Out of the Clear Blue - from Oregon

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Out of the Clear Blue - From Oregon

   Monday and Tuesday of this week were doctor visits. I have a problem, but the doctors can't seem to find a solution. How come it's not like House or Grey's Anatomy where my medical anomaly gets to be treated by 10 of the world's brightest doctors for 6 weeks, and then I'm cured? Of course, I'm not worried, since I've had this problem for the last 2 years!

   So after Tuesday's doctor visit at 07:30 A.M., I go for coffee, and then go home. I check my e-mails and I have a very interesting e-mail from Mr. John Keiser. He had done a search for Tom Sehloff, and came across my posting about him. Tom and John are friends, and Mr. Tom Sehloff makes fabulous cast iron toys. I had written a post about the toys of Tom Sehloff courtesy of Bertoia Auctions. I tried to do a search for Mr. Sehloff, but didn't find much, so I continued and forgot.  If you click "here" you can  see the post about Tom.

   Anyway, when I read John's e-mail, I thought that I was in toy heaven! John provided me with Tom's e-mail address and telephone number, and said that I should phone him. Thinking fast, I know that I had to ask John if he'd like to be a guest on my blog, and if he would be so kind as to send me some photos. He wrote back right away, and sent me all kinds of photos. So below is the fascinating bio of Mr. John Keiser, as well as his great collection of personal and toy photos.

Mr. John Keiser

A Most-Interesting Guest

That's John in the 1960's. He still has that 1931 Dodge, and is working on restoring it. John's profession is that of an architectural draftsperson. He learned this profession by hand, and has learned to use Autocad.

Here's John today. He worked on restoring that car, another 1931 Dodge,

and he drives it to work every day.

John sent me the 3 newspaper pages above about his restoration of the coupe (the red one).
This is one of the most interesting posts that I have had the pleasure of writing with a guest.
Thanks, John!

Updated (October  10, 2013)

That's John's weathervane, that he calls a  whirlygig, and modestly said that this was his "attempt" at folk art. Did I recently tell you about my attempts at building and repairing things around the house? Now those are attempts, John's weathervane is "art",

What's interesting is that this piece was based on his grandfather's schooner on the Great Lakes. The ship was triple-masted, and it was the last one to haul lumber on the Gear Lakes. The ship was called the "J.T.Wing". John made that ship for his parents.

Here's a "sampling" of some of John's collection. These are mostly more-recent models, although I do see some older models as well.

The top shelf are some of Tom Sehloff's outstanding creations.

On the bottom shelf I see a blue motorcycle with 2 Disney characters. However, I can't tell if that's new or a very old Hubley. The policemen in blue on the red motorcycle looks like a very old 1930's Hubley.

I think these are more of Tom Sehloff's creations. I'll ask John to identify some of the photos, when I ask him to proofread this post.

As you can see from the hand as a  reference, this toy is quite large!

Recently, I've taken photos and placed the toys against a completely white background.  However, I decided to leave just a bit of "detail" in John's photos, and the results are excellent!  Of course, it helped that John took some great photos!

The photos above and those below are Tom's creations.

I removed some green on the left side of the photo, but left the doorbell.  I like the result even better than the complete-white effect. However this will only work well with people's personal photos, rather than the auctioneer photos that present their fine items on a solid colour. The backgrounds help the photo in this case.

Tom Sehloff always signs his "masterpieces".

The 4 photos above are when the castings have been cooled and removed from their moulds.

The castings are from a Chrysler Airflow. IF you do a search on the Net for "chrysler Airflow", you will see a fabulous car. However, the "real" car never made it (was not a success), and sadly was only produced for a few years.

Casting many parts together helps save time and money, since producing high temperatures to melt iron is quite costly.  When the casting is cool, the individual pieces are carefully separated, and then finished to removed excess iron.

The 3 toys above are more of Tom Sehloff's fine cast iron toys. I spoke with tom today, and he has agreed to be a guest on my blog. Of course, he's quite busy. Not only does he create these fabulous  toys, but he works on restoring and making parts for the 1960's-1970's Dodge "muscle cars".

It must be the great state of Oregon or the air there. Both John and Tom are multi-talented people from Oregon. Maybe I should move there?

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, 

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

write me anytime: 

toysearcher@gmail.com

Mr. Tom Sehloff - Modern Cast Iron Model Maker

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Mr. Tom Sehloff

Modern Cast Iron Model Maker

    I was writing about the Packard pressed steel toys manufactured by Keystone, when I came across more Packard toys. However, they;re probably called "models" as they are more collector items than "toys". I've had the pleasure to be able to write about modern-era model makers, but never a cast-iron model maker. I haven't written to Mr. Sehloff because it's hard to find him on the Net. He lives in Oregon (USA). I do find"bits and pieces" about him, but I'll keep searching.

    Tom Sehloff's models are produced in limited editions. What I like is when a current toy or model maker starts to have his fine items enter the secondary market.What I mean by that is that someone originally purchased his item,and  had resold it at auction, or to another collector.

   All of his models come in retro-looking boxes. As well,the models have been painted in the bold colours similar to the cast iron toys of the 1920's and 1930's. Also, he's added nickel-plated bumpers, and sometimes even additional nickel-plating to other parts of the car.

  I was able to find a nice collection of his fine works from Bertoia Auctions.  You'll  find that I am continuing to edit the photos (In Photoshop) to place them on white and to have the outer edges go soft.

Please click on this sentence to be redirected to the fine Bertoia website

This travel vehicle is my favourite. I'm wondering if there really ever was such a vehicle, but the details sure gives it that "retro look".

His drivers are not like quite like  the drivers of the  1920-1930's era vehicles,but I like them. In this one for example I really like that fedora (hat).

Check out that  huge spotlight to the left of the driver. Did they really have such large searchlights at that time on cars, and what would someone be looking for with that?

This  car reminded me of a famous expression by Henry Ford, in his 1922 biography.

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

Talk about ego!

But I love that statement!

I like the inset-style window of the front windshield. You do see this feature on several of the Hubley cast iron cars of the 1920's-1930's era. I just was looking at the paint jobs on all of the models and Tom has done a great job. I know that from personal experience, because it's not that easy!

It's difficult to get a uniform and smooth finish to any model, What's even harder is to be able to paint a round circle such as you see at the front of the headlights and on the sides of the above truck.

Thanks as always for dropping by,

and have a pleasant Sunday, or part of the day,

 wherever you may be.

Stacey