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Exclusive: Western Scale Models - Profiles
Aug 16, 2006
By Noel Widdifield
LSOL.com Managing Editor |
Author
Bio
This is the first in a series of nine articles that will give you an in-depth look at some of the interesting vendors who were at the 22nd Annual National Garden Railway Convention in Santa Clara, California this year.
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This is the first in a series of nine articles that will give you an in-depth look at some of the interesting vendors who were at the 22nd Annual National Garden Railway Convention in Santa Clara, California this year. We selected some of the smaller vendors who had interesting products to feature in this series. Each vendor was selected because they had products that are very professionally done and are somewhat unique. There were many vendors at the show and almost all offered products that were worth spending your money to add to your collection. It was difficult to limit ourselves to only these nine, but we thought you would find what they had for sale to be something of special value or uniqueness. This is a review of Western Scale Models, owned by Bill Gustafson. He has been in business about 15 years and went full-time about seven or eight years ago. Bill had been working at UCLA in continuing education in charge of administering the physical science and travel study programs. He had a very secure job in that role, but then switched to a job that was grant funded. In the late 1990?s grants dried up for the type of programs Bill was responsible for, so he started making models for sale part-time. Eventually, the business became a lot more fun than the UCLA work, so he quit and began to make the models full-time. 
As a child, Bill had Lionel trains that eventually grew into an HO 4-foot by 8-foot layout. He played with that until high school where trains disappeared from his interest. Nearly thirty years later he again got interested in O scale trains and eventually that evolved to combine with geology into an interest in early machinery from the gold and lumber industry in the west. That led to trying to find models of the machines and discovering that none were available. From that point, he began to do the research, design and construction of the machinery in O scale for his own railroad. There were a few very small companies in that business, but Bill was unaware of their existence. Once he began to make the models, he continued to make them for himself and decided to sell them too. His first product was a mine ore car set consisting of three small ore cars and two mine figures and he took those to an O Scale West convention. He asked everyone who walked past his booth if they would like to buy a set of ore cars and he sold twelve sets. The business grew from there. He soon saw a growing market in Large Scale and about the time that Bachmann began to introduce their 1/20.3 engines, he decided to start making the machinery in that scale. The 1/20.3 scale was a natural extension since most of his customers were into narrow gauge railroads.
 Bill says that Western Scale Models is trying to sell history. He is trying to preserve the history that most people don?t even know about. His company makes models of stationary steam engines, machines and equipment that are overhead belt driven. Many of the machines are 100 to 150 years old. It is very difficult to find these machines existing today, so his purpose is to show people what they were and to let people model them. These are the industrial types of machines that were out there over one hundred years ago. Bill has a PhD in Geology and he loves research. As he got more into research he became very interested in the industry and how things were made in the past. This led to developing many of the machine shop, gold mining and lumber industry machines that he offers for sale today. 
  The stationary steam engines are beautiful models of the machines that powered industrial machines a century ago. 
  
His favorite model is the machine shop. 1995 was the 100th anniversary of the Sierra Railroad machine shop. It was at that time he was asked to do something for the 100th anniversary of that railroad shop. Several different model companies were approached and Bill thought it would be interesting to model some of the machines in the shop.  
He eventually did most of those machines in O scale. He now offers some of the machine from the shop in 1/20.3 and some in HO. That started the machine aspect of the models. Before that he had concentrated on mining things.    
One of the mining things he built was based on the Big Horn Gold mine that a friend of Bill?s leased and tried to operate 25 years ago. 
  He also offers flatcar loads of machinery that are excellent models of the real thing. 
When asked what he would be introducing next, Bill said he tries to get input from people who are friends and customers. He says that doesn?t always work since many of the people who are most vocal only want things that they want and those things are often not what other people want. He looks for prototype models that exist and then does the research to develop the model. It is hard to develop a model from pictures and words. Having the real thing insures that the model is accurate. To find out about the things he models he does much of his research on e-Bay and says he became quite an e-Bay junkie until he decided he was spending too much money on his habit. The habit did result in his having a large number of catalogs and pictures of the machinery he loves. He says that these help, but there is always a backside not shown on the pictures. That is why it is better to have the real machine so that he can take his own pictures and measure everything before he begins to develop a new model. The Large Scale gold mill will be finished and available near the end of the year. He plans to begin to offer some more of the logging equipment in Large Scale and beyond that he isn?t sure what will be next.
Bill is the only person in the company, although his brother, Carl, helps occasionally. He has attended the Queen Mary show a couple of times in the past and this is his first time at the National Convention. He says that it is nice to be at the show so that people can actually see the products, but because he is very specialized, he doesn?t sell much at shows. Most of the sales come from direct orders and the website. His real market is the narrow gauge scratch builder who is willing and able to invest the time to build and detail his kits or use his products to build their own models. He does go to the annual narrow gauge convention, since that is where most of his buyers attend. All of his products come as kits that require assembly, painting and weathering. Bill brought only a few of his kits to the show. He offers craftsman kits with structures and complete interior detail. These kits include: a blacksmith shop, gold mill, power station, mine inclined shaft head frame and hoist house and a 10-stamp gold mill. He also offers machinery, equipment and detail parts such as: the machine shop, sawmill equipment, blacksmith interior details, mining detail parts and several miscellaneous detail parts. He has several books for sale on the types of industry and machines that he models. Although Bill doesn?t have a Large Scale railroad, he says that the thing that interests him is the machinery you find inside the buildings. That is what led him to go into the business and that is where his interest lies today. Bill says that he really has fun doing what he does and looks forward to continuing the business of supplying superior craftsman kits of structures, machinery and interior detail parts for industries that existed over 100 years ago.  Western Scale Models
19441 Business Center Drive #107
Northridge, California 91324
(818) 341-7862
(818) 341-7864 FAX website: www.westernscalemodels.com
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