Pressed Steel Toys

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Calandrod

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I’ve been dying to make some pressed steel toys of my own like they made in the 1950’s. How big of a press do you need to shape those little car’s and trucks and does anyone have experience using a press to form sheet metal? Thanks!
 
I won't be much help in the press. However, you might want to look into the Tonka toy ad in the 1970s regarding a Tonka toy dump truck. A little boy was asked how he broke his truck and he stated that an elephant stepped on it. It showed an elephant did just that and the truck took it. How the little boy broke his truck, we'll never know. What you are doing sounds like fun, please keep us posted.
 
silence dogood said:
I won't be much help in the press. However, you might want to look into the Tonka toy ad in the 1970s regarding a Tonka toy dump truck. A little boy was asked how he broke his truck and he stated that an elephant stepped on it. It showed an elephant did just that and the truck took it. How the little boy broke his truck, we'll never know. What you are doing sounds like fun, please keep us posted.
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Advertising trickery.

You can balance an impressive amount of weight on a chicken egg if you do it just right. Same thing with the elephant on the tonka truck.

Chuck a tonka in the driveway and run the car over it and you'll see what i mean.....
 
I remember those cars — I think they were just fading from widespread availability in favour of die cast versions when I was a little guy. One of my earliest memories with my older brother was sitting on our newly paved driveway filling the pressed bodies with molten candle wax in an effort to get them to roll faster. As I recall it didn’t really improve performance much but it did seem to solidify a lifelong penchant for redesigning things!

Good luck with your project, I’d love to see what you come up with.

-frank
 
Calandrod said:
I’ve been dying to make some pressed steel toys of my own like they made in the 1950’s. How big of a press do you need to shape those little car’s and trucks and does anyone have experience using a press to form sheet metal? Thanks!
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I’m guessing multiple (maybe many multiple) tons. The bigger question is what are you going to do for the dies?
 
I seem to recall seeing a table of pressure required to punch metal. Wonder if there's a similar thing for die forming?
 
@francist that’s exactly the site I remember. Well done!
The name struck me as funny.
 
ChazzC said:
I’m guessing multiple (maybe many multiple) tons. The bigger question is what are you going to do for the dies?
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I have yet to figure out exactly how to size them. I’ve got a couple ideas but I’ll have to update you as I learn more. The hardest part is figuring out what kind of tolerance is needed between them.
 
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