If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?

Ed Mines

Ed, Terry doesn't have to pay himself so this cuts down on his
overhead considerably.

A number of fine toolmakers have independently done injection molds
for us: Terry (R-40-18 and variants), Paul Lubliner (Genesis F units),
Cannon (diesel detail parts), Jimmy Booth (numerous parts and kits),
Dan Hall (box car doors). I'm sure there are many others. Long ago and
far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for a
PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a kit
into production.... and that pretty much killed off that toolmaker's biz
from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.) Terry and
Jim do work for other vendors too, Paul sold his stuff to Athearn (but
retained rights to continue with Highliners), and Cannon of course has
become a minor cult (to which I belong). :-)

Tim O'Connor

Terry has an expensive (read that ineffective) marketing dept.
BTW he has all the PFE -21 kits HE wants...

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@c... wrote:

Ed, Terry doesn't have to pay himself so this cuts down on his
overhead considerably.

A number of fine toolmakers have independently done injection molds
for us: Terry (R-40-18 and variants), Paul Lubliner (Genesis F

units),

Cannon (diesel detail parts), Jimmy Booth (numerous parts and

kits),

Dan Hall (box car doors). I'm sure there are many others. Long ago

and

far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for a
PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a kit
into production.... and that pretty much killed off that

toolmaker's biz

from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.)

Terry and

Jim do work for other vendors too, Paul sold his stuff to Athearn

(but

retained rights to continue with Highliners), and Cannon of course

has

become a minor cult (to which I belong). :-)

Tim O'Connor

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry

Wegman

loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?
Ed Mines

Jerry, no argument there! :-)

I forgot to mention that Terry has sold large quantities of his PFE
reefer kits to Intermountain, who sends them to China for assembly.
I suspect he's sold more that way than to the few hundred that he
has sold to us Naperville nutcases...

Tim O.

--- ed_mines <ed_mines@...> wrote:

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce
did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21
kits?

Ed,
Terry does not have that many shirts. BTW-His name is
spelled with two Ns....Wegmann.
-Andy Carlson

On Oct 11, 2005, at 10:23 AM, ed_mines wrote:

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?

Certainly he invested a lot of time. But Terry is apparently motivated less by commercial considerations than by proving to himself and others what he is capable of doing as a toolmaker. Once the tooling is finished to his satisfaction and he has made enough test shots to confirm the results, his interest quickly evaporates. Andy Carlson seems able to get some product from him, perhaps because they are personal friends, but otherwise it's like pulling teeth.

Richard Hendrickson

What I have heard about Terry echoes exactly what Richard states.

The two toolmakers I have heard the most about are Wegmann and Paul
Lubliner, mainly because they are Southwest modelers (where I am from), and
they certainly have my admiration for their abilities and modeling legacy.

Wegmann and Lubliner collaborated on N&G Railway Signal Company, maker of HO
and O gauge scale operating railroad signals back in the '70's. I was going
through school at the time and was spending my dollars on books and tuition
rather than scale signals for a future layout. I lamented this later as the
signals essentially "went off of the market" when the career the books
enabled finally started paying off. So I have been searching for these
"works of art" on ebay and elsewhere for many years.

I know it has been said before, but it worth saying again, these guys are
"perfectionists" in every sense of the word. I had several long discussions
with Lubliner in the late '80's regarding how he learned how to create
tooling for such detailed applications. Most of what he had to say was
peppered with "oh, this is easy and that was simple to do, I can show you in
a few minutes how to do it" with a pantograph and his other tools of the
trade. Manufacturer's drawings, good photographs and a few supporting
dimensions from sketches were all that they needed to create these fine
models, and a lot of time and expertise mixed in. But they enjoyed every
minute, just like we should enjoy our modeling time too.

Like Richard said their thrills were in the research and development of the
tooling and construction of the model prototypes. Paul did a fine job in
photographing their finished work (I have some 2.5M images that I can
forward to those interested) and developing ads in RMC, etc. But when their
inventory and/or public interest in the products dwindled so did their
motivation to continue producing both established and new/different models.
Most know of N&G's searchlight (H-2), lower quadrant Style B and upper
quadrant semaphores, but few know about the "other" signals that were tooled
but never brought to market. Paul developed working ATSF upper quadrant
semaphores and colorlight signals, UP colorlights, etc., but never marketed
them.

Last that I heard was that Paul was not totally satisfied with many aspects
of the signal line and wanted to "retool" most of it. I wonder if he feels
the same way about his landmark F-units (which pulled many a steam era
freight car) in retrospect. From my perspective, I can't see how either
could be improved.

Paul

Paul LaCiura
San Francisco, CA
spdaylight.com

So.... is it possible to get some manufacturer to produce a
model of a certain prototype by convincing him that you are tooling up
such a model yourself? In that case, I'm right in the middle of
tooling for a Milwaukee Road Rib Side caboose. Pre-oil furnace. ;>

Phil Buchwald

--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@c... wrote:

Long ago and

far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for a
PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a kit
into production.... and that pretty much killed off that toolmaker's biz
from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.)

Paul LaCiura:

Wegmann and Lubliner collaborated on N&G Railway Signal
Company, maker of HO and O gauge scale operating railroad
signals back in the '70's.

*sigh*

I sure wish those were available again. The only ones I've ever seen were firmly in the grasp of
other people . . .

SGL

Actually,
You may get your wish. There is some movement in this
moribund line. Perhaps a new owner??????
-Andy Carlson

--- Schuyler Larrabee <schuyler.larrabee@...>
wrote:

Paul LaCiura:

Wegmann and Lubliner collaborated on N&G Railway

Signal

Company, maker of HO and O gauge scale operating

railroad

signals back in the '70's.

*sigh*

I sure wish those were available again. The only
ones I've ever seen were firmly in the grasp of
other people . . .

SGL



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--- In STMFC@..., "buchwaldfam" <duff@g...> wrote:

So.... is it possible to get some manufacturer to produce a
model of a certain prototype by convincing him that you are

tooling up

such a model yourself? In that case, I'm right in the middle of
tooling for a Milwaukee Road Rib Side caboose. Pre-oil furnace. ;>

Phil Buchwald

--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@c... wrote:

Long ago and

far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for

a

PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a

kit

into production.... and that pretty much killed off that

toolmaker's biz

from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.)