The F-20 is representative of all of Gilson's work, but like each toy, it had specific needs to get it built. The wheel hub taper had to be altered, and the angle of the spark plugs had to be changed from the real tractors in order to make dies that would work. Spark plug wires—made of thin electrical wire—are stuck into miniature holes drilled in the block.
Some tractor engines can be done with a single cast, but not the F-20, which had to be split. “I wanted to be able to see the rail on the side, and the open pocket by the fan,” Gilson says, “which couldn't be accomplished unless the casting was split.” Without these little touches, he says, the tractor just didn't seem real enough to him. All his farm toy work is done in 1/16th scale.
Gilson doesn't like to make too many of any one project. “We could make more of any of them if we wanted, but we aren't trying for numbers. Plus I want it to remain fun.”
Ev Weber
Ev started scratch-building farm toys as a Great Depression-era kid. “Christmas meant going to church and that was it,” he says. “I never got any toys.” But in the winter, he often accompanied his father to a local candle factory where, for a dime, the elder Weber bought a trailer-load of scrap wood to kindle the furnace fire. “I always appropriated a few small pieces of square and round wood,” Ev says, “and built toy tractors and implements.” His only tools were a saw and hammer. In his show displays, Ev includes a tractor made of wooden scraps, and a wagon made of a cigar box, and people say they are the most precious toy models he has in his display. “They realized what those meant,” he says, “because they, too, didn't have anything during the Depression.”
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In retirement, Ev cast around for something fun to do. After reading a farm toy magazine survey that said the toy most collectors would like to see made was the Allis-Chalmers 60 combine, he went to work. He built one for each of his children for Christmas, and a few extra. Those he took to a St. Louis toy show, and a star was born. Sixty-two people ordered the Allis-Chalmers 60 combine, even though some had to wait two years to get it. After finishing all of those combines, Ev realized he didn't want to make huge numbers of the same model, so he began making just a few each of more models, and selling them at auction, where the great detail always brings gasps of admiration.
His love for detail began while collecting farm toys. “I always liked Corgi and Dinky toys because they were more detailed than American toys were.” So when Ev had the chance, he began incorporating great detail into his scratch-built models.