Kansas college student finds niche with farm equipment replicas

Tyler Hook is hard at work on a January afternoon as he sits behind the wheel of a tractor finishing up an anhydrous ammonia application. Hook, who grew up on a farm near Big Bow, Kansas, marks this task off his workday checklist and moves on to his other pastime, building authentic 3D farm equipment replicas, based on machinery just like the tractor he just exited.

Hook is a junior at Wichita State University majoring in electrical engineering, but he often assists his father on the family farm where they raise cattle and grow wheat, sorghum, triticale and corn silage. Hook said in 2018 someone suggested he start building farm toys because of his interest in machinery, which initiated his current hobby. His first model was a scratch-built Krause one-way disk. Scratch-built means the builder starts the project with miscellaneous parts or pieces and the replica is built from the ground up.

“A lot of the equipment I scratch-built was either equipment built in Kansas or Kansas is one of the only places you are going to find this stuff running,” Hook explained.

Once he started college, Hook’s father pushed him to get into 3D printing to make the replicas, which allowed him to make more realistic and complete models from antique equipment to brand new machinery. At this time he owns 10 3D printers and has 870 different replica models for 3D printing. Hook builds from scales of 1-to-1 to small scales like the 1/64th.

“I try to keep ahead of the markets, but what people are interested in is what they grew up around and what is new on the market,” Hook said.

He said the Degelman high-speed disks and Vermeer self-propelled baler are some of the new items that were the most requested this past year. For antiques, he tries to target what he knows best, which is the Kansas market such as Krause tillage equipment, Great Plains equipment, Richardson and Flex King sweeps.

So how does he create the parts for these replicas and make them so realistic and proportional? According to Hook, to learn the dimensions of the parts, he first locates the real piece of equipment and then uses software to create the part so it can be 3D printed. He said brochures and manuals also help him with the configuration. He said most models use glue or pins to bond each piece together in a model.

“Once I started getting into 3D printing, the first items I began building were Gleaner A combines and irrigation engines,” Hook said. “Then I got into building components for people that were working on building scratch replicas and designing little parts and pieces they requested for their models.”

He said hydraulic cylinders are a sought after part for scratch builders that he commonly makes. Although he does fulfill orders for custom-built replica items from customers, Hook sees this interest as a hobby that branched off into the business world and he has no plans to make this his full-time business. He said he is considering going into agriculture or construction engineering, but eventually he would like to return to the farm depending on the circumstances down the road.

With the replicas Hook has goals of his own, like what he calls his passion project, which is his objective of researching enough to build a group of models with one of every Gleaner Baldwin machine that was ever been built off the influence of the Baldwin brothers, who are also Kansans. Hook said from the time he was only a few weeks old he was around Gleaner combines and they have been special to him ever since.

“I enjoy the history of the company and its interesting because for the longest time they were one of the very few non-major brand harvesting companies and on top of that, the Baldwin combine is the oldest combine in the world, besides the Holt combine,” Hook said. “Holt was before them, but it never had the market that the Baldwin combines did.”

Farm toys—not just for kids

Although most learn about Hook through word of mouth in the farm toy industry, he is making a name for himself after being featured in several publications for his replicas, including The Toy Farmer and Farm World magazine.

“With my items, everybody that is around the custom farm toys, knows my items, but they usually don’t know who I am,” he said.

Another way his talents have reached individuals in the farm toy sector is through toy shows and competitions.

“For the past few years, several of my items have made it onto toy displays, have been marked as highlight pieces and won farm toy shows,” he said.

Despite 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic causing cancellations of certain farm toy shows, Hook still managed to attend the National Farm Toy Show in Dyersville, Iowa, in November and placed first in his category with his replica of a Curtis Baldwin Savage Harvester combine from the early 1920s. Hook said this project was extremely challenging because there are not anymore authentic models in existence; however, after collecting almost 90 pages of photos and records of the original machine, he was able to build the replica.

Hook also placed first in the adult 1/16th scale scratch-built category at the model and display contest at the 2020 Gateway Mid-America Toy Show in St. Louis, Missouri. According to Hook, his 3-D printed Gleaner combine replica had 6,273 pieces and was fully functional.

Hook said the next show he plans to attend will be the High Plains Toy Show in Canyon, Texas. He said before he goes to toy shows he usually adds a new item, so for this event he plans to build some new cotton and tillage equipment that he believes will interest the attendees.

He said he is also looking toward the future and how he can use his skills with farm equipment and toy companies.

“One of the markets I’m trying to get into is building demonstrator models, because giving people the ability to see and feel an item at a farm show adds that extra perspective and it can help companies make sales,” he explained. “It’s not going to cost them that much to have the models of their products made and they can take those wherever and fit them on tables.”

Hook is also the ideal consultant for farm toy companies because he understands the replica process as well as the equipment that is out there in use right now and in the past. Additionally, he has spent a fair amount of time disking up his parents’ driveway with his farm toys as a kid.

“I’ve worked with a lot of people on expanding their toy sales lines, like adding grain drills, trailers and high-speed disks,” he said. “My goal isn’t to get rich off making the products, but I can still keep the quality at a high level. My items can go on a collector’s shelf or they can go onto a little toy yard.”

Interestingly enough, Hook said about three-quarters of his replicas end up in the hands of adults, proving once a farm kid, always a farm kid. Furthermore, toy tractors and combines can be the foundation for children developing a passion for the farm and engraining in them the desire to jump in a tractor or combine every day as adults. As long as the cycle of kids playing in the dirt with a couple of trucks and tractors continues, we can still count on future generations of family farmers.

Lacey Newlin can be reached at 620-227-1871 or [email protected].