Greetings everybody -
Just wanted to say thanks for those tackled the challenge of building one of my dad's kits. Those who tried and stumbled on the build, I can say you aren't alone. I do acknowledge that the instructions were not exactly the best and the kits were pretty basic (ok, I can use the word "crude") compared to what you can get today. I am in the middle or so of building one of the brass Electroliner kits, and encountered a number of areas I had to really put my engineering hat on plus my artist's hat and come up with solutions that I was going to be happy with, so I can feel your pain. But when the solution came and came out right, it was a pleasure. Its also teaching me to take my time and fabricate what I can't find elsewhere from what I have to get what I want.
These kits filled in a a gap where the cost of import brass was too high for those of modest means, and there were still folks around with home machine shops. Many of the guys who I remember visiting got their skills in the 40's and 50's when this was actually fairly common. For many of us, if you wanted a model of something you liked, you had to make it yourself. That was the concept. So LWS provided the basic stuff at a reasonable cost and you had to do the rest yourself.
Believe it or not, I still have several hundred pounds of brass left over from LWS and taking up space in my basement. Some of the raw materials are Lobaugh origin. Many of the parts which I knew would be useful to others I've sent over to Keith Wiseman. There's still alot of white metal castings and bits and pieces in the boxes I brought up from NJ when I finally cleaned my parents' house out. Its not easy to find a new home for hunks of half hard brass! There were 650lbs of cast iron driver blanks that I ended up donating to the RR Museum of LI to use as tokens or gifts. I have the prototypes my dad partially built to bring to shows, plus a few that were actually completed on the shelves. Some of those I have to dip to get the machining fluid off of them. I have what ever masters I could find. I even kept some of the die work. To be honest, towards the end of my dad's life the quality of the work was not the greatest. But he kept on going until his last days, even if he didn't feel all that well.
I've been teaching myself how to fabricate in brass using hand tools, home made fixtures and the dremel. Personally, I won't use the BernzOMatic plumber's torch my dad used in the shop (I live in a wooden house butt up against other wooden houses here in Brooklyn), so an old Radio Shack 10w/40w iron and a MicroMark resistance rig are used to great effect. I don't have the machinery we had in the shop, although due to the shortage of small shapes, I sure wish I had that shear.
If there is a desire for a complete LWS production catalog, I might be able to piece one together. We started out making HO at one end of the kitchen table in 1963 or thereabouts. O scale came in the later 60's. S scale dabbled in the 70's. Somethings I would have to figure out from memory, some from the newsletters. There was quite a variety of things that came out.
Thanks again everybody, will try to keep in touch in at least one of the one line forums or FB until we can see each other again.
Jan Karl Lorenzen
