Interesting interlocking building toy, first manufactured by ‘The Irisch Toy Industry’, Belfast, Ierland started in 1915~1927(??).

The second manufacturer was ‘The Improved Solidate Co Ltd’, London, UK. Manufacturing period of these composite blocks are unknown to me.

In total there are 3 incompatible types of Dometo interlocking construction sets: 2 wooden series and one composite series.

If you know more about these boxes or willing to send some pictures and scans of manuals, that would be amazing. Also happy to buy some more boxes.

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Patents Dometo

The interlocking building block is first issued in December 1914, by William Geoerge Anderson, Belfast, Ireland and granted in 1915. The patent is also granted in US.

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Dometo: 3 incompatible types…

All 3 types having simular part colors & manual front covers. The two wooden versions using tongues and grooves, while the third composition material uses studs instead. Here an overview of the different types:

So the main difference between wooden types is the thichness of the wall bricks.

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Dometo – Wooden variant

Type 1 & 2: Wooden blocks – Tongues & grooves:

With all content found so far, it’s difficult to distinguish which information belongs to which wooden boxes. Most written information is about the 3/4″ type.

Boxes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, K, L:

A nice overview of the different boxes sold, at least during/after 1916:

Box covers & content:

More photo’s of missing box covers & content is appriciated! 😉

Content boxes:

Manuals:

Manuals found sofar: C, D & F:

We would appriciate more/better scans of the different manuals!

Parts

Parts overview per box, according the manuals:

Building with Dometo requires some organisation, Michael uses a handy way of keeping track of all his parts:

Some different buildings created:

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Dometo – Composite variant

Type 3: Composite parts – studs & holes:

Maybe one of the first Lego like systems, using studs for placing bricks on top of each other. The composite bricks are also having a very nice look and feel.

Series & boxes:

So there are 4 different series, with each their own box numbers. On top of that some supplementary boxes, accessories and spare parts lists. Some box covers found:

Manual(s):

Only found a series A manual sofar:

If you have copies of series B, C & D, we would appriciate more scans!

Would also be great, to know content of other boxes, so it’s possible to create a complete Dometo-composite library!

Parts

For the frist series, the parts could be found in the manual.

Content: Series A – Box 4:

This series A box 4, consits of 27 unique bricks. The largest brick is 1×4. The windows having glass pieces inside. It’s also possible to use wooden bars, adding stone bricks on top, making an overhang possible. One of the nicest features might even be the roof construction.

Building the roof construction:

For the roof system, you need to mount some beveled bars from the lower gutters up to the top. Then full & half tiles are placed against these wooden bars and the brick side wall.

Here an other nice building of Model 19, created by BW:

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Dometo – various

For making it more easy creating walls etc, Dometo also added cardboard rulers (for Box F). This ruler was found in a wooden (type 2) box:

Another wooden(?) ‘Six-Inch Rule’ could be bought on ebay, which is manufactured in USA! That raises the question, if Dometo as toy is also manufactured in USA?

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We still miss a lot of details about this amazing building system.

Please let’s us know, if you have more information.