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When I found out that I had been invited to the Breyer in the USA to meet the President of the company, I nearly hit the ceiling of my office with excitement! I would be going to go to the heart of Breyer and see how they are made.
On entry to the Factory, my eyes nearly fell out of my head with amazement. Walking through a door and into a factory full of Breyer models. Everywhere you looked and turned there were Models of all shapes and sizes. It was like being in a candy shop!
How are Breyer Models Made?
Breyer Models are made of a flexible plastic called cellulose acetate. The plastic starts as tiny plastic pellets that are put into heating vaults until they reach liquid form. The liquid plastic is then injected into a mould. |
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| After about 1 minute, the machine pulls the mould apart and the two halves of the model horse emerge, still hot. The halves are then placed on specially designed cooling boards. The boards have guides, which hold each horse half in the correct position until it cools. |
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When they cool off, matching halves are put into a bonding well. This bath washes the edges of the model with a chemical, which softens the material so that the two pieces can bond. They are then pieced together and placed in a press. The press exerts pressure on the two halves to insure a true bond. When I watched this process, they were making Lonesome Glory’s. It was really odd to imagine how 2 halves could make such a beautiful model horse! When one of the halves came out of the machine, I held one and it was hot and flexible. |
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| Each model receives the first of a series of quality inspections. Any excess plastic is removed and each horse then gets buffed and polished, and then cleaned again ready for painting. |
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Every single horse is hand painted by anywhere from 5-12 different people. Each person has a particular job - from base coat to mane to eyelashes.
First we start with the base or body coat. Large, handheld air guns are used for a strong, steady stream of colour. Breyer mix and match about 50 different colours to get exactly what they need |
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| Sometimes parts of the horse's body need to be shielded from the base coat. Such is the case with a pinto or palomino horse. Protecting that area with a mask creates the white on these models |
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| Once the body is sprayed, the horse is then passed to a series of operators who take turns painting the mane, tail, eyes, etc. Small air guns are used here as they produce a much finer stream of paint. After they are done being painted, the horses are then inserted and secured in their specially designed boxes. |
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All models are painted at these paint workstations located throughout the factory. These boxes are used to make sure no paint goes astray! The tower to the right of the workstation is a rack of Models waiting to be sprayed.
Whilst wandering further around the factory there were racks of models waiting to be painted. They paint models in stages. For example: If 20 Narandas needed to be painted, all 20 would have their base coat painted first, then they all would have their manes and tails painted and then they all would have their eyes painted.
Racks upon racks of Breyer Models waiting to be painted. Whilst I was there, the models waiting to be painted were: Sheza Good Sport, The Gypsy King, Naranda, Champion & Stardust the unicorn.
Next I visited the room, which every Breyer collector wants to be locked in! – the Breyer archive room. In this room is one of every single model every produced from 1950. The room must have been About 20m wide and 40m long and everywhere was cases upon cases of models. Within these cases where models which I had only ever seen in books. It was amazing to see all The SR models and the HUGE amounts of test Runs. There was about 20 different test runs for Huckleberry Bey! The Breyerfest Models, the Tour Models, The JAH Connoisseur models, I saw them all. I even had the chance to get a few out from the cases and have a look! J It was just amazing to see, literally thousands of models in one area, it took my breath away! If you cannot imagine it, just think of all the Models in this year’s catalogue in one-place, times by about 100! That’s how many models there were!Wandering around the factory I saw many SR models, which were not in the catalogue. I even saw the new JAH Connoisseur model, Shalimar in the factory!
If you are wondering why there are no colour photos of the factory, only pictures drawn from my memory it was because there were no photos allowed!! I saw and talked about many other things at Breyer but I don’t want to spoil the future Breyer Models for you! ;)
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