@Bill Chaplik posted:The idea of this uncommon car becoming available in O-Scale is great. The idea of a new manufacturer offering O-Scale products is great. The switch from Tangent's standard plastic to brass is potentially problematic and their price point will exclude many in our scale. I'm concerned that poor sales will simply lead another manufacturer to conclude that there is no O-Scale market; whereas the suggestion in my original post is that this could be a winner if done somewhat differently.
But Tangent already concluded that they do not see a big enough market for their products in plastic in O Scale (see quote from Tangent highlighted below - taken from an earlier post in this same thread). Just because a manufacturer makes a model in plastic in HO scale does not mean that their machines are 100% portatble to O scale. O Scale models takes a whole other level of commitment in machines versus HO as far manufacturing is concerned. Injection molding machines double or triple in clamping force tonnage as do injection volume requirements for O scale. CNC machines needed to have significantly larger travel dimensions. Existing mold bases cannot be reused and new ones need to be purchased. HO uses mostly plastic truck side frames, O scale high-volume cars generally use die cast trucks, again new die cast tooling and molding capabilities need to be sourced for this, either in-house or contracted out. It is no where's near a slam dunk to just make an O scale version of a piece of rolling stock when you already make it in a smaller scale.
In addition, as much as we hate to admit it, we need to involve a the 3-railers in any plastic model to justify the tooling cost and get enough volume. I am sure that this manufacturer recognizes this too. There just is not enough demand in 2-Rail to justify a newly-tooled 2-Rail-only plastic model (in any modeling era). Maybe this builder does not want to invest in tooling up for three different "gauges" (O5W, P48, 3-Rail) and also make two types of couplers (e.g. 2-Rail and Lobster Claws). They state in their quote below that they "do not and will not offer one size fits all models". That doesn't mean that some other manufacturer down the road will not be willing to embrace this manufacturing model. Can't we just be glad that someone new took a chance with O scale for a change? I have no interest in this car (not my era) but I understand why they did what they did and maybe down the road they will make something that I am interested in, even if it is expensive brass car.
Quote from Tangent:
Tangent Scale Models - This is what we wrote in our O scale newsletter: Why a Brass model? Our decision to provide a hand-crafted model constructed from brass - as our first foray into O scale - is simple. We are testing the waters for this market, both in style of product offered (painted and RTR) as well as what sort of volume the market will support. We understand that some customers might prefer a plastic-based model, however that is very unlikely from us in O scale. New tooling for O Scale cars costs well into the $6 figures, and a majority of our HO scale tooling has multiple variations in parts and bodies which effectively doubles or triples the plastic tooling cost. We do not and will not offer simple "one size fits all" models. O Scale Brass can yield beautiful results, as our first model has demonstrated.
Scott
