[neil_s_wood]

Precision Craft and BLI have adopted this new system of deciding whether a model will be built or not. The diagram below comes from their website and shows how likely it is whether they will build a run of models or not

While this is in America, the home of rampant capitalsm, it may end up elsewhere in the future. How would you feel if your favourite model did not get constructed unless X amount of people sign up to buying one?

This could be regarded ina a positive light, e.g. if you are one of the Blue Pullman brigade this would be your chance to show Hornby how many people would really buy one.

While limited runs have been under discussion before this is a new phenomena in that the company will not even build the loco until a certain amount of people commit to buying it.

Is this a good thing or bad?

 

[Peter_Harvey]

Why dose it have to be Hornby that produce a Blue Pullman it could be Just Like The Real Things first venture into OO as they are doing an O gauge I mean it doesn't take much to re scale a CAD model to produce an SLA prototype model or Bachman they would certainly sell whatever they produced.
Pete

 

[Gary]

I'm not convinced that the online community in the UK is big enough for such an indicator to work for the mass manufacturers here. It may work for the small scale cottage manufacturers who have production methods that lend themselves to small production runs.

Think about polls. Every UK site that arranges a poll gets a response from maybe 10% of its members/visitors or less. Why this is I don't know.

We have to remember that Precision Craft and BLI are small scale cottage manufacturers relative to the market that they supply which is 10 times bigger than the UK market.

The production methods of Just Like The Real Thing are fine for larger scales such as O however they are inapropriate for OO as castings would not have the crisp look that injection moulding methods offer and fine detail would be lost. Resin bodies in OO are a great resource for those who are desperate to have a certain loco running on their layout however the look of a resin body in a small scale would not be acceptable to rivet counters and collectors as tolerances are courser with resin moulding relative to injection moulding.

Happy modelling
Gary

 

[Ravenser]

We've been there , done that with Bratchill Models , who routinely signals that if he doesn't get enough pre-orders he won't do the kit. There've been a couple of cases where he's dropped the project, but more where it's floated (the 150 and the new 317 come to mind)

But he doesn't publish a status indicator

Heljan indicated that their D0280 Falcon project was subject to a satisfactory level of pre-orders , but that's a limited edition , and we were all flabbergasted when they announced the project anyway

JLRT use injection moulds. The big difference is that their production methods involve moulds that have a pretty limited life. Hence they can remake a mould at modest cost to get it right , but are working on a short run/ higher price basis

QUOTE Resin bodies in OO are a great resource for those who are desperate to have a certain loco running on their layout however the look of a resin body in a small scale would not be acceptable to rivet counters and collectors as tolerances are courser with resin moulding relative to injection moulding

I think you'll find the people who have Silver Fox locos will often tend to be finer scale modellers, unless there's an alternative kit available (and assuming the kit's any good). Dean Sidings stuff is often pretty esoteric - you've got to be a bit of a rivet counter to know what an ex GCR L1 2-6-4T is, let alone to want one. Collectors don't buy kits - if it hasn't got that authentic Hornby Dublo box its not of interest

 

[Gary]

Useful comment there on the JLTRT production method. I had overlooked the soft mould/hard mould thing and resulting mould life expectancy.

On the Blue Pullman there would be nothing to stop JLTRT doing an OO model (kit based presumably?) on that basis as long as there were 500 customers willing to pay £400 or a figure of that order. That equals £200,000 which would probably cover costs of such a project and produce revenue.

There is not much cost difference between developing moulds for an OO model and a O model. However JLTRT will already have prototypical research costs against the O model so it could actually be advantagous to them to downscale this and produce an OO model.

Or even to sell their research to a third party who might be interested in taking the Blue Pullman project on.

Happy modelling
Gary

PS at £400 count me out...

 

[Dennis David]

Plus they commission all of their stuff if I'm not mistaken so they need to take that approach.

 

[Ravenser]

QUOTE There is not much cost difference between developing moulds for an OO model and a O model.

Heljan 47 in 7mm - £400
Heljan 47 in 4mm - £58

I think I know why JLRT stick to 7mm