Someone on another forum suggested that I should consider making resin molds of my interior details for the 1/72 Hasegawa H8K2 Emily and selling them, as they are probably in demand, since there’s currently NOTHING out there for this kit. Thing is, I’ve never tried resin casting, and don’t have a lot of time to put into developing it…I might consider it if I knew that people were interested, but I can’t imagine that there’s that many people out there.
My question is, how difficult is this to do? How do you find people that are interested once you’ve done it? Really, I’d just like to help others build an accurate, detailed kit of the graceful Emily without losing money in the process.
TIA! [:)]
Cheers,
Alex
I just went through this, so I have a little wisdom to impart.
How difficult is it?
The business model required to getting an aftermarket resin kit to market is easy. Just design your parts, make your patterns, make your molds, cast your duplicates, and advertise.
The main difficulty is designing and creating your patterns. This is the most time-consuming part of the venture. And you must decide if you’re using “old school” methods, or computer aided design. But making molds and casting resin is really quite easy. I’ll just say someone on this Forum[;)][;)] wrote an introductory book on mold making and resin casting to get beginners started. But if necessary, the internet is an alternate source for learning how.
Finding interested buyers is also easy. Just make general product announcements on your favorite user forums and modeling websites. Aircraft Resource Center is an excellent vehicle for product promotion, the owner is very cool and will typically give you a free plug. You can bet there’s folks out there that were just waiting for your aftermarket kit. Or do a build article for a website or magazine, featuring your new parts.
You will spend some money on casting supplies, rubber, resin, etc. , and 3D pattern outputs from your digital files (if this design method was used) can be expensive. A compressor and a pressure pot is pretty essential to successful casting, I just discovered this with my latest aftermarket kit project. There will be some up-front capital outlay. But these are offset quickly by the sales of your kits. At the very least, you will regain your equipment costs. However, I don’t think anyone could retire with selling just one aftermarket kit. I think it’s done more for the love of the hobby, or the desire to learn a new skill.
Do you have pix of the details you made for the kit? I’d be interested in seeing them, and how you made them.
Hi Mark,
I was hoping you’d see this post.[:-^] The I-16 parts look great, I’m more than a bit tempted to buy the Academy kit, just to try your parts.
Like I said, I’m not looking to retire, or even make much to any money doing this, I’d just like to help others with an outdated kit.
I’m very familiar with AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and a slew of other CAD/CAM programs, so that poses no problem at all. In fact, since I’m an engineer, before anyone had said anything about resin and selling stuff, I had drawn up 3-views in AutoCAD of all the major bulkheads and instrument panels in the Emily. I’m in the process of creating them now. Once they are done, I’ll see about using them as masters.
I’m going to go ahead and put in an order for your book, so I can get some idea of what is involved. I’ll keep you posted as to my progress on the details.
Thanks again![:)]
Cheers,
Alex
Now that I think about it, I think you did mention you knew SolidWorks in another post. Maybe it is I who should be asking you the questions! I’m a SolidWorks newb, still learning, and I have this file I’m working on, and I cannot close a certain feature, and it’s making me wanna start drinking, honestly.
If you’re already doing it in SolidWorks, then the hard part is almost over already. I output my parts seperately (not on sprues), so I could check the fit before making molds. As it turned out, I did have to go back and make some adjustments, and if I was wise, I would have made an assembly file with the parts placed on sprues right in my files, so when I did the final output, my patterns would have already been on sprues, and ready for mold making. I had to glue the patterns up manually, and it was rather tedious.
Yes, please do keep me posted Alex. I really dig this sort of stuff.
Hey Mark,
I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Also, feel free to PM me or post here any questions you have about 2D or 3D CAD and I’ll see what I can do. [tup]
I’ll probably hold off on doing anything major until your book arrives.
Thanks for all your help![:)]
Cheers,
Alex
Hey Mark,
I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Also, feel free to PM me or post here any questions you have about 2D or 3D CAD and I’ll see what I can do. [tup]
I’ll probably hold off on doing anything major until your book arrives.
Thanks for all your help![:)]
Cheers,
Alex
Mark,
I got your book in the mail today. This looks like its easier than I thought. I’ll be starting in on this very soon.
The next is [#offtopic]
As for your file, I’ve tried to open it on two versions of SW (2006 & 2007), but with no luck. I can view it, but as soon as I try to do anything, SW hangs. I don’t know if the file is corrupted or what is going on. I don’t think that its my computer, as I’ve had fairly complex files open with it. I’ll keep trying, and we’ll get this figured out.
A bit of advice for closing the feature in general, as I can’t investigate:
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Check all the corners of your mesh from two different angles to make sure that they are complete, and form proper corners.
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Use the feature tree to organize your search. If you run through the part step by step, feature by feature, you can usually find the problem.
A great crash course for SW is here:
[link]http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/euo/modules/year1/es174/studentresource/cae/swtut04a/[/link]
Hey Alex-
Yes, it’s really quite easy to do molds and that sort. Don’t really know why some people are easily intimidated by it.
About the file. I could try to save it again, perhaps it got corrupted. Also, if I save in another file format (IGES, etc.), will you be able to edit it? I never tried to edit another file format so I dunno if it’ll work.
It’s drivin’ me googoo, I must have flipped it every which way, at all magnifications, I just can’t seem to see the open corners. I’m a blind old man I tell ya! Well hey thanks for giving it a go, anyway.
Be sure to give us progress reports on your aftermarket project.