Awesome Rust

The cast iron toys of yesteryear were subject to rusting and corrosion like nothing else. But in the capable hands of Awesome Restorations, old things can look as good as new once more. Watch as they breathe new life into an old 1930s coin bank, sandblasting off the caked-on rust and giving it a shiny coat of enamel paint.

There’s a scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000’s arm turns into a sword. We’re certain he could have conjured an axe arm if he wanted to. Perhaps it would look like the one that artist Kirill Runz made from a rusty axe he engraved with the T-800 on one side and his molten metal nemesis on the other.

There’s something so satisfying about restoring rusty old objects. This particular item – a gigantic cigarette lighter – is definitely one of the stranger things we’ve seen brought back to life. Sit back and relax as TysyTube takes the beast apart, cleans it up, and makes it good as new. Sandblasting is magic!

Fully-mechanical cash registers are relics of a bygone shopping era. But there was a time that they were so popular that they even made a version for kids to play with. Watch as Rescue & Restore takes on the challenge of tearing down and rebuilding a rusted-out Tom Thumb model that dates back to the 1950s.

Restoration Station got his hands on a beat-up old push reel mower his father found and went through painstaking efforts to remove all of the rust and detritus to make it look as good as new. He says this was one of the more difficult projects he’s worked on due to the blade assembly being a challenge to work with.

Like Odd Tinkering and Rescue & Restore before him, TRG Restoration gave a rusty Tonka truck a new lease on life. But he went one better, and once he cleaned it up and repainted it, he added a 4×4 R/C drivetrain and lifted suspension so it can be driven off-road. The metal body does it no favors in the speed department though.

Restoration junkie MrRescue got his hands on a toy Porsche 356 model that looks like it was stomped and kicked into a pile of dirt. From the looks of the undercarriage, it doesn’t look all that ancient, but we’re still impressed with the finished car after he brought it back to its former glory with that glossy peanut M&M paint job.

Rescue & Restore does a great job taking rusty old items and making them good as new. But given just how creepy this mechanical clown bank is, maybe it was better left in the junk heap. We could totally see a horror movie starting this way, then the bank comes to life and kills anyone who attempts to take the coins inside.