Micro Trains Weathered Railbox

[nscaler711]

you'll never find his body...

LOL

Well as long as you don't send him through a wood chipper, and put those pieces in a clear boxcar we're good.

[p51]

Can someone explain to me why these excellent N scale cars look so great but nobody's able to get similar results on RTR models in larger scales?
Shouldn't it follow that making something like this in HO or O would be easier? At the least, someone should be able to re-create these results in larger scale, right?

[peteski]

Can someone explain to me why these excellent N scale cars look so great but nobody's able to get similar results on RTR models in larger scales?
Shouldn't it follow that making something like this in HO or O would be easier? At the least, someone should be able to re-create these results in larger scale, right?

Maybe because the H0 manufacturers do not own those direct-to-substrate flatbed ink jet printers, or have artists like Brandon working for them?   

[Rossford Yard]

I just bought another weathered and graffiti car, albeit this time from Fifer Hobbies collection (Chessie CSX repaint, with graffiti).  I have predicted for a long time that pre-weathered rolling stock will be the next RTR trend, and that pioneering mfgs will offer options of like new, lightly weathered, and a collector item (maybe 100 or less) of heavy weathering, and/or repaints, graffiti, etc. 

For Walthers, structures, too!


I know either LL or Bachman tried that on a few structures and it looked horrible, but the tech has to be there to do it well now, as MT demonstrates.  They were a pioneer in HO (as Kadee) with couplers, pioneers in N, and may become one again with the weathering.  Kudos for the great weathering jobs once again.

[greenwizard88]

The manufacturers are slowly dipping their toes into ink-jet style printing instead instead of pad printing. I recall maybe a year ago, Mike Wolf of MTH was showing off how they were using a printer to print christmas scenes on boxcars.

I think the biggest hurdle is margins though. MicroTrains charges $25 for a car, which is the retail price of a standard HO scale car, and $5-10 over a generic Atlas boxcar. I don't think the market would support $35/boxcars, which means that the manufacturer would need to cut into profits for graffiti.

[peteski]

The manufacturers are slowly dipping their toes into ink-jet style printing instead instead of pad printing. I recall maybe a year ago, Mike Wolf of MTH was showing off how they were using a printer to print christmas scenes on boxcars.

I think the biggest hurdle is margins though. MicroTrains charges $25 for a car, which is the retail price of a standard HO scale car, and $5-10 over a generic Atlas boxcar. I don't think the market would support $35/boxcars, which means that the manufacturer would need to cut into profits for graffiti.

As I see it, ink jet decorating is less expensive than the standard painting/masking, then pad-printing printing lettering. The latter is much more labor intensive multiple-step process.

The old way you start with multiple manual painting/masking operation  The paint masks are made of metal and are also labor intensive to produce.
Then you have to design the artwork for pad printing, etch the printing plate and mix custom ink color.  Next, each car has to be positioned on a fixture in the pad printer and each car needs a manual operation to print the artwork. For multi-color artwork, each color requires the entire pad-printing process to be repeated.

With ink jet printer, you have to design the artwork for the entire car side then place multiple painted car shells, painted in a single operation with the major body color, in a cradle on the printer's bed.  Then, in a single operation, the printer prints the full color artwork in a single operation, and on multiple cars at a time.  This is much simpler and less labor intensive  than the old method.  And no custom ink mixing since the colors are produced from a mix of standard CYMK inks.  Just like your computer printer at home works.

So yes, the initial cost of acquiring the printer is high, I think that it pays for itself fairly quickly.

[Mike C]

I think the biggest hurdle is margins though. MicroTrains charges $25 for a car, which is the retail price of a standard HO scale car, and $5-10 over a generic Atlas boxcar. I don't think the market would support $35/boxcars, which means that the manufacturer would need to cut into profits for graffiti.

  You'll want to stay away from HOn3 Blackstone models then . Cars go for 65.00 bucks when you can get them , and if you're real unlucky , expect to pay around 110.00 on the Bay.    But I'll need a lot less cars though . 

[peteski]

I don't think the market would support $35/boxcars, which means that the manufacturer would need to cut into profits for graffiti.

You lucky that you don't model European raiways in N scale. Maybe of those cars cost more than $35 (and they have less add-on details.  ANd locos are also much pricier than US models.

Check out prices at https://www.en.dm-toys.de/index.html for example. It is a discount online retailer in Germany.

[Gozer the Gozerian]

very quickly     it's a tad more complicated than the description,  you have to use a totally different muscle group   lol 

Joe

As I see it, ink jet decorating is less expensive than the standard painting/masking, then pad-printing printing lettering. The latter is much more labor intensive multiple-step process.

The old way you start with multiple manual painting/masking operation  The paint masks are made of metal and are also labor intensive to produce.
Then you have to design the artwork for pad printing, etch the printing plate and mix custom ink color.  Next, each car has to be positioned on a fixture in the pad printer and each car needs a manual operation to print the artwork. For multi-color artwork, each color requires the entire pad-printing process to be repeated.

With ink jet printer, you have to design the artwork for the entire car side then place multiple painted car shells, painted in a single operation with the major body color, in a cradle on the printer's bed.  Then, in a single operation, the printer prints the full color artwork in a single operation, and on multiple cars at a time.  This is much simpler and less labor intensive  than the old method.  And no custom ink mixing since the colors are produced from a mix of standard CYMK inks.  Just like your computer printer at home works.

So yes, the initial cost of acquiring the printer is high, I think that it pays for itself fairly quickly.

[jagged ben]

You lucky that you don't model European raiways in N scale. Maybe of those cars cost more than $35 (and they have less add-on details.  ANd locos are also much pricier than US models.

Check out prices at https://www.en.dm-toys.de/index.html for example. It is a discount online retailer in Germany.

Yeah but their trains aren't as long.

[peteski]

very quickly     it's a tad more complicated than the description,  you have to use a totally different muscle group   lol 

Joe

But I think I got the gist of it, no?  Sure, there is quite a bit of brainpower needed for doing the artwork and setup, but the ink jet printing process is much less labor intensive than painting/masking/multiple passes of pad-printing. At least that is how I see it.  If it wasn't more economical then why would you do it? Or am I wrong?

You probably have cradle trays already made for all the various car bodies and a template where you just plug in the artwork to be printed.  Then the printer does the entire tray of cars hands-free.  Even the additional hand weathering is done in batches. Again, I'm not sayign that it is a totally automated process that any Joe-schmoe (no offense) could do it, but that it is more efficient and streamlined than the old-school decorating processes.

[peteski]

Yeah but their trains aren't as long.

But they run more frequently, and the rail network is more extensive with higher utilization rate. More shorter trains will in the end have the same number of cars as does one Amurican mega-train.