Mobaco Construction Toy – Retro Building Toys

Construction toy, created by Dutch company called Moubal, between 1924~1962.

More information

Informative website: www.mobaco.nl
For discussions: facebook.com

Library

Mobaco building & plan, image courtesy from mobaco.nl

“The Mobaco system consists of square wooden columns of various lengths that fit into evenly spaced holes in a thick fiberboard base board. The columns have slots on all four sides, into which dense cardboard panels are slid. The panels have different colors, and are either solid or have window or door cut-outs of various shapes.

The system allows for pitched roofs. There are special gable ends and purlins that form the structural support for the roof. Opposite roof panels interlock at the ridge with hooks, and hang from the ridge beam.”

Building with Mobaco

More information on building instructions in real life. You could also try to build these examples, from the never produced box no. 5:

Reconstruction Model Z

Besides putting the existing parts into 3D, it’s also fun to research and virtualize those advertised, but never produced parts!

This is a nice example of Model Z, which was issued around 1931, but never produced. Together with C. Mol, we reconstructed these exiting new elements.

And not only that, also bring them (back) to life, by building them in real models:

Currently also selling the special ModelZ parts in wooden (2mm) compatible version:

Mobaco timeline

Buildings created by various enthousiasts, including myself. =)

A nice overview, of both realized buildings and their digital counter parts, all available in LeoCAD.

Since all panels are stamped parts, making a lot of these metal stamping tools must have taken place before 1924 and would have cost a lot of money…

In this case the LeoCAD system was also used by a designer, for recreating the Maliebaan Train Station in Utrecht (model bottom right side) and was rebuild & styled by an other Mobaco enthausiast.

Some system characteristics

Here a short list of some system characteristics and how it’s retrofitted into the virtual LeoCAD library:

Part types:	Original:	Virtual:
Base plates	Cardboard 6 [mm] thickness	Single color pieces
Columns	Wood – beech wood ~12×12 [mm]	Single color pieces
All panel elements	Cardboard 2.5 [mm] thickness	Single color pieces, some having textures
Bay size	~57.5 [mm]	40 [mm] (v0.2) 60 [mm] (v0.5)
Standard wall panel	51 x 102 [mm]	(scaled)

Library information

Here you see an overview of most parts in the library:

The Mobaco library consist of 5 different categories, each with their own unique type of parts:

Categories:	Unique parts:	Numer of parts:
Generic parst	Both for Moubal & Jumbo style	119
Garage parts	Unique parts for building the 3 special garage models	22
Windmill parts	Unique parts for building the 2 special windmill models	26
Model Z	Unique parts for building the never produced model Z	15
User parts	Some DIY user parts are added for fun.
Total parts:		182