Another Fine Restoration by Tom Sanders

Saturday, April 22, 2017
Overcast
8 C  46 F

Another Fine Restoration 

by Mr. Tom Sanders

Recently, I was fortunate enough to have hearted from Mr. Tom Sanders . Tom 

specializes in  creating and modifying old toys into customized finished models for his clients.

If you search my blog for "Tom Sanders", or Mr. Tom Sanders, you will find the many exemplary 

pieces of work that he has done in the near-distant past.

In Tom's own words:

Stacey et al,

"Another unique application. This time its to fix a wounded bird. I purchased this woeful Wyandotte Twin Engine Transport a few weeks back. It had suffered through a "stabilizer-ectomy" years ago when someone removed the two stabilizers. it was also missing its Fin, Propellers and the stock "panted" landing gear. Still, it is 1930's steel and worth making whole again. Years ago I had an interview with a past employee of Wyandotte All Metal Products, Inc. at an antique show in Michigan. He was the same gentleman that sold me that Wyandotte toy airplane Sirius "convertible". He related that Wyandotte had many concepts and plans to add to their toy line but WW2 and lost market shares dwindled the hopes for many of these concepts. One in particular was the idea of producing the Wyandotte Twin Engine Transport with a new stabilizer with twin fins that were popular on Lockheed airliners and the Beechcraft B-18 "Twin Beech" airplanes. Their goal was to come close to the airplane used as the get-away vehicle in the movie Casablanca.   

This airplane that I purchased pretty much fit the bill and so I proceeded to modify the airplane into a Lockheed 10a ala' Casablanca."

"Once again, another list of tasks-

1) remove the lead paint and inspect the steel and cust surfaces.

2) Cut, stamp and bend the stabilizer/fins combo piece and solder in place.

3) Remove the tail wheel (the wood wheel was saved for a future resto)

4) Cut and solder two steel plates under the stabilizer to allow the body lines to continue aft.

5) create a new tail wheel assembly featuring a wheel with an aluminum hub and rubber tire.

6) Create a new main gear system that also features wheels with aluminum hubs and rubber tires.

7) Paint the airplane using a period style Lockheed lightning bolt (for their Electra models) 

8) Install a Pair of Sandman Overhaul retro-fit prop kits.

That pretty much sums up the project. Interesting that it sold within 17 hours after I started my Buy-It-Now Auction to an ex Beech 18 pilot."

This customized restoration is another example of the fine work that Tom does through his company- Sandman Overhaul.

If you go to the web address below, you can see many examples of the fine work that Tom has done for his clients. It's certainly great to see what can be created with old toys to bring them 

"back to life".

So that's it for this Saturday. April has been a near-record for rainfall here in Quebec. Several of the cities around Montreal, Quebec have been inundated with rising levels of river water that have caused flooding. Hopefully, May will be a much better month, and the waters will abate.

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.coim