0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
In a moment of weakness I picked up the 12-1, East Alton, tonight. The whole car side is "painted" with the new 3D inkjet process. So it sparkles like a disco ball. The ends are not painted the same way and are a completely different shade of gray. Same with the underbody. Also, the car was crooked in the printing fixture, so the stripes are angled on the car side. With the white stripes half on and half off the battens, it looks like an elongated BNSF power bar instead of a simple 2" stripe. I used to say that I was disappointed because MTL had the sharpest tooling and best printing in the industry, and that the frustration was that they didn't use the talent to create great prototype models. Now between the faceted tooling marks in the air ducts on this model, and the horrible painting, there are no redeeming qualities left. How frustrating.
I've been saying this for a while now. See https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28938 The ink jet process is just not up to the standard I would expect from MT. Maybe cars from the beer-reefer set were decorated that way. I was going to post my evaluation of them here, but haven't found the time yet. I noticed that on some of those cars MT did a satin clear overspray. That improved the appearance considerably (the sparkling effect was reduced) but I am still not happy with the overall quality of that type of decoration. The fuzziness of the edges is noticeable as is the thickness of the ink. Since MT is using the ink jet printing process on more and more cars, that has curbed my desire to collect their cars.
I've noticed some Kato stuff is being produced with the same process - for example, I believe the BNSF "Swoosh" locos are done this way...
And it is because of all of this that I am not even bothering to furnish the Erie artwork for their new baggage car. The offer was on the table from the ELHS but the car will undoubtably be done incorrectly whether it be wrong lettering/color or poor printing/painting quality. I will just get the plastic and paint my own. What a mess this whole thing has turned out to be. I used to look forward to the monthly releases. Scott Lupia