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Topic: Future project help.? |
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David Waples
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Aug 30, 2013 - 4:24am
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I don't think you have an appreciation for how much is involved in producing these figures in terms of time and money. Producing masters and casting resin is expensive. Also the ship market is considerably smaller than the aircraft and armor markets.
I hope that we'll see somebody like Italeri produce a nice set soon. Maybe someday with 3D printing we'll have the ability to produce lower cost figures. But for now that process is very expensive.
Or you can learn to sculpt your own figures.
Dave
David Waples |
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Frank Andruss
TOP BOSS
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 Posted on: Aug 30, 2013 - 7:27am
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Dave
I can certainly understand the scope of things when they have to produce these figures, I guess my pet peeve is they are producing many figures, and none for the guy that needs Navy figures. Companies like Verlinden and Tamyia who produce massive amounts of figures, just don't make anything Navy, unless it is German. They concentrate mostly on ground troops, like Army, Marines, and of course anything German.
Even Dragon produces a decent amount of German and other Ground troops figures, including complete Tank Crews, and or other ground crew figures. I wrote to Verlinden and Tamyia a few years back, and they said they would look into it, nothing has surfaced. I don't understand why. If anyone will do this, my money is on Italeri, who doesn't seem to be so narrow minded as the large figures Companies. So, until we can get something on the market, I guess we will just have to due with what is out there and what can be made up.
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Bob Butler
MASTER
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Posted on: Aug 30, 2013 - 8:52am
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I bought a 1954 Disney Nautilus submarine off a guy that lives fairley close by. He makes them as people order them. He's a real nice guy and I've talked to him about resin casting. He said he uses a paint pressure pot for all his smaller pieces. I've used RTV molding for years, and understand it. I don't understand his process but he said if I come up and visit he would show me. I really don't think it would be that hard or expensive to produce some figures, It's just knowing how. The hard part would be coming up width the figures which could be customized from stuff already out there. Once you get your head going in that direction I think it would be pretty simple.
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Bob Butler
MASTER
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Posted on: Aug 30, 2013 - 2:15pm
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I took a crash corse on Vacuum Resin Casting on Youtube. Some very intresting stuff. Bloxgen spray finish preserver sounds really neat. It would not cost that much to get set up with. One compressor could run the vacuum chamber with the intake of the compressor and the pressure pot could be run by the pressure side of the com[ressor. Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMdicfz5Ouk
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PeterTareBuilder2
MASTER
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Posted on: Aug 30, 2013 - 3:11pm
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Quote:
Dave
I can certainly understand the scope of things when they have to produce these figures, I guess my pet peeve is they are producing many figures, and none for the guy that needs Navy figures. Companies like Verlinden and Tamyia who produce massive amounts of figures, just don't make anything Navy, unless it is German. They concentrate mostly on ground troops, like Army, Marines, and of course anything German.
Even Dragon produces a decent amount of German and other Ground troops figures, including complete Tank Crews, and or other ground crew figures. I wrote to Verlinden and Tamyia a few years back, and they said they would look into it, nothing has surfaced. I don't understand why. If anyone will do this, my money is on Italeri, who doesn't seem to be so narrow minded as the large figures Companies. So, until we can get something on the market, I guess we will just have to due with what is out there and what can be made up.
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Ahoy there Friends!
Revell makes a 1/72 scale Flower Class Corvette (former Matchbox molds) and also a 1/72 scale German Type VII U-boat. Guess which vessel Revell offers after-market figures for? If you guessed the U-boat you are correct.
Cheers
"Give me a fast boat for we want to get out of harm's way too." |
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Tracy White
New Member
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Posted on: Aug 31, 2013 - 11:19pm
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Adding to what PeterTare wrote, guess which product was on the half-off racks for years because no one bought them? If you guessed the U-boat crews, you were right. Still a very small market, and many builders are daunted by figures.
Tracy White
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David Buck
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Sep 1, 2013 - 3:00am
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Out of interest Popular Mechanics 1968 encyclopedia had a small injecting moulding machine that you could build to fit a bench top drill press that would give you enough plastic for 2-3 1/35 scale figures.
Now all you would need is a few figures to copy using the lost wax process and no more worries !
D.buck |
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Frank Andruss
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Sep 1, 2013 - 6:16am
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I don't want to speak out of turn, but I think Bob Butler might be willing to give it a try to make some figures. Can you expand on this Bob. I know we touched on the subject the other day while talking.
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Bob Butler
MASTER
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Posted on: Sep 1, 2013 - 10:19am
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There's enough talent on this message board if some of you guys make a $500 investment, you can share your work and make a few bucks on the side. All the model companies leave errors in their products where a guy could get into making pieces to fix these or modify their models. There's a big market out there. I don't get the Companies thinking at times. In the case of Italeri for instance, common sense says they would have a couple cash cows in the production of a 78' Higgins or a 77' Elco, most of the parts are already made. But they continue their series with a couple nobody gives a crap kits. They come out with a conversion kit with torpedoes and no launchers. This is a way to give you the freedom to make what you want. If they aren't going to listen to there customers we can make it ourselves. When they want something from you fine but when you want something from them they don't even return your messages. If people want figures they don't seem that hard, they can be modified from existing heads, torsos, arms, legs, etc. The process is cheap and easy enough if you just wanted to do stuff for just yourself and a few friends. I think it's more about having fun than making money, of course I'm not working and have an income. You just can't depend on the companies to create what you want. I'm going to purchase the things I need and after I get a few projects out of the way and a move out of California I may start a cottage business.
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Will Day
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Sep 1, 2013 - 5:39pm
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I think based on past experience, Italeri has been among the most responsive of the major companies we have dealt with. They are certainly not a PT model panacea, but they do communicate.
Will |
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