SANTIAGOP23 posted:hibar posted:SANTIAGOP23 posted:great link, Erik. The idea of building a P&D F unit from the ground up is tempting, however the paint job on these Atlas F3 is what really saves them. It is beautifully rendered with razor sharp tampo printing, my Sunset F7's don't come even close in that regard.
Interesting, I do not own any Sunset diesels and did not realize that paint jobs are noticeably not as sharp as the Atlas products, I would have thought at the pricing difference they would be comparable in that respect, obviously different china factories.
Yeah crazy how some manufacturers can be ahead in some aspects and behind in some others. Sunset still uses decals in their models for some reason. The amount of touch ups I had to do on my sunset rio grandes where more than I care to confess.
The simple reason is cost. There is a reason Atlas requires 300 of each scheme to be done (that's minimum they require for custom schemes). It costs several thousands of dollars to set up the pad printing for the first unit of each scheme. And when you agree to 20 units as a minimum and 600 total units divided by 20 plus schemes you would be adding a minimum of $100/unit. The cost of several hours of labor in China for each unit is probably less than ~$50 per unit vs ~$200 for pad printing 20.
