Tin can toys were invented after a fruitless search of the toy shops for a large tin locomotive. I had a long can in my shop at home that I thought could be very easily worked up into a toy locomotive boiler by adding a few fittings, such as a piece of tin rolled up into the form of a smokestack. Part of a small can could be used for a steam dome, or I could use the top part of a certain tooth-powder can, the distributor top of which would look very much like a whistle. A cocoa tin came in very handy for a cab, and a thumb-tack box served for a headlight. The wheels were made of can lids soldered together, and the toy locomotive was made, much to the joy of my very young son, who has had it in constant service for over a year, and it is still good for many trips at the end of a string.

I had always used tin cans for making such articles as water motors, glue pots, melting ladles, mooring buoys for model yachts, etc., but the locomotive was the first toy, made wholly from tin cans, that I had produced, and this suggested other toys. The steam roller was next made.

I found that the cans lend themselves very easily to the making of toys, so much of the work being already done.

The materials used to make these toys are plentiful and inexpensive—cans are everywhere. The tools needed are few and easy to use, and I found that so many different and amusing durable toys could be made from used tin cans, and also that everyone seemed to have such fun making the toys, that I decided to use them for teaching purposes.

Tin can toy making has been thoroughly tried out in a grade school under a very able teacher, who understands making them. Pupils of ten, eleven and twelve years of age have proved that these toys are easy to make, and many schools now have the work well established.

The steam roller, shown in Plate XI, was made by a boy of ten after a model which I made for it. This same boy developed quite a trade of his own by soldering up various pieces of tinware for his mother and the neighbors.

But, better still, working with the tin cans has developed the inventive faculties of my class to a surprising degree. The pupils have thought out and made many models of their own—not only toys but useful things as well. Various members of the class investigated the large trucks, automobiles, hoisting engines, locomotives, boats and such things seen in any water-front community, to see how they were made and how they worked, and why. These pupils then returned to the school shops and made models of their own, many of which showed considerable invention and ingenuity.

I decided to teach the Occupational Aides in my classes at Columbia University how to make these toys, so that they in turn could teach the wounded soldiers in the hospitals.

It is a great pleasure to know that as this book goes to press many a wounded soldier has been and is still being amused and benefited by making the tin can toys here.

But the making of tin can toys is by no means limited to hospitals and schools. Any one who cares to tinker, to handle tools, to use up waste materials, may find pleasure and profit from assembling tin cans and parts of them. Many useful and attractive things may be made for the home, shop, or camp.

I have found it quite possible to make many decorative things from tin cans, and for some years I have made lanterns, candlesticks, sconces and trays of all kinds. The shape of the cans themselves lends them to decoration when assembled by a person having a sense of design and proportion.

There is nothing weak or flimsy about a well-made tin can toy. A strip of flat tin is very easily bent; if that same strip of tin is bent at right angles through its whole length, like the angle iron encountered in structural iron work, it will be found to be remarkably stiff.

Bend up an angle on each side of a strip of tin, like a channel iron used in buildings; it will sustain a remarkable load.

I have used the common forms employed in structural steel for building up the toys shown in this book with the result that they are surprisingly solid and durable, though made entirely from cans or the tin taken from flattened-out cans and boxes.

No rough or sharp edges are left about these toys. The edges of a piece of tin may be folded over or “hemmed”—or a folded strip of tin may be slipped over an edge that needs strengthening. Thus all danger of cutting the fingers or of thin edges being bent out of shape is done away with.

Although made of tin, there need be nothing “tinny” about a well-made, well-painted tin can toy.

Very few and very simple tools are required for the work and the solder, soldering flux, rivets, wire and paint are very inexpensive items, as so little need be used for each piece produced.

Soldering is by far the most important of the operations involved in tin can toy making. But it is very simple, once it is understood. When the principles that govern the process of soldering are thoroughly mastered there is no difficulty at all about it. Chapters IV and V should be thoroughly read and re-read before trying to solder, and at least two practice pieces well soldered together before going any further.

Since the tin can toys were introduced into my classes at college I have taught more than two hundred pupils how to make them. Many of these pupils had little or no experience with tools and had never expected to have any until the war came along and changed the ideas of many people as to their ability to work with their hands. I have yet to encounter a pupil who could not solder after a very short period of instruction.

Look at the end of a small olive oil can or the end of a tin commonly used to contain cocoa, then think of the shape of the radiator and hood of the modern automobile. The shape of the can and the shape of the hood of the automobile are very much alike. A few holes punched in the end of the can in regular rows transform it into a miniature radiator in appearance, and some slits cut in the side of the can look very much like the vents in the side of a real auto hood. Solder the cap of a tooth-paste or paint tube in place over the radiator, and the hood and radiator are completed.

To have formed up a hood of this sort from a plain sheet of metal would have taken far more skill than the average tinker is likely to possess, but you have it ready made in the can, and this is the whole idea of tin can toy building.

Less than half of a rectangular two-quart can used for a certain cooking oil makes up into a truck body so like the bodies on the real trucks that it would be difficult to find or make one more like them.

Many different kinds of boats that will really float may be made from mackerel and herring tins which are usually made in the shape of boats. Two mackerel tins soldered together suggest the fighting tank. Only a little work is necessary to transform these cans into real toys.

Long cylindrical cans suggest boilers for toy locomotives, hoisting and traction engines, steam rollers and the like.

Wheels for rolling stock may be made from cans or the can lids. Small adhesive tape boxes make excellent headlights or searchlights and also pilot houses for tiny tug boats. Bottle caps, thumb-tack boxes, and the small screw tops of olive or cooking oil cans suggest head, side and tail lights for toy automobiles, and many other things.

Aside from the pleasure derived from the actual making of tin can toys, perhaps the greatest satisfaction lies in the fact that you are using material usually thrown away—making something out of nothing.

And so this book is offered to tinkers by a tinker with the hope that they may get some of the pleasure out of it that he has had in writing it.

Edward Thatcher.

Woodstock, Ulster County, New York.
September, 1919.