N scale freight car parts: End / Roof / Underframe Suppliers

[pjm20]

author=Puddington link=topic=36066.msg430241#msg430241 date=1433967593

Ok; blast away............

[bbussey]

Guess I'll jump in here and stir the pot.....

1. RTR mfg have no interest in producing a wide range of parts because there is a great deal of trouble actually getting foreign factories to make such parts in quantities that make sense; the cost of moulds is high and you'd have to fill a lot of parts or pieces on a mould; they all don't sell the same and unless you've guessed correctly and doubled or triples some parts on a mould you end up with a shortage of Murphy ends and 1000 extra Nathan 5 chime air whistles....

2. Given that no one expects (well; except a few hardened Railwire types) mfg's to make every single possible version of car ever made, exactly to the prototypical plans it stands to reason that we count on selling a good number of "close too's" to help increase individual release quantities and support marginal projects...... why would we offer a product that would help reduce the number of "close too's" we sell?

3. I'll make you a Murphy end.... will you pay $ 14.95 per piece....? No...? Neither would I.... The point is that parts sell for low prices and margin; even if their margin was high how much money can you make with a couple of hundred modellers buying $ 4.00 horns even at 300% margin..... it don;t pay for the tooling and feed the chitlens.....

4. Part... parts...... parts..... um.... where do you start....? It's a massive undertaking and you'd need capital that I'd rather spend on an RTR model that makes me my money back in a shorter period of time....

5. I'll add to this by stating if the contractor does supply additional parts, there is a cost to warehousing them, both physically and tax-wise.  A small amount of extra parts brought in with an RTR production run is one thing, but to produce parts alone?  Not feasible, in the least.

As I always say — treat the RTR models as a collection of detail parts, and most of what you seek already exists.  If not, design your own and submit it to Shapeways.  And before the retort is "I'm not talented enough to design models", just look at what has popped up in general from N scale modelers en masse, let alone the specific group of Railwire modelers.  It's safe to say that the bulk of those model designers are not mechanical engineers by trade.  And it's much harder to scratchbuild a steam engine than to design a 3D digital solid model.

[peteski]

We now have 2 manufacturers confirming what I said earlier about the reasons why this type of a venture is neither feasible nor profitable.

[sirenwerks]

Talking boxcars/reefers/stock cars, aside from IMRC cars and a few select cars by other manufacturers, the problem with using most manufactured cars as parts donors is that most cars have too much cast on detail in N scale to make it worthwhile.  Let's face it, ladders and grabs and the placement of tackboards, etc. make a car unique, and most manufacturers cast on the kitchen sink.  And in this case, it was one of N scale's donwsides, the size of such detail makes them harder to accurately shave off without gouging nearby wanted details.  Hence, my desire for ladder/garb/tackboard free details like car ends and doors.

[JMaurer1]

The vast majority want RTR rolling stock. Think about how little space an N scale freight car in the box takes. Now think about how much space having a wall of kitbashing parts hanging on hooks take. RTR freight $10-35 each, kitbashing parts $1-$2 each (?). What makes more sense for a hobby shop? Sunrise made the ABSOLUTELY BEST locomotive detailing parts out (how can you have an SP loco without all the bonus headlights?)...and they are gone. Wish it wasn't so, but it is...

[sirenwerks]

The vast majority want RTR rolling stock. Think about how little space an N scale freight car in the box takes. Now think about how much space having a wall of kitbashing parts hanging on hooks take. RTR freight $10-35 each, kitbashing parts $1-$2 each (?). What makes more sense for a hobby shop? Sunrise made the ABSOLUTELY BEST locomotive detailing parts out (how can you have an SP loco without all the bonus headlights?)...and they are gone. Wish it wasn't so, but it is...

But the internet and Shapeways offer different business models to counter such overhead.  And I don't know that Sunrise went away because retailers had limited display space.  I thought the owner just wanted out and no one picked up.

[JMaurer1]

Actually, the owner also had problems with casting the metal parts. Small metal parts can be swallowed by kids and need to be proven not to contain lead. Several people begged to buy the line but the owner didn't want to sell. Still, shelf space is at a premium making this a hard proposition. ECommerce does help minimize this an having a virtual Shapeways store (where you have NO stock on hand ever) also helps. Still, there is an ongoing conversation in the Steam Era Freight Cars Yahoo group (I believe) about how detail parts are getting rare in HO as well due to lack of demand and other manufacturers using parts to create their own molds. If it is having problems in HO, then I really fear for it here (but welcome anyone to come out with anything they feel passionate about in N scale). Just because I don't think something will be financially viable, doesn't mean I won't buy it if it's something I can use...

[sirenwerks]

I think Shapeways offers a a bright future.  I bought some flatcar stake pockets from Panamint to use in a project and was very pleased (and those were in FUD not FXD).  Still, the Shapeways route requires some considerations.  Because of the minimum Shapeways charge for each order, designers should consider the number of actual parts on a sprue be adequate for the consumer to feel they are worth purchasing.  Sunrise sold a couple parts for a couple bucks and I think with the stake pockets from Eric turned out to be about 6 cents a pocket; but I've seen $15 for a single small part on Shapeways.

[SandyEggoJake]

+1 on Panamint via Shapeways (though I abhor the latter's slow servers, poor search & organization, and paternalistic limiting of material to just what the designer originally selected).

Just got an order of Eric Cox's Panamint designed Allen/California trucks with brake bar, and even with the fine detail and FUD, the crazy little stars on the journal boxes and bolts on the wood beams are clearly visable (at least at 10x and until I accidentally sand some off as I clean up the few print lines).  Still this would not do for RTR mass market manufacturing as such are not ready to send to a paint booth.  So it seems to me 3DP isn't there yet as a cost effective alternative to uber cheap injection molding - though I've yet to get my hands on any FXD. 

But lets recall the reason injection molding is expensive is mostly to do with the fixed cost of cutting the dies.  But let's not forget that CNC, combined with new materials and 3DP have the potential  to bringing down the costs of mold production.  By the way, the product mix issue isn't as huge a concern in injection molding as it might seem.  One can designs in flexibility into a die sets gangs ... but even if you make too many Nathans as part of a ganged sprue, the extras can just get recycled into parts that might sell.     

As for "parts on pegs"... I'll completely agree such would be DOA.  Many LHS are just holding on, and I totally agree such would never be attractive for them.  So the business model would have to be akin to Miniatures by Eric (direct to consumer only) or at the minimum a Shapeways model were designers yield JIT production to a centralized fulfillment which takes a big cut of the margin.

[bbussey]

Tool cutting is at the lowest cost it's ever been, which is why the hobby is seeing more variations on injection-molded models and more injection-molded models of esoteric prototypes.  Yet there still isn't the market available to sell enough detail parts to amortize the tooling costs.  It's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

[wcfn100]

3D printing will have to be source for these type of parts for two big reasons in my mind.  First is the sheer variety of options that would need to be made available. 

As an example, let's look at the PS-1 box car.  Just for the 40' cars you have 10' cars and 10' 6" cars.  You have polling pockets or not, welded seems or riveted seams, the upper stiffeners or not and also terminating or non-terminating roofs.  But beyond just the ends you need ladders.  And in the example of the 40' PS-1 there were three different ladders just from 1947 to the early 50's.

A second thing to look at is who are you selling to.  Just to use me as an example, I want to create a large variety of cars which means I'm only looking at buying 2-3 ends to maybe build 1 or 2 of a particular car.  In some cases you can reuse parts on different cars, but the quantities aren't there to support large production runs.

I know there will be parts available via 3D printing because I'll be making some.  FXD isn't quite good enough to drop what I'm doing to start drawing parts but it does look promising for some things. We should start seeing some SLA printers coming soon and that should yield at least a couple machines with acceptable quality.  I think at that point you'll see a ton of new products.

Jason