Wednesday, September 26, 2007, 02:38 PM
Inde was great fun. even if it was unbelievably unorganized. that is at the begining. we didn't know wherewe were untill about an hour before the show was to open. then we had to kind of "borrow" the electricity. thank god for lax unions. I could never get away with running a 100ft extension chord in Chicago.
That aside, I /we had a great time. The show was not appreciably larger then normal even though it was a national but sales were brisk, we made friends. what more could you ask for.
I have some amaizing pix to share, but not yet. No not from the show but from an upcoming review in MRC. Master builder Don Spiro builds and reviewes our "mercantile" and the photos are out of this world. he made some simple but great modifications and additions to the kit. You'll just have to wait to see them because we cant post till after they are published. Don tells me that RMC usually publishes his reviews as soon as they get them so who knows. Maybe next month. Thats wishfull thinking but I have my fingers crossed.
more soon
Thom
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Thursday, September 20, 2007, 01:10 AM
We always like going to the Inde O scale show. It's one ot the first shows we started to go to. I'm looking forward to seeing the friends we've made. I like to talk to folks who have built our kits. We always get good suggestions and ideas from people.
I just got finished running some fresh kits and textures so we will have plenty to offer. We will be showing several kits for the first time. I love to see what folks have to say about the new stuff we show.
We have been working on the layout. It's always fun to set it up and let people run trains. As usual, If you come by and run the switching puzzel, you will walk away with a free kit.
These shows are a lot of work and a lot of fun. I can't wait.
Thom
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007, 11:04 AM
We have recently had some rather large sales of N scale kits. I have got to respect these folks for tenacity.Building a N scale "Ice co" or "company house" is a challenge that would not be for everyone.
I wonder how far a modeler will take it. There are a lot of paper model hobbiests (not model rail folks) who actually buy large scale models and reduce them on coppiers to see how small they can build a biplane or ship. thats their fun. I sincerely hope that the N crowd is tapped into that mind set. A certain pride for making things small.
We do re engineer our kits to work better in N scale but we do not simplify them. we make them with all the same parts (and opportunities) as the large scale kits. Some of these parts may seem impossibly small but I know that for the few who take the challenge. The reward will be great. We haven't seen to much built in N yet but we have seen a few. All I can say is OMG, mind boggelling. where are my glasses.
Thom
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Friday, August 31, 2007, 04:20 PM
I'm sitting in my office (the local coffe house) wailing for a critical animation job to finish rendering. (my real bill paying job) and thought it would be a fine time to ramble a bit.
The GD engin house is complete but for the test build. As a companion I thought it would be nice to offer the brick inclosed water tower that is in almost every photo I've ever seen of the engine house. This has turned into two nice kits which are also mostly complete.I found a set of published plans for the G&D water tower in a very old model railroader (I think). That was a huge incentive to knock out this new model and I completed it in only 3 days. In preporation I had earlier done an internet search for water towers. I found an interesting picture of a completely inclosed hexagonal wood frame watertower. Not what I was looking for but a natural for a paper kit. I had no intentions at the time but saved the photo anyway. I promptly forgot all about it as I have hundreds of interesting pix grabbed online.
I went to work on the G&D project and accidently accessed the hex tower picture. Hmmmmm. Two days later I had a new kit that I really like. Only one more detail to call it done. I made a call to terry at St. Charles model works to see if he had a casting for the watertower spout. As always I was tempted to make it paper and i might still but I thought it would be nice to offer a casting for this detail.
Well' Terry might have somthing and if he does, we will get two new watertower kits out the door pretty quick.
We had an interesting (coincidence) happen. We have a small scale (as in weight)building. sun of a gun if walthers doesent offer the exact same model and it looks just like ours. Wow i see they also have an octagonal gate house just like ours (ours was out first) Do I see a trend here? walthers is begining to distribute our products and I must say i like the people we are dealing with there. i hate to be cinical. Good ideas are just good ideas.
Thom
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Friday, August 24, 2007, 11:01 AM
Sorry it took so long but we finally have a site that reflects our complete line. We recently began an agreement to distribute our kits through Walthers. They can reach corners of the planet that we can only dream of. The upshot of this is that your local hobby shop can now get any kit or texture for the asking. (you can still get things from us directly of course). I'm sure there will be bugs to work out. We'll find then and squash them as we go.
This was all done so we can show you what we are working on faster.
The new signage kits are a great addition and you will notice that we are now putting some things together in 3 packs. That allows us to give you a lot more for just a bit more money. The fences are a great deal at about 30 inches of fence for under $10 bucks. You will notice a slight (less then a dollar) price increase across the board. This is to cover the increase in postage. Some prices are lower as with the multy packs and the textures are staying the same.
We are always trying to make things better. A couple of months ago we doubled the resolution of our printing. Many people won't notice but it means a crisper image overall.
We hope you like seeing all the kits I've been talking about for months. we will keep them coming.
Thom
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