Toys you had as a kid and that you kept

[vavavroom]

A few weeks ago Tremors came up in a thread and I mentioned that I built Val and Earl's Jeep Gladiator after seeing the movie in 1990. That means I was 14 when I built the model. The Jeep in the movie had a more narrow bed but my model wasn't really screen-accurate anyway because I was more into the general idea mixed with some of my own ideas. I had a friend who was a Star Trek nerd and he drove me nuts with the minutia of screen-accurate and screen inaccurate details on his Klingon warbirds and whatnot. I found my old model and here it is. I am tempted to find a graboid sculpture so that I can build a proper Tremor's diorama.

This is the same kind of Matchbox model I used fo the build. The model is ca 1/72 scale.



I made the truck look a lot more dilapidated looking than the one in the movie. I even m, muddied up the windshield and I added wiper marks. The tailgate on the movie prop had a wooden tailgate and no chain but I liked the chain.

''

 

[ZeeOSix]

^^^ Where's Fred Sanford?

 

[vavavroom]

^^^ Where's Fred Sanford?

Fred Ward? Fred's dead. 1942 -2022. RiP.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Fred Ward? Fred's dead. 1942 -2022. RiP.

Yeah, I know. Did you ever see his truck? That's what that truck reminded me of.

 

[vavavroom]

Yeah, I know. Did you ever see his truck? That's what that truck reminded me of.

I see. I have a '48 F1. Showed it already in another thread. Two versions. Pristine and "farm fresh."

 

[vavavroom]

I thought I'd also show the Gladiator as seen from behind. I suddenly realized I had added a rear window to the Matchbox model. The original did not have a rear window. I must have put it out or maybe I just drilled a hole and filed it. I see Earl's baseball bat right by the shovel. The trash bag in the back amuses me. It's pretty much all trash!



The vehicle is dented, but I simulated the dent with a little rotary bit because I couldn't realistically dent the relatively thick diecast zinc. I must have made the truck bed's side rails/flares and extended body moldings from styrene. There is a saw and a hammer on the wooden crate.




And the baseplate. I replaced the rivet by drilling and tapping the rivet post. I noticed I failed to add shims to the axles. You can see I modified the baseplate because the suspension was lifted and I wanted to put on larger truck wheels and tires.

 

[vavavroom]

I showed my nephew some options regarding the project cars we can put together when he comes to visit. He remotely picked seven vehicles from my project box which gives me an idea what supplies we need. We will start working on these projects in a couple of weeks when once gets here. Here is a preview of the vehicles. We may not get around to finishing all of them.

Project Vehicle 1
A 1/72 Matchbox Dodge truck, formerly a tow truck. It only needs axles, wheels, and tires, and it has to be assembled. Super-easy.


Project Vehicle 2
A ca 1/60 Jeep CJ by Matchbox that I recently patched up a bit but didn't finish. It needs axles, wheels, tires, and a paint job.


Project Vehicle 3
A 1/72 resin body copy of a very old Jaguar MK120 model by Matchbox. This model needs a baseplate, windows, axles, and wheels. It's a urethane resin cast I made over 30 years ago and painting it will, be tricky due to adhesion problems. We will try an adhesion promoter.


Project Vehicle 4
A 1/76 Mercedes Gullwing by Schuco, already has a stretched body that I put together 12 years ago and that I left unfinished,. Needs a custom bottom plate, windows, and a paint job.


Project Vehicle 5
A 1/72 Ford pickup by Husky (Corgi). This used to have a camper shell. Will need axles, wheels, tires, and a paint job. May put a motorcycle on it.


Project Vehicle 6
A 1/72 Medford Ambulance by Matchbox. Make some modifications and improvements and repaint.


Project Vehicle 7
Take the Miller-Meteor roof of a '63 Cadillac (left) ambulance and transplant it to a '59 Cadillac ambulance (right).

 

[vavavroom]

A slight shift in content because making a new thread that is in spirit not all that different would be silly. I am going to show some projects that I have been working on with my nephew who has been staying with us for a a couple of weeks so far. He's 11 and likes building model kits which as far as I know is pretty much an old man's hobby these days. He also likes collecting and modifying toy vehicles and that's where Uncle Vavavroom enters the workshop and brings out the tools and some bad advice.

You can see my original Holmes wrecker toy in the first post on the first page of this thread. It's my favorite vehicle model ever and it's sitting on my desk at home. My son and I modified another Holmes wrecker into a work truck. My son gifted this truck to his cousin a year ago.







The floor pan locks the whole back structure to the chassis. See the hole and the mushroom post? You can figure out how this works by looking at it.



PROJECT 1

My nephew wanted to make a swappable cherry picker. So we did. It took us three evenings. I'm not going to show the construction because it's beyond the scope of the post. I will say that styrene was used for the body and many parts of the cherry picker assembly, as well as aluminum and styrene, and thin brass rods, M2 threaded brass rod, M2 brass washers and M2 nuts. The basket was made from a tiny candy tin. The paint was Rustoleum 2x with a dark brown and black wash for a used and dirty look. The traction pads on top of the structure are made from 400 grit waterproof sandpaper. There is a telescoping work light and there's also a deployable semaphore at the back of the truck.

I asked my nephew to design the functioning and articulated cherry picker mechanism which he did all by himself. I suggested the materials based on the scrap tubing and rods I had. I showed him how to use small tools like tiny drills, files, scalpels, and a jeweler's saw. He probably built 80% of the cherry picker and I did the rest.The kid has a touch of ADD and focusing his attention on projects benefits him. It helps him to slow down and to follow a plan.

worklight retracted


Worklight extended










The cab still tips forward

 

[vavavroom]

Project 2

My nephew found the unfinished stretched 1952 300 SL Gullwing Schuco model in my parts bin. He wanted to finish it. This is a 1/76 scale model from the early 2000s, I think. We finished the model in two hours.

The bare body. The model was stretched and spats were added sometime around 2011 or so.


I showed my nephew how to etch the ZMAK body for better primer adhesion. I find this step to be crucial for non-chipping primer and paint but I don't eve seen anybody else do this. I etch with diluted phosphoric acid for 7 minutes. This gives the ZMAK a dull appearance with a slight tooth.


I like to use resin-based adhesion promoter before priming. Should adhesion promoter be unavailable a self-etching primer works okay. The inside of the body doesn't have to look very good. The interior window is a solid block of tinted resin.


I introduced my nephew to UV-cure resin and showed him how to make headlight lenses and taillight and blinker lenses. Here is the finished model, which was painted with Duplicolor brake caliper enamel for a tough finish. The window glass is something I made way back when I set out to build this model with my son before the project was abandoned. The window insert is made from tinted urethane resin. Those nice wire wheels came from my parts bin. The car has no bumpers and other than being stretched, it resembles the Panamerican race car version of the 1952 SL300.

 

[vavavroom]

Project 3

A 1/72 urethane resin body copy of a very old Jaguar MK120 model by Matchbox. This model needed a baseplate, a window insert, and a paint job.



I showed my nephew how to make a solid window insert from scratch. On the left, you see the original we carved from modeling clay. The piece was baked, sanded, and polished. Then we made a silicone mold and cast the window insert in UV cure resin that we dyed blue. Because the mold requires overnight to cure this was a two-day project.



The baseplate is plain and made from styrene - not worth showing. I will show my nephew eventually how to make a detailed baseplate out of metal. The wheels and axles came from my parts bin.

The resin body was coated with adhesion promoter and painted with the same Duplicolor brake caliper enamel we used for the Gullwing. Without an adhesion promoter, no paint will stick sufficiently to urethane. The sliver detail was done with a chrome pen and a tiny 12/0 brush. The headlights are made with UV cure resin.

 

[vavavroom]

Yesterday we had less than an hour which wasn't enough time for a bigger project. I decided to show my nephew how to refurbish cruddy-looking and oxidized base plates of toy cars an other metal items. I use electro-polishing which is an electrolytic process that can remove oxidation and minor surface imperfections, It takes 10 seconds to a minute in the acid bath. Any longer and you might remove too much material from the part. I use a cheap electroplating kit for electro-polishing.. The cathode is a small piece of scrap stainless steel. A heat-resistant glass jar is filled with a solution of phosphoric acid. I use Ospho straight from the bottle. Safety concerns are the glass jar, the acid solution, the plug-in power supply, and safety was dressed, and protective gear was provided. Phosphoric acid and stainless steel cathode works for polishing ZMAK alloy. For polishing steel, a knife or whatnot, you need a carbon anode and a mixture of phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid. I remember someone at a workshop holding the positive lead in one bare hand and the negative lead in the other bare hand and shortcircuiting his heart. Didn't die but laid supine for 15 minutes and quit the internship right there and then.

The same base plate from a Siku Oldsmobile Toronado before at the bottom and after electro-polishing at the top. The parts can be polished with rouge and a rotary mop or by hand with metal polish and a cloth to a mirror shine if so desired.



The bumper and grill which are part of the base plate came out nicely, too

 

[vavavroom]

Project #4
My nephew wanted to convert one of my old Husky Ford F-150 that originally came with a camper shell. He wanted to turn it into a pickup with a classic Harley on it. That model is about 1/72 scale.

We drilled four 0.5mm holes we could add tie-downs for the bile later. We etched the body and applied adhesion promoter. primed, and painted it with blue enamel paint


Husky models were cheaply made with chrome-plated resin baseplates that tend to shed the chrome plating over the years. The model is likely from the early ''80s. I was given Husky models when I was 5 or 6 years old. I showed my nephew how to strip chrome plating with the help of a spray oven cleaner. We filled unnecessary holes with epoxy resin. We primed the base with grey primer. The window insert was in a so-so shape with a lot of fine crazing. We decided to leave it as is because the truck was not supposed to look brand-new.



The finished model


The bed was made from a piece of textured styrene that was painted light brown/beige You can see eyelets/tie-downs that we glued into the previously drilled holes


We added the bike, which was 3-D printed. It's an off-the-shelf model that we painted. The bike is removable.

 

[vavavroom]

Regarding the Husky model in the above post. They were originally sold as Husky models in the '60s, competing with Matchbox. In 1970 they were rebranded as Corgi Junior and a few years later they were just sold as Corgi. Until then Corgi models had been the larger scale collectibles while Husky were the budget toys. The Husky and Corgi Junior branded models remained on shelves until the early '80s. They were very inexpensive and sold in blister packs for under 50 cents. I still have a few, most notably a DS Safari and a Lancia Flaminia. The latter could benefit from a restoration so I'll give it to my nephew so he can practice on it.

 

[vavavroom]

Project #5

Some time ago I found a Matchbox Jeep CJ toy under the bushes in the yard. I think my son lost that model sometime before 2011. After I found it I took it apart and stripped it. Part of the body had corroded away. It's tuned into a quick project for my nephew.

This is what the model once looked like. This is one of my old toys that's been in my collection ever since.


The wreck I found, dismantled, and stripped. Note the severe corrosion.


Repaired with textures styrene and resin.



My nephew decided to go for a cruddy look. It complements the rough condition of the body. We added different wheels and tires, a clear windshield, and a jerry can.


My wife interfered with flower decorations. What the Fabulous!

 

[vavavroom]

There are a few more projects to be posted. My nephew is now back at home. A few parts still need to be fabricated for two of the projects but hopefully, we can finish this before school starts. The problem is the resin I have to get but the heat across much of the country makes shipping the material impossible at this time.

Here's something else. I think I have shown everything but the D10 CAT so far. The CAT deserves a few nice pictures, I think. In this light it looks kinda crappy.

 

[vavavroom]

This was a nice resto-mod project many years ago. I had an old Matchbox Rentaset utility van in 1/76 that I turned into a UPS truck. The vehicle is a British Commer van that resembled a typical 1960's step van. I did turn it into a step van by cutting out the passenger side door - most likely with a coping saw. I built an interior and after giving it a dark red-brown finish I put on homemade waterslide decals. I built this model probably in the early '90s. Back then I didn't document any builds which I regret now. But we didn't have digital so it would have been very tedious.

This is a Matchbox original like the one I used to create the UPS truck




If you look cl; closely you may notice the axle ends are brass. That's because I replaced the original axles with stainless steel tubing and I used small brass nails for the "mushroom" ends.




Here is the ice cream truck. This is a restoration without mods to the body. I went with a bright white finish. The original color options were blue and cream, I believe. The decal was my own design. I have always sprayed varnish over vehicles with decals. That way a model can be cleaned with soap and water.

 

[paulo57509]

This was a nice resto-mod project many years ago. I had an old Matchbox Rentaset utility van in 1/76 that I turned into a UPS truck. The vehicle is a British Commer van that resembled a typical 1960's step van. I did turn it into a step van by cutting out the passenger side door - most likely with a coping saw. I built an interior and after giving it a dark red-brown finish I put on homemade waterslide decals. I built this model probably in the early '90s. Back then I didn't document any builds which I regret now. But we didn't have digital so it would have been very tedious.

This is a Matchbox original like the one I used to create the UPS truck




If you look cl; closely you may notice the axle ends are brass. That's because I replaced the original axles with stainless steel tubing and I used small brass nails for the "mushroom" ends.




Here is the ice cream truck. This is a restoration without mods to the body. I went with a bright white finish. The original color options were blue and cream, I believe. The decal was my own design. I have always sprayed varnish over vehicles with decals. That way a model can be cleaned with soap and water.

I have the same Matchbox TV truck. I think I still have the TV set that went with it.

 

[vavavroom]

Back to the projects I was working on with my nephew when he stayed with us a while ago. He fell in love with an old Scout he saw in a small coastal town and so we made him a 1/64 version of it. While we were at it. we made a trailer from a severely damaged Matchbox Jeep Gladiator pickup truck. We used a new Greenlight model of a Scout for the project. We took the model apart. stripped the paint, drilled and tapped the rivet posts for screws, etched the meal parts, primed, and created a distressed look with various techniques, including pastels and dry brushing, The model was then coated with flat clearcoat to lock everything in. We even dirtied up the windshield and added wiper marks. We left the trailer in pristine condition. I think everything turned out alright and right now it's his favorite piece in his toy car collection. I took some more pictures that I may show later.

This the Scout that I showed my nephew and that he liked so much. This was the inspiration for the model we built. The keyword is inspiration. It's not a copy.

 

[vavavroom]

This was another project we did. We modified a Matchbox Dodge Powerwagon from the '60s It's a Holmes wrecker. The twin booms should be individually rotating. While we could have made that mod we opted to simple make the twin booms rotate together.

We used a model like this one but one that was in poor shape. This one here is my collectible which is in perfect condition.


The model was stripped down, the paint was removed, the metal was etched, primed, and painted, Laser-printed waterslide decals were put on, the model was clear-coated. A new deck was built from sheet styrene and stainless steel washer was attached for a precision fitting of the rotating boom attachment. The deck was painted yellow. The washer was maskde off with a piece of blue tape that had been cut into a disc shape with a circle cutter. The deck has a brass bolt attached at the bottom that allows the deck to be fastened to the bed through a hole in the undercarriage.



The hole closer to the rear axle allows the boom to be removed without removing the whole deck/boom assembly.

Finished Project



The main feature is the rotating booms that the original Matchbox model was lacking.














'

 

[vavavroom]

I forgot to show the removable insert we built for the Scout.