Brass Introduction

Today's brass model trains find their origins in the cottage factories of Japan going back to the post-WWII era. For decades Japan was the entire brass model industry. That lasted until the mid-1970s when builders from South Korea sprang up. While models made in South Korea now dominate the marketplace Japanese built models have stood the test of time with the best of them commanding higher and higher prices in the marketplace. The street view below shows a typical neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. It's a mixture of street level businesses with residences in upper floors. It's 7am and things are just starting to heat up on this cold day in February. Did you notice those huge buff colored telephone poles? They're made entirely of bamboo.

Tools of the Trade

The tools of the trade in the brass factories of South Korea are the soldering stick, a small brush, a dish of solder flux, and a small bock of solder. Each morning workers sit down at their stations and dress their tools for that day's work. Before they leave at night everything is cleaned and neatly arranged for the next day's activities.

Most of the tools used at the assembly stations are themselves, hand-made. It's more cost effective for the companies to make their own specialized tools including the soldering iron you see here.

Each worker has several soldering irons with varying tip sizes and heating capacity. Soldering brass parts together requires just enough heat to attach the parts you want to attach, without loosening or melting nearby parts already attached. This type of work requires great skill honed over many hundreds of hours of practice.

Resistance soldering units are not used. They're too expensive, too bulky, and too slow for production use in this type of setting. The name of the game in factory work is fast, consistent work that results in a high quality product with a good profit margin. If a head-to-head race was conducted between a worker using the solder stick and another using the resistance unit to assemble models, by the end of that race there would be a pile of models to the credit of the solder stick, and perhaps just one model made with the resistance unit. The comparison is that stark.

But for the average hobbyist both the solder stick and the resistance unit have their rightful and deserved place on the work bench. The solder stick is useful for connecting small wires and electrical connections. The resistance unit is still very useful for making repairs to a fully assembled model. This is especially true where heat needs to be kept localized to prevent further damage to the model.

You'll see examples in our story about how parts are soldered together into sub-assemblies, then into larger finished model components, and finally into finished models.

The "Hand-Built" Myth

One of the great misnomers about brass models is that many of the earliest and rarest ones are called "hand-builts" when in fact, every brass model train is hand-built - including the ones that cost just a hundred bucks. The term hand-built, if used properly, would indicate a model that was built entirely without the use of jigs, which is almost an impossibility.

Brass model factories insure consistent construction of model parts by using assembly jigs that are also hand-built. The jigs hold together parts at right angles so they can be soldered together straight and true. Sloppy construction is usually a result of a lack of jigs being used to control quality. Very few models called hand-built exhibit sloppy construction. Though many do show signs of rough filing marks and crude casting work account so few of them were built. In this case any sort of automation was minimal at best.

The goal of many of these hand-builts was to create a sample model, also known as a pilot model. Hand-builts, samples, and pilots are usually crude pre-production models used to help create the jigs that will be used in the actual production run. They also serve as a sounding board for the importer and builder to agree on what to fix or make better on the rest of the models being made for sale. For example, the pilot model of the O scale NYC 4-6-4 shown on our home page (and in our DVD Preview) had over 140 errors that needed to be corrected on the production models.

That said, hand-builts, samples, and pilot models usually contain many errors that need to be corrected before a commitment is made to final production. In spite of their often obvious crudeness many of these problematic pre-production models can sell for much more than the production models account they are generally considered to be more one-of-a-kind in the marketplace than the production models being sold to the public. While the production model might be a 1 of 25, the pilot model is most likely a 1 of 1, making it more rare if you go strictly by the numbers.

No discussion about brass model trains is complete without mentioning what is arguably the most innovative brass model train of all time — the PFM Sound Special of 1971. The Sound Special combined a Japanese-built Frisco Russian 2-10-0 made by Japanese builder United, a factory paint job by another Japanese builder named Tenshodo, with special electronics installed to provide the actual steam locomotive sounds. Initially this included the whistle, bell, steam hiss, and the synchronized steam chuff as the locomotive moved about. More effects were added later including an adjustable reverb unit that provided a dramatic Doppler effect to the sounds emanating from model. These Sound Specials weren't sold to the public. They were provided to hobby shops that were PFM Dealers to demonstrate the wonderfully creative capabilities of PFM's new sound system, the Mark II. This little model helped to get thousands of new people into the hobby of model railroading. Back in the day, when you opened the door and walked into your favorite hobby shop, this was the locomotive that quickly caught your attention as it pulled a few cars around the hobby shop layout advertising the name that became synonymous with the some of the most durable and highest quality brass steam locomotives ever made—Pacific Fast Mail. Our story will share an extensive array of photographs and information about the Sound Special and all of the various sound systems and their accessories. Special thanks to Roland Curtis at BRASSTRAINS.com for letting us use this great shot from their image archive. We'll have more from them on the DVD too. They have a positively brilliant website for buying and selling brass model trains.

Some would argue that the builder's art of making fine brass model trains is best appreciated through unpainted, bare brass models. Unpainted models show us exactly what the builder created. Paint jobs tend to hide the true essence of the model itself. Finding older, unpainted brass models in pristine condition like this 1984 PFM Soo Line H-23 4-6-2 from SKI in South Korea is getting much harder to do. Many models were purchased originally to be operated on a model train layout. That introduced wear and tear to nearly every part of the model as it was operated and handled. Many models have been stored improperly for decades in damp basements with high moisture levels. That moisture rusts steel parts (screws and crank pins, gears, and electric motors especially), speeds the tarnishing process, makes the model box foam decay, and rots the cardboard box itself. Finding an older unpainted model in like-new, perfect condition, un-tarnished, un-stained, un-damaged, and un-operated with the original box and foam in near perfect condition is becoming more difficult with each passing day. Our story will show you how to protect and preserve these increasingly rare brass model trains.

Others would argue that the only way to truly appreciate a fine scale model train is to see it factory painted (or professionally custom painted) just as it would have appeared on the real railroad resplendent in prototypical colors, lettering, and numbers. This Y2K built Missabe 2-8-0 from PSC is a wonderful example of just how good a factory paint job can be from Boo-Rim Precision that started building models in 1998. Few custom painters can equal this level of professional paint and lettering application. Everything is spot on. The paint is smooth. You can literally see yourself in the finish it's so mirror-like. No egg shelling of the paint. No decal film showing. No chips, scratches, or touch-ups. Everything is straight and true. This is as good as a paint job gets and it generally adds $400-$500 to the price and value of the model.

Having custom painted more than 4,000 brass models here in the United States for the likes of EMD, GE, AT&SF, BN, Conrail, NS, Overland Models, and countless model hobby shops coast to coast we were invited by Nam Dal Cho (President of Ajin Precision Models) to set up their factory paint shop in Seoul, South Korea where we enjoyed the good fortune of being able to instruct Mr. Se Ho Jang, not only in the intricacies of painting and lettering scale models, but also in exactly how to construct these models to begin with to enable this level of quality in a finished model. Our Building Brass Model Trains DVD will explain this project in some detail and we know you'll enjoy seeing the pictures from this effort.

In case you're not aware, Mr. Cho started his career at Samhongsa as their Chief Engineer and left that company to create Ajin Precision. When we met Mr. Jang he was a Production Manager at Ajin Precision and besides Mr. Cho (now retired) was easily one of the most personable people working at Ajin Precision. Mr. Jang went on to create Boo-Rim Precision Models and today is the President of that company making arguably what we consider to be the finest scale steam locomotive models in all of South Korea. It is our good fortune and pleasant experience to know and have worked side by side with both Mr. Cho and Mr. Jang who we consider to be our friends, colleagues, trusted advisers, and without a doubt two of the finest brass model train craftsmen of all time. Many of the finest models from Ajin and Boo-Rim are the result of our joint collaboration as is testament DM&IR 1223 shown above. In a production setting when people see things the same way, and get along together, wonderful things can be the result. Working with Mr. Cho and Mr. Jang in South Korea is easily the best professional experience we ever enjoyed and we're are proud to state that fact. Our hat is off to both of these wonderful, professional gentlemen who always persevered to make the best possible product, again and again. And when we went out on the town together they were wonderful gracious hosts. Few brass model train builders can boast of such accomplishment, such professionalism, or such warmth with their colleagues.

To the gentlemen of Ajin Precision and Boo-Rim Precision -- Nam Dal Cho and Se Ho Jang -- you are the very BEST of your profession of all time -- and we're proud to be the ones saying so.

Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!