Glenn Thomas

Unlike the majority of people involved in this industry, Glenn Thomas had no real interest in cars as a child and young person. After he left school, he obtained a job with a firm providing an architectural and aviation model making service. This included the construction of cut-away models to display detailed interior and mechanical workings.

This experience gave Glenn a sound grounding in all the techniques used in model making, and the range of materials needed. After 5 years in this role as a model maker, he decided in 1980 to become self-employed as a model maker.

Subject ID: 82479

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Unlike the majority of people involved in this industry, Glenn Thomas had no real interest in cars as a child and young person. After he left school, he obtained a job with a firm providing an architectural and aviation model making service. This included the construction of cut-away models to display detailed interior and mechanical workings.

This experience gave Glenn a sound grounding in all the techniques used in model making, and the range of materials needed. After 5 years in this role as a model maker, he decided in 1980 to become self-employed as a model maker.

Although his main experience was in aircraft and dioramas, Glenn’s first commission was from a friend, Dave Jones, whose partner wanted him to produce the patterns for a range of Fire Engines in 1:60 scale.

This was followed by work from Alan Smith, undertaking patterns for 1:48 scale commercial vehicles, mostly for the American market, and including big earth moving and industrial plant equipment. Hart models then came on the scene, followed by Brian Salter, who Glenn always found to be a stickler for detail.

Roger Tennyson, creator of Jemini and Crossway Models asked Glenn to convert some existing patterns to create different versions of the same vehicle, and Glenn always found Roger very helpful and knowledgeable.

More recently, a major change in Glenn’s life occurred when his father asked him to take over his Landscape gardening business on his retirement. Glenn had found that the pattern-making business had declined somewhat, and was insufficient to sustain an income to support his growing family.

Having accepted this challenge, he has been working long hours, and indeed he was very hard to track down for this profile! Glenn still wanted to keep his skills up to date, and found that there was more call for producing resin patterns for resin models. He has therefore been designing resin patterns from acrylic block, (better known as Perspex) for a number of proprietors, including Paul Slade of Fire Brigade Models, and Steve de Havilland of Traffic Model Cars. With Steve, Glenn has formed a sound friendship; as he says, “both of us are somewhat odd balls”

Glenn reflected on the developments of manufacture of low volume models, commenting that when it can take many hours of work to produce a brass master for a relatively small production run, it is not surprising that those who commission such work are hesitant to pay the £2.5K-£3K that the pattern making process costs. Alternatively, he can fettle an acrylic pattern during his winter evenings, when the landscape gardening work is at an ebb, and achieve a result in a shorter and more cost effective timescale.

Subject ID: 82479

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