This Russian 1960s tin toy car, physically attached to a controller hand grip, waited over 50 years for a repair and held memories of a tender relationship between a sister and her brother.

Materials

  • Tin steel
  • Epoxy

Processes

  • Machining
  • Glueing
the repaired toy car in action

Before we begin our story, we wanted you to see how the toy works. 

a tender relationship

Even though our client was seven years younger, she and her brother were incredibly close. Despite living so far away, he was her best friend and a wonderful uncle to her daughter. Sadly, he died suddenly, and the car became a vital symbol of their relationship. Though she remembered the car, she didn’t remember seeing it work.

Since the passing of our client’s brother and after bringing the toy car back to Toronto, it was hard to find someone in Canada to restore the mechanical toy car. Though there were people in the U.S., she was determined to find someone in this country. Four years later, she found our repair shop.

broken control cable and hand grip

A rotating sprung-steel coil cable, similar to an old-style lawn mower throttle-control cable, powered this toy car. A music wire steered the car through the coil.

The control cable was bent and broken, and the hand grip, which housed gear drives, was also broken.

machining and rebuilding a GEAR 

The gear was so badly worn that it disengaged from the other gears and had to be replaced. I had to fabricate a new one. You can’t buy a part for something this old.

I rebuilt the drive gear, steering and spring drive cable and the car worked perfectly. The piano wire steering cable received a steel wire coil that doubled as the driving cable.


coil spring

The crank on the handle rotated one rear driving wheel. No, there was no transmission axle to drive two wheels. That would have been too complicated for a 65-year-old tin plate car!

I ordered a coil spring from the U.K., but an unexpected postal strike delayed the repair.

When the coil eventually arrived, it turned out to be too thin. Since I had no choice but to find a way, I attempted to repair the original. Luckily, it did the trick.

Finally, the car was repaired and I sent my client her newly-functioning toy car. You can see it working at the beginning of this story.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}