How long before we order rolling stock this way . . . ?

[PiperguyUMD]

Printer costs aside (because it’s always changing and the service life is tbd) since there aren’t traditional tooling costs, I would think the largest cost would be getting someone to do the art work - both the 3d print and the paint job.  I wonder if MTLs printing technique would work here?

 A company could come up with a dollar amount to commission a piece of rolling stock. This could be fronted by an individual, historical society, or group buys, any thing they make down the road in residual orders is gravy.

I wonder if TRW has the skills and resources to crowd source a model?

[Jimbo]

Can we at least start ordering PAINT this way???

I can take a sample of a color to our local Sherwin-Williams, and they can - RIGHT THERE - scan it and mix a gallon… or a quart… of paint that matches that color EXACTLY.

So why won’t a hobby paint manufacturer build a machine that they could put in a brick-and-mortar hobby store (e.g. Michael’s or Hobby Lobby) where we could ask for and immediately mix the EXACT colors we want?

Solve that one before going to the custom rolling stock fulfillment process you proposed!   

Jim

[Maletrain]

I'll second the notion that paint matching machines for models would be nice. 

But, they would require a whole different set of ultrafine pigments to be available at a mixing store.  Not to mention the machine to do the match by reading colors and metering pigments.

Without a lot of customer traffic, it would be hard to support, financially.  Heck, we can't even get most paint companies to support the pre-mixed color market for model railroaders.  And most brick-n-mortar hobby shops are gone, now.

The only way I can see this happening would be some sort of centralized service, where you send in a patch of color to be matched and a bottle of the color-matched paint is shipped back, along with whatever was matched.  That wouldn't be cheap, and would take substantial time. 

Is that worth the cost and wait, compared to buying multiple bottles of paint and making your own mix?  Probably not (darn it).

[Jimbo]

I'll second the notion that paint matching machines for models would be nice. 

But, they would require a whole different set of ultrafine pigments to be available at a mixing store.  Not to mention the machine to do the match by reading colors and metering pigments.

Without a lot of customer traffic, it would be hard to support, financially.  Heck, we can't even get most paint companies to support the pre-mixed color market for model railroaders.  And most brick-n-mortar hobby shops are gone, now.

The only way I can see this happening would be some sort of centralized service, where you send in a patch of color to be matched and a bottle of the color-matched paint is shipped back, along with whatever was matched.  That wouldn't be cheap, and would take substantial time. 

Is that worth the cost and wait, compared to buying multiple bottles of paint and making your own mix?  Probably not (darn it).

I appreciate your points; I think the hardest one to overcome would be the capital required for machines such as this, followed closely by maintaining such machines.

But craft paints take up a large amount of shelf space in these stores, and since they would be used by such a wide variety of modelers (railroad, military, wargamers, pinewood derby, etc.) I would expect there to be sufficient volume to justify the investment, with the side benefit of drawing foot traffic into these stores, who then purchase other items that might otherwise have been purchased online.

But I don’t think it will happen.

Jim

[John]

I will wait for one of these ..

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Sokramiketes]

Can we at least start ordering PAINT this way???

I can take a sample of a color to our local Sherwin-Williams, and they can - RIGHT THERE - scan it and mix a gallon… or a quart… of paint that matches that color EXACTLY.

So why won’t a hobby paint manufacturer build a machine that they could put in a brick-and-mortar hobby store (e.g. Michael’s or Hobby Lobby) where we could ask for and immediately mix the EXACT colors we want?

Solve that one before going to the custom rolling stock fulfillment process you proposed!   

Jim

Ha!

You will never feel more free in this hobby then when you learn enough color theory to throw everything out the window and use and mix what you need. 

[sirenwerks]

I'd just be happy to order a well-printed 3D kit (sides, ends, roof, and underframe seperate), associated etched parts (ladders, rungs, etc.), and decals separately - and build it. I kinda liked IMRC's old car kits. Or even seperatey order the parts I need by ordering the right ends, car side, etc. Vendors could offer options like ladders/rings printed on or car side with dimples for attachment of etched parts, but that also means they'd either need to do small batch etching in house or work with a vendor that coulud keep up with such demand (or trickle).
I always thought Shapeways could have branched out to offfer such pairings, but that would have been more of a scale modeler's mindset way of doing things, which it didn't have.