Monday, December 29, 2008, 03:09 PM
James Gore Is building an engine house as a part of a test of our digital file distribution. he printed the parts on his home printer and the results speak volumes. As a pre printed kit it was just unsellable with a price well over $100 bucks. as a digital model we can sell it for a lot less, probably $29.95 and we will still make laser cut windows available in the future (Jim is cutting them by hand)
Here's an interesting aspect of building this kit that has come to light.
As taken from a 1948 issue of "Model Craftsman"
when John Allen built the original and detailed it's construction in the magazine, he used card stock and paper for most of it. he cut and folded walls, cut out windows and doors, even the stacks are paper. he used pre printed brick paper for the floor.
Building our kit is the closest thing you can do to step into the shoes of the master and share his experience and craftsmanship. I certainly understand the near instant gratification of a kit with detail moldings and pre formed parts but I also have to admit that when I have built these kits, I felt i was cheating, just a little bit. I suspected I just wasn't as good as the modelers I admired.
people who take on our kits, take on the challenge of reaching for that high goal. From what I see from the good people who share their pictures, They are master modelers and should feel the pride of the old school ways. I know for a fact that several people who have built our kits have been inspired to try scratch building and had great results.
here are some pix.
Thom
[ 2 comments ] ( 35 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 05:42 PM
Here's a new kit in O and HO (S soon) and it is slated to be offered as a free download thanks to a new online model railroad magazine.
It will be available as seen here and also in a clapboard version that matches our depot and wistlestop models.
Also along with the soon to be released disks we have decided to make some individual models available for download starting with O and S (since the disks will be HO for starters)
I'll add the magazine url tonight
Have a great holiday
Thom
[ 1 comment ] ( 145 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Sunday, November 9, 2008, 12:58 AM
I just got back from trainfest and as usual it was a huge show. I think it was more crowded than usual. I was really happy to see that the crowds were younger than usual. We are always worried about the hobby dieing out but there was certainly no sign of that happening today.
Of course we stopped to chat with John Cosma amd his charming wife Chris. the Gypsy Trolly line was packing them 3 deep as folks did their best to get a look at all of the beautiful scenes and wonder how John packs so much into such a small space. He's added a new module since I last saw the layout. we have run pix of it here some time ago when he was building it. It's the row of house backs and garages.. It'sikely that we will be including all of the art from this module on one of our disks. We are still trying to decide just how much to put on each one. Some folks we have shown the prototypes to think we are putting too much on one disk. After reviewing some of our competitors products I may be convinced they are right. Some Z scale modelers brough to our attention that Paper creek sellz Z kits (we only go as far as N) and why didn't we make them. My responce was that they also charge $25 for somthing smaller then a matchbox and then I thought wait a minuet...We are looking at selling DVD's, each with over a dozen kits and a dozen or so textures for $29.95...Thats crazy. Well, I don't have a problem offering a great deal. That kind of the idea but we will have to be sure we ballance the content and price carefully.
We are getting closer to getting the first disk out. I've had to research what software to use to author the disk to assure easy and universal compatability and of course that everything is spell right, i don't know which job is harder. It's all getting done and the second disk will be easier.
We will be going to more shows soon and displaying our wares. I can hardly wait.
Thom
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Monday, November 3, 2008, 11:50 AM
here's a great freelance "Cavorite mine" from Russ Haigh that features some of our texture sheets/ Including some of our new sheetmetal that will be on the new disk library.
I'm a big narrow gauge fan myself and we are building a new demo layout thatt will feature a lot of new narrow gauge kits as well as rolling stock. I thank Russ for some inspiration.
Thom
[ 3 comments ] ( 37 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Friday, October 31, 2008, 12:46 AM
Master modeler Jim Gore is prepairing an article about building card models in the February 2009 issue of O Gauge railroading. We understand it’s a long article. We can't show you those pix till after the article runs, however he also built a test model from files that will be on the new DVDs. These are from files he printed on a consumer printer, presumably at home. The images here are about a quarter the resolution that he sent us and they still look stunning.I wish you could see the detail in the rust in the gutters.
Also he is going to give a clinic on building cardstock craftsman kits at the Florida O Scale meet in Orlando next week. Go see him if you can.
Thom
[ 1 comment ] ( 149 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ]
Back Next
