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Toy Builder Don Campbell Returns – After a year and a half of working on his long time dream of building several mini farm tractors Don Campbell is now switching gears back to the workbench to build a few smaller models . Don is not sure if there will be just one more model or several . Now in his early 60’s he admits he has slowed down a lot and it is difficult to squat down for very long to weld and grind on the bigger models.
He said building the smaller sized models can be done on top of the workbench and makes it more pleasant . The old knees aren’t so good and even the jogging and biking had to stop that he enjoyed for over 30 years. Todays photo is an example of one of dozens of Don’s one of a kind all metal creations. Today Don’s daughter Nicole will scale up some information for the next model that will be the Letourneau D-800 Letro-Dozer . A 42ft long and 21 foot wide which was a very good sized rubber tired dozer in it’s day. Almost 900hp supplied the dc 4 wheel electric drive to the wheels.
This also will be a one of a kind all steel welded and bolted model and no doubt Don will put plenty of detail in it like every one of his realistic works of art have. I asked him if he ever gets tired of working with metal and he said what keeps it interesting is the challenge of always building something different . Over 15 years ago Don said he built over 15 old fashioned potato harvesters that were just alike and said that was so boring he would never do that again.
I also asked if he thinks he will soon run out of new projects and he just looked at me and chuckled and said he has over 100 machines on a list right now he wants to build.
In ending the interview he said the coolest thing about the whole toy building hobby was to think that people knew who Don Campbell the Toy Builder from Gaylord, Michigan was from all over the world .
To think a little boy from Breckenridge , Michigan that only had one toy truck that came from a contest at a gas station would grow up to have the rarest one of a kind collection of hand made steel toys in the world.
Don says there will be a Don Campbell Museum one day as 50 of his models are still all together in one place. He would like two of his mini John Deere tractors to go into the museum too.
The funny thing is very few locals know about how far his hobby has reached around the world. After all he just works out of a workshop the size of a one car garage .
