with Legos. I didn't have that kind of patience at his age. Or parents that would shell out the $ some of the Lego sets command. I was more into the Radio Shack electronics project-box kits and X-in-one sets. My dad was happy to foster that with his interest in Ham Radio, even though he had to abandon his radio room shortly after I was born (after the birth of my younger sister, his radio room reverted to the third and final bedroom in the house.)
Who else had a Kenner Mold Master? I had one with both the Military and Construction vehicles. I must have molded a hundred vehicles with mine. They were pretty close to HO scale too, so I got a lot of use out of them along with my trains. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to have an actual layout (I was only 10 or 11 at the time) so playtime involved laying out the tracks on the dining room floor (the only room that didn't have carpeting) until Mom chased me out to get ready for dinner. It seemed like I no sooner got everything set up to start running a train and I had to tear it all down. Good memories though.
I was a kid in the 2000s who was already a big fan of Lego and Lincoln Logs, so "Santa" did bring me both a Hydrodynamic and a Girder & Panel building set for Christmas one year. However, they were new-production versions of the sets that were made by a company called Bridge Street Toys. They must have purchased the rights to the designs and names from Kenner, as pretty much everything in these newer sets (aside from the colors of certain components), looks to be the same as the items in the old Kenner sets do in photos. I had fun playing with both of these, and as a matter of fact I still have both of them sitting in my bedroom closet in their original boxes. I kept them due to sentimental value, I guess, and I'm glad I did because Bridge Street Toys went out of business in 2016 according to their Facebook page. Hopefully someone else will make another run of them eventually, because they really are a good idea. As an aside, the Hydrodynamic set deserves some credit for my interest in real-world industrial plant design, which in turn has led me to start planning for an N Scale layout and/or modules that will focus on the paper/lumber and oil/chemical industry (hence my username). I haven't done anything that's worth a post or a thread yet, but I'll start sharing more about that when I do.
