How did they make a living?

tmuir · How did they make a living?

I'm talking about the small operations of one maybe 2 or 3 people that made toy steam engines.

In post war Australia most toy steam engines were made in peoples back yard sheds for atleast the first few years until they got popular enough to go into real production.

I've just been making repro parts for my Renowns and so far have 6 different brass bar sizes I need, 3 different sizes of taps and dies and associated drills to go with them and thats just to make the safety valves, overflow plugs and part of the whistle. Not to mention a lathe, bench grinder blow torch and hand tools.

Their cost to tool up not to mention the brass and cast iron castings they would of had to pay to have made else where would of all added up.
Then you see what they sold them for, they must of worked 12 to 14 hours shifts just to make enough money to get by, let alone do well.

I'm sure they were all more able than me with a lathe so could work faster than I, but even so it must of been hard going.

So next time you manage to get an old toy steam engine that was made by a small company spare a thought to the workers that had to make them and wonder if what they earnt actually allowed them to enjoy life or just scrape by.................

johnreid

I think a lot of those were done as a side line. I know of many non-steam items that were made in peoples sheds and basements but were marketed like they came from a big factory.
I assume that if you make a lot of parts some day a person will look back and say "How did Tmuir make a living doing that?".

IndianaRog

I don't know how many folks Jensen has had working the factory at their peak...but the same "factory" today is run by Mr. Tom Jensen Jr., Tom and Dorita Guy, and their son Andy. That's it...four people (CEDGE is sales mgr. from another state, but the daily help is just 4 good folks!). Their factory is also a small facility, same one since the 1930's and about big enough to park 5 or 6 cars inside if it were cleared to the walls.

Amazing what a few folks can do when equipped right and motivated to turn out the goods.

flywheel61

hatt off to L J Pugh (Renown) and others like Wallace & Peel, with out them we wouldn't have had an Australian toy steam industry, backyard or not.

I gess, after WW2 there would have been a lot of surplus tooling and materials and we know that some of the parts of would have been recycled materia; from the war.

Another example would be English company SEL.

Cheers

Chris

Nick