First of the Cessna 310's and 172's almost done

[Alaska Railroader]

Today was one of those "I want to do decals" day. Days like that rarely come over me. So I finished the artwork on the 2 Cessna's and got them put on the RP N scale models, thought you might want to see progress. The wheels aren't painted and I haven't lasered the props yet but I think they are progressing pretty well.







I'm looking forward to getting into the other three planes; the Piper Tomahawk, the Beech Bonanza, and the Stearman biplane.

[up1950s]

Gorgeous .

[Chris333]

Looks like you must have sanded those down. Or did they print like that? Looks smooth.

[ski]

Alaska,

I was just thinking about these yesterday and was going to look for original post and ask how you were doing with them...thanks for the update! They look awesome.

I'm gonna start planning my airport scene now....

[Puddington]

very nice ineed... makes me want to go out to the airport and find some of my owner buddies.....

[Alaska Railroader]

Looks like you must have sanded those down. Or did they print like that? Looks smooth.

Chris, I certainly could have taken the time to smooth them down with a fine file but am already investing too much time in decals. I found that a few coats of primer really helps to fill in some of the surface texture, then applying the decals helps, then a couple of coats of gloss gives the appearance that it was sanded. Even with all of that a macro lens will show the tell tale signs of the rapid prototyping process. At least this way it is better than the 3 foot rule, they look pretty good sitting in your hand.

Piper Tomahawk is next. I think....

[jimmo]

Wow. Looking good Karin. I know how difficult that is to do on larger scale models--and you even do it with Z-scale!

Any of you guys that have airports or are planning to include one on your layout, I would be interested to see how you are going to do it, or how you did it.

On my moderately-sized layout, even the smallest of landing strips take up way more real estate than I can fathom for a non-railroad industry. I do plan on having (at least) a corner or edge of a small airport. I gotta have somewhere to display my small collection of scratchbuilt N-scale aircraft.

I'm also curious to see how well Karin's aircraft sell as I'm considering putting out a couple of kits myself--or if there's a market--ready-made N-scale planes. Talk about a niche within a niche within a niche...

[Alaska Railroader]

I'm also curious to see how well Karin's aircraft sell as I'm considering putting out a couple of kits myself--or if there's a market--ready-made N-scale planes. Talk about a niche within a niche within a niche...

Thanks for the compliments Jimmo. I didn't realize how serious you were about doing a line of aircraft so I will back off a bit. However, I only planned to do about 4 of each model for those few who had expressed interest in having them. I'm enjoying doing RTR for now but as you said it is a small niche and I was never planning to add it to my product line.

[jnevis]

Wow. Looking good Karin. I know how difficult that is to do on larger scale models--and you even do it with Z-scale!

Any of you guys that have airports or are planning to include one on your layout, I would be interested to see how you are going to do it, or how you did it.

On my moderately-sized layout, even the smallest of landing strips take up way more real estate than I can fathom for a non-railroad industry. I do plan on having (at least) a corner or edge of a small airport. I gotta have somewhere to display my small collection of scratchbuilt N-scale aircraft.

I'm also curious to see how well Karin's aircraft sell as I'm considering putting out a couple of kits myself--or if there's a market--ready-made N-scale planes. Talk about a niche within a niche within a niche...

If I had a layout to add too....
I'd only show a hangar or two (Pikestuff steel bldg-ish) and a taxiway and add a tower to the backdrop to imply the rest of the field.  There are a few rail lines that run along, around, or through an airport.  Having a rail served fuel farm as an example, typically LARGE airfields, but a small one might get a car or two.

[jimmo]

Thanks for the compliments Jimmo. I didn't realize how serious you were about doing a line of aircraft so I will back off a bit. However, I only planned to do about 4 of each model for those few who had expressed interest in having them. I'm enjoying doing RTR for now but as you said it is a small niche and I was never planning to add it to my product line.

Oh no Karin, don't back off doing your aircraft, I am quite a ways from producing anything like what you are doing.

The only plane I have anywhere near producing is an old twin Beech. I built the model several years ago as my first attempt at scratchbuilding an N-scale airplane. About a year ago I very carefully made a two-piece mold using it as a master before returning it to it's display stick. The mold works pretty well but the plane needs some modification to be completely accurate. I'm also looking for a way to cast it in an aluminum colored resin, so it doesn't need to be painted. I already have the artwork for decals that I used on the original model.

I'm just not too sure about the market for N-scale aircraft--especially since my aircraft models (so far) are small piston-engined airliners. After building the twin Beech, I decided to go a little bigger and scratchbuild a Convair 240. Next was a direct competitor to the Convair; a Martinliner which was partially built out of various components from other plastic aircraft models. For example, because the overall shape was very close, the fuselage came from a 1/200 scale 737.

I've never seen anything like these available in N-scale so I'm not sure that there is a market. Most modelers I know that are interested in aircraft use the "close enough" 1/144th scale which are quite plentiful (except for small piston-engined airliners). There are some out there but they are expensive and require a lot modeling skills to build them as they are vacuum-formed and resin-cast kits.

[Ian MacMillan]

These are nice. Now I will just need to make some STOL tips for these!