I've been out of the steel modeling loop for a great many years. One thing I've been wondering is. What happened to all those wonderfully scratch built steel mill structures ? Not to mention HO scratch built mill heavy equipment. Wow !
What happened to his house Cat's ?
Please share if you know these two questions.
Mr Freytag inspired me to model steel mills,as he did many others. His model work was awe inspiring. Dirty,grimy,worn and weathered with a touch of imagineering. He is sorely missed by steel mill modelers world wide.
Fear an Ignorant Man more than a Lion- Turkish proverb
Modeling an ficticious HO scale intergrated Scrap Yard & Steel Mill Melt Shop.
Southland Industrial Railway or S.I.R for short. Enterchanging with Norfolk Southern.
http://www.pyamodelrailroad.com/Dean_Freytag_Collection.html
On a related note, I recall a two page spread of a blast furnace model in Model Railroader back around 1960 or so. Was that his, also?
Ed
I assume you own or have seen Dean Freytag's book on Steel that was first published by Walthers, and is now available from the NMRA in numerous reprintings. You never know when the reprints will stop so get it now is my advice.
And surprisingly little known even among some Freytag fans is his Cyclopedia of Industrial Modeling which goes through several projects related to his modeled steel mills. Plastruct sells it (and the book in effect makes you need to buy lots of Plastruct lol).
I was fortunate enough to see one of Freytag's NMRA clinics when he was in his prime. The room was packed of course. I suspect some of the seemingly spontaneous lines were in fact well rehearsed and much repeated but it was a classic "performance" that left you simply slack jawed. He'd show a super-detailed bit of something and then show precisely how he achieved the effect (a couple of discs of styrene punched out with paper punches, and a wee bit of a toy car) and you felt like you'd seen a magic trick explained. Perhaps only Art Curren equaled Freytag in that kind of "how'd he do that?/but of course!" kind of modeling magic.
As Dean aged and fatigued easily the clinics were a little less inspired and packed with ideas but still very much worth attending. I'd say Dean Freytag in his prime is the unattainable ideal for all of us who give modeling clinics.
Dave Nelson
As the link suggests the major steel mill buildings all went to new homes. The rolling stock to the same and some was sold at train shows. In fact some of Dean's buildings cars and loco's were for sale at the Steel Mill Modelers meet in Bethlehem Pa last week. The cats were gone by the time of Dean's passing. He is definitely missed by a number of people including me. He helped me many times with Lehigh Steel on my PRR Buffalo Line. In fact I named the works after him as the Allen Works his middle name. ---------Ken McCorry
Thank you Ed,Dave and Ken.
After the Steel Mill modelers meet in Bethlehem this year I ended up with a couple of Dean's buildings ! The sintering plant , the Eli Marine Boiler Co the #3 forge shop a Davies rolling mill building and two other unnamed mill building structures. They will all find a new home on my PRR Buffalo Line . --- Ken