When Ryan Mueller learned he was having a son, he announced he wanted to build him a bulldozer.“My wife was having an ultrasound,” he said. “When we found out we were having a boy, I blurted out, ‘I’m going to build him a bulldozer.’ My wife gave me a look that said, ‘Do you know what you are talking about?’ 

But Ryan knew exactly what he was talking about as he recalled memories of his own childhood, specifically a go-kart that Ryan and his brother would drive when they were young. As they grew older and bigger, the go-kart was too small for them, so their father who had bought the go-kart, worked with his sons to rebuild it and make it larger.

“He taught my brother and me how to figure things out on our own,” Ryan said. “We cut it in half, loosened bolts and added extra tubing” to make it large enough for the young boys to once again use.His dad’s lesson with rebuilding the go-kart taught Ryan that “what you dream of, you can try to make happen.”

And now Ryan had a dream of building a one-half scale version of a Caterpillar 22 bulldozer for his son (which would become “sons” before the project was finished). 

Initially, Ryan chose that model because he could purchase a die-cast 1/16 scale model CAT 22 that he could measure and upscale to produce measurements and dimensions for the larger version he was going to build. But there was another reason Ryan decided to build that particular dozer: “I liked the early CAT dozers,” he said. “I just thought they looked neat.”

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Before the advent of hydraulic excavators, cable-operated backhoes, shovels and draglines could be seen on almost every construction job, and one of the most popular brand names was Northwest.

With its manufacturing plant at Green Bay, Wis. Northwest Engineering Company built its first excavator in 1921. With the steam shovel era rapidly coming to a close, Northwest joined a host of other companies in the 1920s that introduced contractor-sized diesel- or gasoline-powered universal excavators to the construction world.

By 1927, Northwest was the second largest manufacturer of excavators in terms of sales volume. Overdesigned by today’s standards, Northwests gained a reputation of being tough machines, able to di anything short of solid rock. Annual production numbers increased until 1955 when over 1,000 cable excavators left the Green Bay factory in that year.

The Northwest Model 25-D was a standard 3/4-yard cable excavator and could operate as a shovel, pull shovel (backhoe), dragline, clamshell or crane by changing the front-end attachments. As a shovel, the 25-D carried an 18-foot-2-inch=long boom, 15-foot-4-inch handle and weighed approximately 23 tons. The pull shovel could dig down over 17 feet and, rigged with a 35-foot crane boom, the 25-D could lift 18 tons at 10 feet radius. The 25-D was introduced in 1958 as a replacement of the similar-sized Moded 25 that first appeared in 1937. It stayed in production until 1974, by which time 1,580 had left the Green Bay factory.

As Northwest reached its peak production year in the mid-1950s, the machine that caused the eventual demise of the company was being born. Hydraulic excavators, pioneered in the 1950s, proved so popular that today they have eclipsed all but the very largest cable-operated excavators found in surface mining operations.

SpecCast produced 1,500 of these 1/50 scale models in 2009 for the National Toy Truck 'N Construction Show held in Indianapolis, Ind.

 The Gendron Wheel Company is not only credited with developing the wire wheel, but the company also manufactured children’s toys. Gendron toys included bicycles, tricycles, go-cars (pedal trucks and pedal cars), coaster wagons, toy wheelbarrows and more.

The mastermind behind the Gendron Wheel Company was Peter Gendron. At the age of 21, Peter Gendron moved to Toledo, Ohio, and found employment as a pattern maker at the Toledo Novelty Works, located in Toledo. He went on to work as a pattern maker for the Detroit Safe Company of Detroit, Mich., in 1871. These employment opportunities resulted from experience he gained while working in his father’s wagon shop as a boy. While working in Detroit, Peter conceived the idea of a wire wheel. In 1875, Peter returned to Toledo, where he perfected his invention. He then utilized the wire wheels in the building of children’s carriages. 

The Gendron Wheel Company was incorporated in 1880 with production of the wire wheels in a small factory located in Toledo. Within three years, business was booming and larger facilities were required. By 1910, the company had grown, with manufacturing capabilities consuming the majority of a city block.

Many of the machines utilized in the manufacturing of Gendron products were invented by Peter Gendron or his mechanics. During this time period, the Gendron Wheel Company was recognized as the largest manufacturer of children’s vehicles in the world. 

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