Tuggeranong Men’s Shed ‘Toy Boys’, Malcolm Mongan, David Turner and Peter Roe.
After a simple walk through a Steer Tag bus at the Action terminal, as well as supplied images of the bus from the company, the three men set about the task of creating a scale model of an ACTION bus from timbers.
About 60 hours later, the bus was ready…
The work of art was revealed when a white sheet was pulled from atop the newly finished wooden toy at the Shed. Peter, Malcolm and David were proud of their achievement.
Projects co-ordinator Tony Rumball said while the men make quite a few simple wooden toys during the year for charities to give at Christmas time, the bus was a bit more of a challenge.
“It came through as a special request and it was a challenge for who we call the toy boys to see what they could come up with,” he said.
Mr Roe spent many hours cutting and polishing individual seats.
“It s pretty close to scale; there are a few things missing like the bars that are usually connected to the roof, but if we did that wewouldn’t have been able to take the roof off,” Mr Roe said.
“It s a challenge to keep the brain active I suppose, and the interest in working on wood is something I’ve only done since I retired.” Mr Roe said juxtaposed against the hand tools and wood, an iPhone calculator played a big part in helping them scale down the model.
Action bus chief operating officer Bren Burkevics said he was stunned by the finished product.
“We can t believe the detail and we re really impressed with the work that they’ve done off a few photos and a walk-through; it s remarkable,” he said.
“It s a Steer Tag bus and it s to scale — it looks fantastic. We will be passing on the photos of the wooden bus to the manufacturer.”