TRG Restorations

Not so much of a restoration, but more of a transformation. Watch till the very end and see why I turn this awesome piece in to! I started out with a double bit axe head for a simple restoration project. Some footage from the initial project was lost and the axe head was tossed on the shelf. Every time I would look at it though, it reminded me of a certain superhero symbol. So I decided to go for it! After about a week of grinding, shaping, more grinding, filing by hand, and a TON of buffing, I finally finished the coolest superhero axe ever!

This awesome piece of skate history came to me via some intense Ebay bidding. Once it arrived i knew it was perfect for my next vintage toy restoration piece. Based on the limited markings I can find on the wheels and the trucks, I believe we are looking at a 1969 Sears Sprotflite Mark 24 wooden skateboard, complete with Chicago 76P clay wheels. This Vintage Skateboard Restoration was pretty straightforward, although the initial teardown yielded a lot more individual parts than I would have imagined for a skateboard. Total time spent on restoration: 3-4 hours The biggest mystery about this piece was the name "Ken" scratched on to the top of the deck. To me it just makes a restoration that much more memorable when you sit back and realize that rather than just a worn out item that needs to be fixed, it actually used to belong to someone who enjoyed it and thought enough about it to put his name on it. We'll never know who Ken is, but if this is a 1969 model skateboard, Ken could very well be in his 60's by now. I hope his skateboard brought his as much joy as it did for me!

Check out this awesome restoration of a Victor Vending Co Toy Machine from the 1950's! This was a difficult restoration because this thing was absolutely trashed!! Everything from the yellowed plastic, to the pitted and rusted metal, to the toys themselves needed work! Total time for this restoration was about 30 hours

First I started with the ugliest Cleaver that the fine sellers of ETSTY had to offer. This rusted ugly came to me all the way from Bulgaria. When It arrived and I saw just how rusty and ugly it was, I knew it would make for a great restoration! First I started by removing the ugly green plastic handle. Seriously, how ugly was that handle! Next we took a dip in the electrolysis tank to remove as much of that rust as I could. Nothing a little water, washing soda, and electricity couldn't handle. Then it was time to get it down to bare metal and then shine it up like a brand new mirror! I started with a 4.5" flap disc and then broke out the orbital sander. I started with an 80-grit sanding pad and worked my way all the way up to a 10,000 grit!! Then it was time to put on a new handle. After a lifetime of suffering with that green handle, I knew I had to treat this blade to something nice. I settle with cross-cut Zebra Wood knife scales. After a little bit if shaping and shining, this blade will finally have the shiny life it deserves!

This restoration video brings an antique piece of history back to life! A fluting iron was used to make and launder clothing, specifically fluted trimmings, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This gorgeous example came from the American Manufacturing Company out of Philadelphia PA. These early machines worked by placing heated rods inside of the hollow brass crimping rollers. The rollers were then locked in to placed and the clothing was rolled through, creating "Fluting" or the crimping of clothing that was popular at the time. I salvaged this fluting iron off of EBAY for a surprisingly low price, and was even more surprised to find that it still had the original heating rods! Super Rare!! The restoration was pretty straight-forward, with a few bumps and bruises along the way!

In this antique restoration video we have a gorgeous Miracle Electric Toaster from 1936! This awesome vintage restoration project was found on Etsy for only $16.00 and remarkably it still worked! Although it was working, that's about all it had going for it. The exterior and interior had significant paint and rust damage and required a total tear down, cleaning, stripping, paint job and re-assembly. Total restoration time was approximately 10 hours

he perfect Tonka Restoration! This is a 1976 Mighty Tonka Dual Boom Wrecker. This Tonka was pretty trashed when I got it, but for just $45 on Ebay, I had to have it! The restoration started with a basic tear down. Luckily I didn't run in to any issues. Unless you count the petrified spider I found hiding behind the front grill! Tonka Trucks were all lead free so there was no need to test for lead paint, so off to the sandblast cabinet we went! The mighty Tonka trucks were pretty big and this thing had a ton of surface area to clean, that in addition to some substantial surface rust, this project had about 8 hours worth of sand blasting! Well, technically 80-grit glass bead media. I little cleaning and polishing the plastic and metal parts and it was on to the fun stuff! This was my first video in which I used my new powder coating system! If you've never used one, I would invest today! The time saved and the quality of the finished product will make you never want to look at a can of spray paint again!! Now that every part has been restored, there were a few missing and broken parts that had to be dealt with. Luckily you can find anything on Ebay! $25 later I had a new windshiled, tow hooks, and decals, and this thing was ready to be re-assembled!

Check out the awesome restoration video of me restoring an antique Boston pencil sharpener. I got this vintage sharpener on Ebay for only $35! Not sure what the value of one of these is once professionally restored, but it is now a priceless part of my collection!

Check out the Tonka Truck Restoration of this 1967 Jeep Wagoneer! This treasure was a little rough to start with, but a perfect restoration has it looking good as new! The Tonka Jeep Wagoneer was the workhorse of the 9 1/2 inch "Mini-Tonka" line. First introduced in 1967, it saw life outfitted as a Hi-Way Patrol vehicle, Fire Chief, Rescue Ambulance, and as a plain old grocery getter. In addition to it many professions, it could be seen in an array of amazing colors, including this gorgeous Tiffany Blue!

Check out this restoration of an awesome Tonka Jeep Wagoneer Rescue Vehicle from the 1970's! This thing was pretty rough when I first started, but after a perfect restoration and some new decals, this Tonka is ready for service once again!

Restoration videos don't get any cooler than this! This Toy Restoration video is of a 1973 Tonka Winnebago Camper, model #3885. At almost 23-inches long, this Mighty Tonka beast is one of the largest trucks that Tonka Toys ever made! It was pretty rough when I bought it, but after some sandblasting, cleaning, polishing, and powder coating... the perfect restoration is complete and this camper is ready to head back out on a road trip!

This poor rust bucket was barely recognizable as a Tonka Truck! There were enough clues left for me to be able to tell that it was a 1973 Mighty Tonka Roller, model # 3910. But aside from that, this poor thing had not been shown any love over the decades, and was in serious need of a restoration! At first glance this looked like an impossible restoration that just needed to be scrapped for spare parts. But with a little love, a few replacement parts, and LOTS of metal work, I was able to restore this beauty back to it's original glory!

I was faced with a serious toy restoration dilemma. What do you do when your 10-year old daughter swipes all of the Tonkas that you restore and uses them to drive her dolls around? The answer is simple, you restore that girl a pink one!!! Featured in this video is a 1962 Pink Jeep Surrey, model # 350. A fun bit of trivia about this toy... It is a replica of the Jeep that Elvis Presley drove in the movie Blue Hawaii.

Nothing is more satisfying than taking a vintage toy and making it brand new looking again! In this toy restoration video I bring new life to this gorgeous Wyandotte China Clipper Toy Airplane. Hard to believe that this awesome piece is almost 90 years old! After disassembly, my next step was to fabricate the missing parts. After 90 years of play, a few things were bound to have been lost. Next it was on to everyone's favorite part, the sandblasting!! Once I got all of the parts down to bare metal they were pretty pitted and needed some smoothing to get the mirrored finish I was after. Three coats of primer and wet sanding and they were right where they needed to be. A fresh coat of paint, assembly, and some new decals, and this amazing piece of history looks just like it did when it first came off of the assembly line! My favorite part if this restoration was the brass engine turbines. Nothing cleans up better than brass!!

Check out this awesome restoration of a Mosler Junior Toy Bank Vault! I have always been they guy that picks up stray pennies, you know the old jingle "find a penny - pick it up - all day long you'll have good luck!" Not sure if this really hold true, but I'll take all of the good luck I? can get! But once I got my lucky penny home, I realized that I didn't have a suitable place to keep it. Luckily the mailman brought me something just in time, but now that I had my new Mosler Junior Toy Bank Vault, it was in serious need of a restoration! The process to restore this toy was pretty simple. Luckily there weren't too many parts, so after I figured out the combination the disassembly was pretty straight-forward. Just take the doors off the hinges, remove the combination lock wheels, and take out the "bank alarm." The alarm didn't need much, just a good vinegar soak and some oil in all the right places, and it's ready to safeguard my bank once again. The combination wheels were pretty dirt and the numbers had faded, but after some cleaning and white paint to fill back in all of the numbers, I was pretty happy with the way they turned out. Luckily this toy was made in time time when things were actually made to last, so the rings around the combination wheels were actually metal. They were pretty rusted and gross, but after some time on the buffing wheel, they were shining like a brand new mirror again! The sandblasting was a little trickier on this one just because the size of the bank and the fact that I couldn't fully disassemble this one. I probably could have, but it was help together with 20 different spot welds. To bust all of those welds loose would have caused damage to the bank and been more trouble than it was worth. So it was easier just to strain to get the blast nozzle inside the bank and spend a little extra time cleaning it up. From there it was on to the powder coating. Once I had everything looking new again, it was time for a re-assembly. The mos

I was sitting around looking for inspiration for my next Tonka Toy Restoration when I got a notification from my Buddy's youtube channel, Kentucky Ballistics. Not only does he have amazing content, be he is close to 500,000 subscribers!! So the lights went off and In decided that restoring this Tonka Jeep would make the perfect tribute video for his channel.

The impossible restoration is here! Can this 1975 Tonka Grader ever look new again?! Watch this awesome toy restoration video to find out! I start with the most trashed Tonka toy I could possibly find. After a little research I discover that this is actually a 1975 Mighty Tonka Road Grader, Model # 3945. Spoiler alert, I talk through the first part of this video. If that isn't really your thing, feel free to fast forward to 5:33 to avoid all of the talking.

This trashed toy was just screaming for a restoration! The good news was I got it on EBay for only one dollar! The bad news is it was almost unrecognizable as a proper toy. After some research I found the original online and the color scheme was just about as ugly as the rusted version that I had. So I made the decision to perform the restoration as a tribute to some of the coolest sailors I've ever met. We Build, We Fight! Although I'm an Army guy, any soldier that's ever been deployed knows that the first people you make friends with are the SeaBees. If you need something, you can't exactly run to Lowes or Home Depot. You've got to run to the nearest US Navy Construction Battalion!

Check out this awesome coin counter restoration! This machine was headed for the trash, but with a little bit of restoring and some new parts, she looks brand new again!