Another Tootsie toy rehab...update: 07/16 two trucks completed

Great job, how many of these little Jems ended up in the dump? Don

Nice to see these old toys get a new life. Well done! 👍

Another "Original by Mark" for the layout.  Nicely done.

Nice!  Excellent scrounging and repurposing!   

those look great! I have the green/yellow dump truck in about the same shape.

also have the cement truck like this one, but it's missing the cement barrel. Need to get around to making something for it.

  It’s so nice to see these trucks being given a second life. If it weren’t for people like you, Mark, things like this would probably end up in a dump. Great work!

Jim

Fantastic! 

Thank you for all the kind comments. These projects are really fun for me. I like watching car customizing TV shows like "overhaul'n" and such, but could no way afford to do those kinds of things on the 1:1 scale vehicles. But I do derive a lot of inspiration from those show and I just do them in miniature.  

Steamer posted:

those look great! I have the green/yellow dump truck in about the same shape.

also have the cement truck like this one, but it's missing the cement barrel. Need to get around to making something for it.

Dave, I have been wanting to do a Cement mixer. I found one on Ebay missing the barrel like you mentioned. In my exuberance, I paid 99 cents for it thinking I got a great deal. When I got it, it was more like HO scale, measuring only about an inch long...DRAT!  So, MMMMM....if you want to part with yours...? 

"make me an offer I can't refuse"........seriously, email me (in my profile....)and I'll take some pics and measurements.

I and a lot of other kids, probably, had many of those on my layout. None of those was what l think was a seen Tootsietoy circa 1940 school bus, the only one I'm aware of that era. So l search. 

those are outright beautiful!!!!

- walt

In regards to the lack of, or mixing of scales for O scale vehicles; one vehicle always stood out to me.  The 1956 Ford F100.  This truck is a popular model and is produced in 1/43, 1/48, and 1/50.  I have always thought that the scale models of this truck looked out of scale.  In the real world, the F100 has an relatively large cab when compared to other manufactures.  I did a little research and it seems that the Ford 1956 F100 cab is nearly identical in size and shape to the F700-900 series cabs.  Using this fact, I have begun a project to use 1/43 scale F100s to create "comfortably appearing" 1/48ish dump trucks.  The attached pictures show my progress.  Note the mock up using a paper dump bed.  That bed would be approximately a 16 ton coal load in 1/48 scale.  I have some wheels from Don White and some other details, and will have to build a frame, but I think this cross scale experiment will make a fairly reasonably believable 1950s-60s era coal dump truck.

Mark Diff posted:

Hello All. A while back I posted some pictures of some Tootsie Toy trucks I've upgraded or rehabbed if you will...

As a little lad, I had that exact same green/yellow dump truck! Played the snot out of it. Probably ended up tossed. How silly of me. I recall LOVING Tootsie Toy products. Very durable, lots of play value. You could fill your pockets with them and head over to a neighbor's house to play (or sneak 'em into church!).

I can't remember what all Tootsie Toy items I had, but I also think I recall some tractor-trailer trucks, etc.

You're doing great "saving" those Tootsie Toy trucks and re-purposing them into very presentable layout trucks! Well done!

Andre

Wonderful work! I really appreciate this, as I've worked similar old vehicles into the layout...for me, vehicles are a sub-hobby within the hobby. I usually leave them as found, including chipped paint and minor dings. Their battle scars speak to me of their lives -  LOL.

Couple of years ago I started ebaying old, beat-up Tootsie toy cars and trucks for my great-grandson Logan. Cheap. Stripped and repainted them. Idea was that he could play with them and if they got chipped, etc, it was no big deal. Eventually the project grew to a fairly large collection. This photo is the original set.

This thread has done some memory jogging. I think I also had a blue and silver dumptruck, a box van semi truck, and a flat bed semi w/stakes.

The reason I remembered the yellow/green dumptruck is because later dad bought a brand new '59 Chevy Impala that used almost the same colors.

Really fun memories of Tootsietoy this thread has triggered! It would be WAAAY too easy for me to start collecting a "few" Tootsietoy trucks!

Andre

Nice job! Now you just need some O Scale bugs for the radiator.

Sean

These are mine from my youth.