A friend of mine
Mike Ferguson and I decided to pay Clare Gilbert of Sylvan Scale
Models a visit. I've been wanting to do this for awhile now and
was great to finally make it happen. Clare has a nice little
shop just outside of the village Arkona Ontario. The drive out
was nice, traversing the Blue water bridge on a cold windy
winter day, Lake Huron packed with ice.
We were greeted
with a warm welcome, eager to take us on a tour of his work.
Talking about how he got into this business and the jobs he's
had. Such as an Engineer sailing around the Great Lakes from
1979 to 1994. He sailed on a number of different freighters:
Wheat King, Canadian Prospect, Canadian Explorer and Seaway
Queen. In 1992 he start his own model making business, wasn't
long before things real started to come together. In August of
1997 he had his grand opening of his model factory. Sylvan is
now his full time job, if you could call it that! It's more like
getting paid for a hobby. Can't beat that! He's been into this
hobby for over 25 years. Also very active in the model community
with articles published in several modeler magazines and
publishing a book on the St. Clair River Tunnel. Sounds like an
interesting read!
One very
interesting thing Clare does is build scale models for a number
of Railroad manufactures such as Canadian National Railways.
These models are used for show pieces to demonstrate new types
of railcars. His current project is working with covered
steel coil cars down in Mexico. Very cool!
Clare has as a
number of different kits he makes, from rolling stock to
vehicles and ships, even buildings! His model vehicles are his
big seller and from the level of detail he puts in I can see
why! Anything from old coupes to fire trucks, most of which are
from the mid 1900's. Check out the photo etched parts in HO and
N gauge, wow!! One of the more unique things he does is build
server different model types of the same vehicle. Such as this
tractor with the different types of cabs. One of there latest
kits is this great looking fire truck. Note the two types, open
or closed cabs!!
Of course my
favorite is his Great Lake vessels: tugs, barges, Canallers and
Lakers. His latest being this great kit of an old Lumber Hooker.
Which I did a recent review on
here. You can
see the mold masters beside the mold itself. He says he can get
about 50 cast of each mold, then makes a new one off the master.
The shop was setup
nicely for a pretty slick operation. He has several employees
who take care of things. A place I wouldn't mind working! First
is the casting area with all kinds of racks full of molds. The
poring stations have several vacuum chambers, resin is pored
into several molds at a time then places in vacuum chambers to
remove all the bubbles. Once cured they the parts are then
carefully removed and place on a rack to finish cure. Looks
pretty straight forward, but Clare has the experience to know
what works and what doesn't.
The molds themselves are made of a
silicone RTV rubber in heavy styrene boxes. Most have an inner
and outer half to complete the mold, such as the vehicle bodies.
Other such as the Lumber Hooker decks he uses a thick Plexiglas
sheet for a back plate. I really liked the simplicity in his
process. Yes those are 55 gallon drums of resin!
From there the cast
taken to the parts area, cleaned, trimmed and organized. Detail
parts such as small fittings, photo etched parts are added to
complete the model. Decals and instructions are added to
complete the kits. Everything is boxed up and ready to be
shipped out.
We had a very nice
visit with Clare, great guy! Nice to chat with him about all the
things he has going on, current and future projects. He's full
of idea's and projects he'd like to see happen, including a
Whaleback!!! His biggest challenge is having enough time and
figuring out which project to bring out next!! I think we can
continue to see great things come out Sylvan Scale Models!!
Thanks for the tour
Clare!!
Tour
of
Sylvan
Scale Models
