ToolSmartz- Column #5- Taylor-Tot

I hope Jim found his zero clearance insert. Those do come in handy when sawing small pieces on your table saw.

This week I decided to write a little more about myself and what I’m doing during this season of career transition. We hear a lot along the line of “What would you do, if you didn’t get paid for it.” Naturally, one of my answers is “Help people fix their tools”, but another has to be “Work on my Taylor-Tot”

The who?...Oh, the singer?...no?.... The blog guy?... uh, no….

Believe it or not, Taylor Tot is a … stroller. But not just any stroller…it was the premiere baby stroller of the 20th century. From hours on hours of research, it seems they were made from the 1920’s till the 1970’s. The company was the Frank F. Taylor Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.

So, how did I get in such a shape?... Well, you may not have already figured it out, but I love old stuff. If I had my way (and the moola of course) my home would not have anything newer than 1960 inside it…well, other than the TV, the washer/dryer and the computer…but you get the idea.

Here’s the tale… in May of 2004, my wife and I were at a West Tennessee Antique Auto Club car show around the square in Jackson, TN. We were walking along and checking things out and one side street was the location of the ‘swap meet’ (EVERY car show has to have one of those areas - it’s in the rules). Anyway, I spotted this kool looking stroller sitting there and told my wife, ‘Hey, that’s gotta be old’. So we looked it over a bit- thinking wow, this would be a neat thing to restore and use for the grandkids. There were no nameplates on it anywhere, so I had no idea what brand it was or how ‘old’ it really was, only that it looked ‘old’. I asked the fellow who was in the area how much he wanted for it and he said “40 bucks”… Well, we started to walk away, slightly wondering what we would do with one anyway…but then, the deal clincher… “But I’ll let YOU have it for 35”… yep - SOLD.

Well, we get the thing home and I start trolling the internet to find out more about what we had. It turns out that ebay had some pictures that looked just like it…and that’s how I found out the name; Taylor Tot. At least I now knew what it was….