Thank you for visiting my website today. Jeff Lemke Trains, Inc. is literally an army of one. Over the decades I've researched, designed, repaired, restored, rescued, painted and weathered more than 10,000 brass models. Today we work exclusively in HO, S and O scales for people around the world, including the best hobby shops from coast to coast, most of the brass importers that ever were, presidents of many of USA's Class 1 Railroads, and locomotive builders EMD and GE.

While working as the resident Research Specialist for Overland Models (during the high point of brass model production in Korea) I was invited to teach professional painting to the production managers at Ajin Precision in Seoul, South Korea. My first student was Mr. Se Ho Jang, who created his own brass model factory, BOO-RIM Precision Co., Inc. CLICK HERE to visit my Flickr site to see and read how brass models were made in Korea during the 1980s and 1990s.

Thanks to the workers at Ajin whom I worked with side by side, I learned how to solder in the factories that made the models, while I taught them how to paint brass models. Today, I use a variety of traditional soldering sticks and stations, resistance soldering units ranging from 100 WATTS to 1,100 WATTS, and a micro-torch to perform my craft. My soldering acumen is expert level. That's precisely what's required to make pro-level repairs to finely crafted brass models.

Our soldering expertise make brass models BETTER than factory new.

Making soldering repairs to fully assembled models is FAR more difficult than anything factory workers encountered when making the models in the first place. But thanks to seeing how they were made, it's relatively simple for me now to make decisions on what can and can't be repaired. If you have a damaged or inoperative brass model train in HO, S or O scale, let’s put our heads together to come up with a solution. To get a project started, all that I need to see are a few photos of your model and a description of the problems you’re experiencing. They can’t all be brought back, but many of them can with the right tools, techniques, and expertise.

IMPORTANT—The painting side of my business was RETIRED in January 2024 so that I could focus exclusively on brass model train repairs, grit-blasting and chemical cleaning, touching up factory painted models, doing full restorations on unpainted bare brass models, and proto-realistic weathering too. If you’re in need of repairs or restoration AND a paint job too, I perform expert repairs, then utilize a vetted, full-time professional paint shop to get colors on the model.

Likewise, DCC installers tend to be in the highest demand these days with so many collectors requesting DCC installs in their locomotives. While I do set up brass models to properly accept DCC components (without bending or breaking any parts and without ruining the factory paint jobs), I've always outsourced the component installations to several very capable electronics wizards known to me locally. Like me, they operate full-time professional businesses as well. Specialization really does make for the finest outputs across the repair, painting, weathering and DCC installation disciplines. Utilizing trusted industry colleagues who have similar values and performance standards means every service we perform is reliably well-done.

MORE IMPORTANT—As with any art that is in high demand, it's important to understand that the lines can be quite long for the kinds of services we provide. Not just here, but with ANY service provider. We typically maintain a work load of roughly 75 projects. Our facility is essentially a brass model triage center. Some models come and qo quite quickly, in just a week or two, to a few months. Models requiring more complicated repairs can be here for 3-6 months. Serious repair or rebuilding work (dropped models or those with severe shipping damage) can easily be here a year or more. As each model is unique, so too are the repairs required to bring it back to full functionality. Like the railroad itself, everything in the brass model repair business is linear. Meaning, that when jobs ahead of yours go slow, everything in line behind that work gets delayed as well. That said, it's rarely possible to provide hard turn-around estimates since there are too many unknowns hiding inside of every job that arrives here. If you're a patient person, then we're happy to work with you to provide the finest brass models repairs and restorations.

It's been said that the three most important variables in this line of highly skilled work are:

1) Price; 2) Turn-around; 3) Quality of work performed.

Our hourly rate since 2017 is still just $39/HR, + parts + materials + shipping.

Turn-around is ALWAYS based on a combination of every job that's already here ahead of yours, along with the condition of your model when it arrives here.

We're known for the QUALITY OF WORK we consistently provide to our clients.

If the lowest price and fastest turn-around are your most important considerations, then frankly, we will not have a fit. But if the highest quality repairs and restorations are omni-important to you, then you've come to the right place and you're going to love what we create for you.

Thanks again for visiting our website today. We do appreciate YOU.

Cheers!