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I've had an idea stewing in my brain for quite a while now: a set of Ork Tin boyz played as 'Ard Boyz. For those of you who do not know, Tin boyz are an old bit of fluff where da ork meks would cobble together crude robots which were mockeries of the various races, as seen here.
I think it would be a great flavor of having a squad of these clanky mechs as a bunch of shooty 'ard boys. (I'm planning to make a set of Stabby 'Ard boyz, but that's easy.) Instead of a traditional Nob leading the squad, a mek (likely based on a nob's torso) could lead them into battle. On top of the mek's boss pole could be a grot with a crude zappin' pistah to fix the electric bits inside da boyz when a scrap gets the better of them, probably even short circuiting the target. I think there's a whole lot of potential here to make a cool and funny squad that would also be highly functional.

I only have one problem: I haven't any idea how to model the beakie tin boyz. I would really like to be able to kit-bash, likely take Space Marine pauldrons and bolters, but I don't know any good ways to make the tin boys recognizable as mock-space marines, but also mis-proportioned and odd to look at. If anyone could advise me on bits to look into or techniques I could use, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

LOVE the idea - I hadn't actually heard of Tin Boyz, before. The modeling sounds like a tall order, though...

Looking at the example, I feel like you'd be safe keeping the extremities intact, at least. I'd replace the torso, definitely, with something crude and clunky - perhaps even a small barrel/oil drum, as much for the sake of simplicity as comedy. Replacing the inner segment of limbs with styrene or brass rod/tube would help identify them as mechanical constructs, while the ends would remain distinctly Space Marine (when you add the bolter and pauldrons, I think it would be more than enough to convey the intent). Replacing the inner sections also allows you to muck around with the proportions - spacing legs apart awkwardly, giving one model stubby arms while the next's drag the floor, etc.

Heads are a bit of a tossup. You could use standard SM heads, to aid in identification (and you could justify it as especially distasteful, from a Marine's perspective, looting). Early armor mk. heads from FW would look great (is it the Mk. III I'm thinking of - "iron armor" or something to that effect?), but that's an added expense. Last option is sculpting something yourself, but that's a lot of work when you consider the need to either cast duplicates or make a bunch more from scratch.

A touch of plasticard work after that to add patch plates, beef up the feet into something suitably stompy, etc. would be icing on the cake. A smattering of kitbashed or scratchbuilt exhaust pipes and the like could add variety and help drive home the point on builds that still look a touch too "naturally" Space Marine-y.

Instead of chopping some marines up, I was hoping/expecting to get some large pauldrons, some helmets, and something that could pass for legs and torsos. I'd probably end up making some arms to hold the guns out of plasticard and small pipes/rods.

I do rather like the idea of adding crude exhaust pipes. Perhaps something else I could do is cobble together some treads to replace the legs. It would be not a "traditional" tin boy, but it would still be well within the spirit of them.

Side note: I HATE barrels for torsos. I've seen some conversions, of Tinboyz actually, that used Barrels and it just didn't look good in my opinion. Too tall and too perfectly round; not very orky looking at all.

Tin boys... never heard of them, but I LOVE the idea! thanks for sharing, that goes right on my to-do list.

I think I'll be using mostly plasticard when I finally get round to it (lots of other stuff to do). When you're working with orks, you can literally use plasticard for everything!

Does anyone have any idea of what bits would be good to use for building these?
I'm only familiar with Orky bits so I wouldn't be able to know/find good bits for this project. I imagine Terminator pauldrons would be useful for making a mis-proportioned model, but are there even loose Terminator pauldrons in ANY kit?

For a Marine-esque tin boy I would start with a set of Terminator Legs, build up around the waist point with either a cut down barrell (scenery kit) or mock one up from plasticard. Add in a visor esque bit to the front to show which way he's looking. Butcher a generator from either a kan or similar vehicle to strap to the back and then work out a robot-esque pair (or more) of arms, possible take an orky twist to servo arms from the marine kit for continuity. And end with either a bolter, storm bolter etc.

Thinking on it making up a Tin boyz version of a grey knight would be cool, same initial build of termi legs + tin can but add in tattered cloth groin piece to look GKish, mount the gunz on the wrist of the robo arm and give them something pointy on the other arm in mockery of a force weapon. Add in orky scrawl over the armour about how green is da best (instead of GK script) and you'd have something cool. The build would be expensive (you might be able to ebay some of it) but you could consider running it as an allied "GK" detachment to an ork force for cool factor

Mine's a runtbot from the same era rather than a tinboy. Obviously it helps if you have a vast amount of spare bits - this incorporate ork mines, bosspole (for the electro-prod), stormboy rokkit nosecone, big shoota for the exhaust, black templar lamp, SM dreadnought shinpad, SM Landspeeder probe thing (dunno what it's actually supposed to be - I've used it as an aerial because they're radio controlled), SM backpack vents, the end of a rokkit launcher, two large sluggas mounted upside down as grenade launchers and about the only non-GW element is a bit of bent wire round the back.

That...wow...just...wow. That looks REALLY good. Like...insanely so. That does give me some ideas that I might be able to glean from your picture and description. Thanks alot!

Wait can you buy tin boy models or is this something you made up and build from scratch? Never heard of them but i like it.

You can buy old 2nd (assuming) edition models. They're metal and kinda ugly in my opinion. There haven't rules for them in ages, if ever (they may have been just fluff.) But it was something came across in my wanderings on the internet.

I am planning to scratch build mine, trying to find inspiration/advice on it.