billbedford

I now have some six wheeled GNR coach parts hot off the printer: It still needs some adjustments but it's almost ready.

You use anti-aliasing. It makes the edges of the lines a bit fuzzy, but masks the pixel stair stepping.

You can tell if a woman is using her own bike by her footwear. This one defiantly isn't hers.

How many pieces did Darlington use to make the handrails?

I'm not sure this is true any more. The mass market for kits sold through model shops has gone, and many of the best selling kits now have RTR equivalents.

The problem with this discussion is that any action that customers take is likely, eventually, to lead to the demise of Coopercraft as a viable business. This is likely to result in his products being permanently unavailable. As far as I can see this is not the outcome that most people who have commented here would want.

Getting a judgment against someone's the easy part. Getting them to pay up, especially if it is for relatively small sums is very much harder. And getting them to change their business practices is a whole different ball game.

That's a strange number of wheels in that mould.....

LNWR Wagons Vol One says: "From 1850 onwards the bodies of goods wagons and vans were painted a medium lead grey colour. It has sometime been termed 'invisible grey'. a 'lead colour' or even 'light grey' in some references. The grey was mixed from equal parts of black and white pigments, and was slightly darker than LMS grey." While this is OK as far as it goes, the colour would be different if the pigments were measured by weight or volume. What is certain, though, is that the white lead in the mixture would oxidise over time and the colour get progressively darker between repaints.

This links are very light so instead of using a magnet to raise the bottom link you can use a damp paint brush.

The answer to this is yes but... Scans tend to pick up edges and reduce thin areas to lines, to it is often quicker to use a scan as a template and redraw over the top. It doesn't help that every draughtsman has his own convention of how his drawing is put together, so converting from one convention to another can seem to take an inordinate amount of time.

These went to Stevenson Coaches. The last I heard was that Eileen's Emporium was looking to stock them.

Apart from Peterloo, obviously.

Perhaps the navy knows just how many Russia boats are at sea at any one time.....

Que?

Stevenson Coaches main business was supplying coaches built from his own kits. Probably he had more than enough work coming in by word of mouth and a few shows not to have to bother with any other advertising.

About the time of the Suez debacle?

I've not yet heard of anyone say 'I have a pantograph miller (early 20th centre technology) I could cut the moulds for you...' so I guessing lots of piggy banks need to be raided to buy commercial moulds.

Just goes to show that it is not the gauge or flange size that is important, but the shallowness of the curves.....

Anyone done costings for all this stuff? ... or have any real idea of likely volumes?

It my mind any kit designer worth his salt will make components out of the most appropriate material for each component. That would include, for instance, making bogies from a resilient plastic/resin, which avoids the need for compensation and the usual over width problems and making buffer heads from turned metal to give an appearance close to proptotypical.

Yes but the ones that do sell have a world-wide appeal, and are not depended on small number of customers on a small off-shore island.

True but it does allow people to carve out a space for their ideas without having to invest in the time and skills necessary to make the things themselves.

Brilliant.... So what you are saying to all the people who keeping the cottage industry alive by doing new and innovative work that they should not bother because you want the cheap plastic kits that weren't particularly good when they were introduced 30-40 years ago? It's bad enough trying to make a living competing against people selling under priced kits, because 'it's just a hobby, really' but trying to compete again on non-profit outfit whose members believe that everything is too dear as it is, is going to be a nightmare. Still we've been here before, isn't that exactly why BSL/Pheonix was set up......