Sunday, June 1, 2014

The blue farm truck

Back in August of 2013 I wrote this post about my blue farm truck.  It was a gift from my brother, Jack, who several years ago started working with old Tonka toys.  He buys them, usually online and then goes to work refinishing them and personalizing them.  As part of that post my daughter, Caitlin, took some outside pictures of the truck.  She positioned it on the driveway and lying on the ground took pictures using our buildings as the backdrop to make it appear as if the truck was a real truck instead of a foot long toy.  I think the pictures kind of fool the eye.

Last month, Jack had surgery and when we were at his house he sent home a truck that had not been refinished.  It was similar to my 'before' truck and he sent it for me to have at my house for a while.  Comparing the before and after is is apparent how much hard work and attention to detail goes into one of his projects.  Jack has done many projects, many are pickups but he recently finished a firetruck.

Here are a few pictures from my house on my table and following the link above to the first post there are some pictures that Jack took at his house and the pictures that Caitlin took outside.

this truck is in its original condition

pretty rusted

original stickers

side by side

The door sticker and the sticker that he had made for the box

a closer view of the sticker

the white stock racks

The fronts

The rears
 It is a beautiful and special gift and I will treasure it forever. 

6 comments:

  1. Wow! He does great work...very detailed...and very small! ;)

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    1. Yes, he does. My farm truck is about a foot long. There is a story that goes along with his hobby. We had a brother whose hobby was restoring old tonkas. He liked doing the construction vehicles--dump trucks, road graders, et cetera and when Jay started having trouble with his hands, Jack started to help him finish his projects and got hooked on it himself. He has done some of the big construction vehicles too but his favorites are the pick ups. He has done one for the friends who let him borrow their sandblasting equipment with their business logo on it, and one for my dad that matches his truck and has his old business logo on it. He has done one for my aunt with her business logo on it and several that match Jay's black truck, complete with Harley Davidson decals in the back window that have gone to Jay's wife and son and my sister. He has done one that matches his own truck and the firetruck. His newest project is one that will be done as a hunting vehicle for my nephew that goes deer hunting. I am not sure if that one will be camo but it looks more like an SUV and right now the original color is a tan. It will be cute.

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  3. I bet your brother Jack has lots of nice memories of working with Jay when he transforms a new truck.

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  4. Hi Lorri, I hopped over from Kim's blog. Your brother is so talented. Really amazing work! The shabby chippy girl in me loves the old rusted one as much as the makeover. Both are fabulous! I did think it looked like a real truck in the drive way. lol!
    hugs,
    Jann

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  5. Thank you Jann, for the very nice comment. I will pass along your compliment to Jack and also to Caitlin who took the driveway photos.

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