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Why not these things


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With all the "stuff" being done today, why not these things!

1- better scale tires made from styrene. If the Armor Model Co.'s can do it, why doesn't AMT or Revell or Mobius do it?

2- I know it is a cottage industry but why can't resin vendors keep their web sites updated and current as to stock availability??

3- when are we going to get models of construction and farm tractors?. Not hay-baler or manure spreaders, things like those great big multi- wheeled John Deer's and some excavators or bucket loaders and such?.

After a while I personally get tired of seeing more Mustangs or Chargers or 32' Ford' and whats with all those NASCAR re issued smoothed over and re packaged. Let's try something daring and different? Just the results of a recent conversation with some of my modeller buddies after a night of six packs.L.O.L.

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Im with you on #3 Raildogg. Lets see something different for a change. I don't understand the NASCAR kits. I can't give them away. How are the kit manufacturers making any money on them? I like the 32 Ford, Mustang's, and tri five Chevy kits but how many do we need? I would love to see more truck kits and how about some sedan's.

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Tyres made from styrene/hard plastic?? That would be going backwards.... Each & everyday & with every build, we're wanting more & more realism, therefore having styrene tyres would be pointless.

As for farm equipment/tractors?? Mate I've got absolutely ZERO interest in any of that stuff making it to kits. None whatsoever. That would be a very minute modelling niche & no major kit manufacturer would be willing to waste $ on that stuff. The profits are all in diecast for stuff like that. I'm guessing you fellas had 1 too many alcoholic beverages that night....

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Tyres made from styrene/hard plastic?? That would be going backwards.... Each & everyday & with every build, we're wanting more & more realism, therefore having styrene tyres would be pointless.

Not necessarily. Look at the resin tire business. Modelhaus and Replicas & Miniatures get lots of praise. Discussion has been presented on the tire issue, but no real reason why small vendors couldn't supply detailed rubber tire and wheel sets to the OEM companies. They do it in Japan with great success.

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In my opinion, the farm tractors and construction equipment would have a relatively small following as kits, but I could be wrong. I would be happy with a lawn tractor or two. There is a lot of stuff available in die-cast but much is in other than 1/24 or/25 scale so that can turn off some people, myself included.

As for tires- I think a lot of us would rather see well-molded tires as found in the more expensive kits from Tamiya, Aoshima, etc. The technology is there to produce tires in rubber or a rubber-like material (NOT VINYL), with good detail.

And while you do have a good point regarding updated online info, it is a cottage industry, so time would be at a premium for a lot of the aftermarket suppliers. Some don't even have a website...

Edited by johnbuzzed
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With all the "stuff" being done today, why not these things!

1- better scale tires made from styrene. If the Armor Model Co.'s can do it, why doesn't AMT or Revell or Mobius do it?

They're perfectly capable of doing that, but they don't because most model car builders prefer vinyl tires. It's become the industry standard, like 1-piece bodies. It's what people want.

2- I know it is a cottage industry but why can't resin vendors keep their web sites updated and current as to stock availability??

Because it takes a LOT of time and effort to constantly update a website, and many aftermarket guys can't even keep up with orders, let alone take the time to also regularly update their site.

3- when are we going to get models of construction and farm tractors?. Not hay-baler or manure spreaders, things like those great big multi- wheeled John Deer's and some excavators or bucket loaders and such?.

My guess is not any time soon. Not nearly enough of a market out there for kits like that.

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I would love to see some farm tractors and equipment kitted. But reallistically, there just isn't a big enough market for them. AMT did three tractors back in the day: John Deere, Massey Ferguson and an International. They made some wagons and some other equipment (a plow I think and maybe a disc). They also made a JD backhoe and a dozer. So, there are a few things to be had in the farm and construction areas. It's just finding them and affording them that's the problem. I got lucky and scored two JD 4430 tractors, two JD 310 backhoes and a JD farm wagon.

Edited by plowboy
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With all the "stuff" being done today, why not these things!

1- better scale tires made from styrene. If the Armor Model Co.'s can do it, why doesn't AMT or Revell or Mobius do it?

They're perfectly capable of doing that, but they don't because most model car builders prefer vinyl tires. It's become the industry standard, like 1-piece bodies. It's what people want.

2- I know it is a cottage industry but why can't resin vendors keep their web sites updated and current as to stock availability??

Because it takes a LOT of time and effort to constantly update a website, and many aftermarket guys can't even keep up with orders, let alone take the time to also regularly update their site.

3- when are we going to get models of construction and farm tractors?. Not hay-baler or manure spreaders, things like those great big multi- wheeled John Deer's and some excavators or bucket loaders and such?.

My guess is not any time soon. Not nearly enough of a market out there for kits like that.

2. And some of the aftermarket guys had a friend create the website as a favor, and don't have the technical expertise to do updates themselves. There's not enough business in the aftermarket to pay a professional company to create / maintain their site. Others like Modelhaus and Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland already have all the business they can handle. Modelhaus has a decent site, but doesn't have photos of the product and such. R&M doesn't have any web presence because they are already working as fast as they can. Having a good site would only increase their volume to as point that they couldn't produce.

3. As said, there just isn't a market for these. It's a regional thing, I see guys in more farm / rural states going to tractor shows and such. I have no personal connection to farm equipment at all. And if you did see it, it would most likely be done in diecast. I was out in Evansville, Indiana maybe a dozen years ago and walked into a Walmart. I was surprised that they had this huge aisle of Ertl farm toy collectibles right up front across from the cash registers. That was farm country and the market for this stuff (note that Ertl was in Iowa!). The Walmarts in New Jersey didn't even stock a single Ertl farm toy.

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I would love to see some farm tractors and equipment kitted. But reallistically, there just isn't a big enough market for them. AMT did three tractors back in the day: John Deere, Massey Ferguson and an International. They made some wagons and some other equipment (a plow I think and maybe a disc). They also made a JD backhoe and a dozer. So, there are a few things to be had in the farm and construction areas. It's just finding them and affording them that's the problem. I got lucky and scored two JD 4430 tractors, two JD 310 backhoes and a JD farm wagon.

Roger, AMT never produced those kits. ERTL did. I do have the MF an JD tractors and farm wagon and disc cultivator. VERY nice detailed items, all!

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With all the "stuff" being done today, why not these things!

1- better scale tires made from styrene. If the Armor Model Co.'s can do it, why doesn't AMT or Revell or Mobius do it?

2- I know it is a cottage industry but why can't resin vendors keep their web sites updated and current as to stock availability??

3- when are we going to get models of construction and farm tractors?. Not hay-baler or manure spreaders, things like those great big multi- wheeled John Deer's and some excavators or bucket loaders and such?.

After a while I personally get tired of seeing more Mustangs or Chargers or 32' Ford' and whats with all those NASCAR re issued smoothed over and re packaged. Let's try something daring and different? Just the results of a recent conversation with some of my modeller buddies after a night of six packs.L.O.L.

1) You say "better" scale tires made from styrene: Short of making the tooling to do that in styrene in multiple segments (think of slices of a pie here!) there is no way to get detailed tread on a hard styrene tire. Bear in mind that few military tires have the multitude of relatively small tread grooves, many running concentric with the circumference of a tire. Molding them in hard plastic will require multiple mold sections in order for the tire to come out of the tooling, and even then there would be compromises, as hard styrene will not pull out of a mold if it has to come out "sideways" against the raised detail in the steel tooling without damaging the tire, and badly wearing the tooling.

2) As a former resin caster, I can say, unequivocably, that resin casting is a full time job in and of itself--actually more than full time. Maintaining a website itself can be a full time job as well. Pay someone else to keep up the website? Well, that doesn't come cheap either.

3) Model kit of construction and farm equipment? That's been tried, several times over the past 60 years, as styrene plastic model kits. While I am with you on this one, those kits never sold at all well for their manufacturers. When a manufacturer is considering a new plastic model kit subject, the sheer cost of developing that kit, creating the tooling, and even producing it simply demands a large volume of sales from each kit--with a newly tooled kit, it can take upwards of 100,000 units SOLD just to pay back all the upfront costs (this has to happen before they make the first nickel of profit on the product).

Another issue here is scale: With farm equipment, there is already a very large hobby in collecting diecasts of that. As one might expect with our model car "love" of 1/25 and 1/24 scales, farm toy collectors have their preferred scale(s) which are different: 1/64, 1/32, and 1/16. 1/25 scale farm equipment to them is a "bastard" scale! With construction equipment subjects, it's all over the map, given the sheer size of such machinery in real life. Complicating this is the apparent lack of interest in the model car hobby for model kits of construction equipment sufficient enough to generate the sheer volume of sales necessary to make any money for the company(ies) who might enter that field in "our" scale. The Ertl Company tried that, in the mid-70's, with the likes of John Deere and Massey Harris tractors, and implements to go with them--they literally "died on the vine". The only reason AMT/Ertl reissued the two John Deere tractors in 2001 was that John Deere dealers often have "boutiques" in their dealerships, selling all manner of collectible JD items. AMT/Ertl released those John Deere tractors to the general hobby shop market, and many hobby dealers ignored them, sensing a lack of market for them (I bought one of each JD tractor myself, BTW, but have yet to build either one).

The model companies who supply our hobby do have a pretty good hand on what subjects will sell--cars such as Corvettes, Mustangs, '57 Chevies, even Nascar Cup Cars do sell, and in fairly large numbers--that's why you see so many of them over the years--if they know that certain subjects sell very well--make more of them! If not, then not.

Art

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Roger, AMT never produced those kits. ERTL did. I do have the MF an JD tractors and farm wagon and disc cultivator. VERY nice detailed items, all!

AMT/Ertl did reissue the John Deere 4430 farm tractor, and the John Deere 310 backhoe back in 2001, first for John Deere's dealership boutique departments, and then for general sale. They apparently sold only so-so. I was in the Racing Champions Ertl Outlet Store in Dyersville IA in July 2004, they still had stacks of those unsold kits for sale.

Art

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1) You say "better" scale tires made from styrene: Short of making the tooling to do that in styrene in multiple segments (think of slices of a pie here!) there is no way to get detailed tread on a hard styrene tire.

Sure there is! You just have to do a little creative thinking. The tires themselves can be molded as 2-piece units split centrally around the circumference. The tread area can be slightly recessed, a shallow "channel" around the circumference of the tire when the tire halves are glued together. The tread itself could me molded as a flat, thin strip that you glue in place by wrapping it around the tire in that shallow channel. If engineered well, the tread strip could even be just a snap fit onto the tire. You could mold some really fine, crisp and detailed tread with that method. The drawback would be the added cost of the tire tooling and the seam where the tread strip starts/stops, but that could simply be placed on the bottom of the tire where nobody would see it. But I don't see any particular advantage to tooling up very realistic tread patterns at such a small (1/24-5) scale. A lot of tooling, but it can be done. But it probably won't ever be done, because there's just no big cry from customers for that. They're perfectly happy (even prefer) the usual black vinyl tires we all have come to know.

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Not necessarily. Look at the resin tire business. Modelhaus and Replicas & Miniatures get lots of praise. Discussion has been presented on the tire issue, but no real reason why small vendors couldn't supply detailed rubber tire and wheel sets to the OEM companies. They do it in Japan with great success.

The Japanese companies have a bit of a different business model though: They've had a tradition of outsourcing a lot of things besides decals, instruction sheets and kit boxes (those items most every model company does get produced outside their own operations), notably tires, which they have made from neoprene rubber. The "technology" for molding tires in rubber isn't rocket science--it's done essentially the same way as making model car kits from plastic, coupled with the vulcanizing process as used in making real car tires. Two things, I suspect: Cost of production--ever since the middle 1970's, Japan has been the single largest market for plastic model kits of all subjects, and price has seldom been an obstacle to modelers there--unlike here in the US. Second, and I've noticed this on several Japanese model car kits I've built over the years--those neoprene rubber tires can dry out, and literally crack apart, just like a neoprene rubber fuel line on a production car (I had to get several sections of that replaced on a couple of cars I owned, in the past 20 years or so!). Now try buying replacement tires for that really nice Tamigawa Porsche 5-10 years down the road when its tires die of old age!

BTW, those of us old enough to remember the very earliest Monogram 1/24 scale model car kits, Monogram outsourced the rubber tires to a toy manufacturer in the Chicago area who was making their toys with rubber tires. Some kits that had them: The original Sizzler Dragster kit, Original issue '30 Model A Ford kits, Original issue '34 Ford coupe/cabriolet kit, Original issue '36 Ford coupe kit, even their original issue '32 Ford hot rod kit (that was reissued about 16-17 years ago as a Selected Subjects Product-SSP, also at one time Monogram produced a motorized version of their Kurtis Kraft Indianapolis Roadster with outsourced rubber tires.

Art

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Sure there is! You just have to do a little creative thinking. The tires themselves can be molded as 2-piece units split centrally around the circumference. The tread area can be slightly recessed, a shallow "channel" around the circumference of the tire when the tire halves are glued together. The tread itself could me molded as a flat, thin strip that you glue in place by wrapping it around the tire in that shallow channel. If engineered well, the tread strip could even be just a snap fit onto the tire. You could mold some really fine, crisp and detailed tread with that method. The drawback would be the added cost of the tire tooling and the seam where the tread strip starts/stops, but that could simply be placed on the bottom of the tire where nobody would see it. A lot of tooling, but it can be done. But it probably won't ever be done, because there's just no big cry from customers for that. They're perfectly happy (even prefer) the usual black vinyl tires we all have come to know.

Harry, true enough. But I can hear the screams of anger and anguish from a VERY large proportion of the model car hobby were a model company to do that!

Some things in this hobby have become traditional, soft PVC tires being one of those, and incidently, there are some very highly detailed tires that have been done in PVC, and in 1/25 scale.

Art

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In my opinion, the farm tractors and construction equipment would have a relatively small following as kits, but I could be wrong. I would be happy with a lawn tractor or two. There is a lot of stuff available in die-cast but much is in other than 1/24 or/25 scale so that can turn off some people, myself included.

As for tires- I think a lot of us would rather see well-molded tires as found in the more expensive kits from Tamiya, Aoshima, etc. The technology is there to produce tires in rubber or a rubber-like material (NOT VINYL), with good detail.

And while you do have a good point regarding updated online info, it is a cottage industry, so time would be at a premium for a lot of the aftermarket suppliers. Some don't even have a website...

Art, are the tires on current kits made of PVC? If they are made of polyvinyl chloride and can be produced with good, crisp detail, no mold marks or sprue issues and have more of a realistic matte finish (I don't like the shiny ones at all), then I guess I have the info I need.

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I have some Testors and Italeri kits, like the Rolls PII Maharajah, with styrene tires, mostly in 2 separate pieces that join in the middle of the tread and screw everything up. Even the tires with sidewall inserts and proper tread don't look right to me. Rubber and vinyl tires still require some seam sanding, but they look better to me.

Edited by sjordan2
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And yet the plane and tank guys hate rubber and vinyl tires as they don't have the proper "weight on the tire" bulges and it's harder to make a flat tire. They would rather mask a wheel and tire unit for painting than have seperate tires made of rubber or vinyl. I like our system better where you paint the wheel (if not chrome) and install a proper tire after.

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Art, are the tires on current kits made of PVC? If they are made of polyvinyl chloride and can be produced with good, crisp detail, no mold marks or sprue issues and have more of a realistic matte finish (I don't like the shiny ones at all), then I guess I have the info I need.

If you need to dull down a shiny PVC tire (unless it has printed whitewalls on it), wipe it down with some lacquer thinner--that dulls them for me.

Art

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And yet the plane and tank guys hate rubber and vinyl tires as they don't have the proper "weight on the tire" bulges and it's harder to make a flat tire. They would rather mask a wheel and tire unit for painting than have seperate tires made of rubber or vinyl. I like our system better where you paint the wheel (if not chrome) and install a proper tire after.

Plane kits and tires are generally in much smaller scale, where it doesn't matter as much.

Edited by sjordan2
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