Originally Posted by Shreadvector

Let me expand upon my comments.

If anyone was to make copies of the overweight plastic rockets in question, they would expose themselves to massive laibility. They barely flew on the C6 motors sold back "then". The current C6 motors from China will not lift them. The risk of crash/fire/injury is huge.

Now, if someone wants to make plastic models that can only sit on a shelf with no internal components so that they canot be flown, then you can safely sell a dozen or two plastic models to the market.

Originally Posted by blackshire

[QUOTE=Shreadvector]Obviously people are not reading item number 3 in my post quoted below.....let alone item number 2.

I read that entire posting of yours before posting about the cast resin duplicate parts for clones of the MPC scale kits. Your points, while correct, are simply irrelevant to people who would like to build clones of these models. Some people would like to build them for nostalgic reasons, whether they fly the models or not. Others would enjoy the challenge (similar to that offered by many if not most PMC [Plastic Model Conversion] model rockets) of getting the MPC Vostok and/or Titan IIIC to fly acceptably well. Also:

The German Noris model rocket kits are notoriously difficult to build because of their vacu-formed, often ill-fitting parts, but some people like them anyway because of the challenge and because they are different. Likewise, some people like the MPC plastic "display or fly" model rocket kits despite their flaws. As with most cast resin model kits (particularly the "garage-made" resin kits), the market for resin duplicates of the MPC kits would not be large, but it would be big enough to justify small-batch production. Sirius Rocketry doesn't sell many "Moldin' Oldies" resin duplicates of old Centuri and Estes plastic nose cones, either, but the demand is large enough to make it worthwhile for them.

Originally Posted by sam_midkiff

Couldn't they be sold with motor mounts to fly on composites or clusters? Are the Estes black powder engines the only things that could work? Having an "Artisan" line that is skill-level 6 and has unique propulsion requirements seems reasonable from a non-economic point-of-view, at least.

Originally Posted by Peter Olivola

Missing, by an enormous margin, Fred's central point: Not demonstrated to be commercially practical.

All these laments about what is or isn't available from the marketplace accomplish nothing to change the lamented situation. The fact that no one and no company is stepping up to fill the mythical needs of a very small number of people indicates the continued lamenting isn't grounded in reality.

Cast resin in model railroading, a much larger market, is dying due to the quality of products that are being bought from large manufacturers, bought even by those who have sustained the cast resin market for decades.

Recognizing the gap between what can be done and what is commercially viable would be a good first step to a better life for all the lamenters.

[QUOTE=blackshire]

Originally Posted by sam_midkiff

[QUOTE=Peter Olivola]Missing, by an enormous margin, Fred's central point: Not demonstrated to be commercially practical.

All these laments about what is or isn't available from the marketplace accomplish nothing to change the lamented situation. The fact that no one and no company is stepping up to fill the mythical needs of a very small number of people indicates the continued lamenting isn't grounded in reality.

Cast resin in model railroading, a much larger market, is dying due to the quality of products that are being bought from large manufacturers, bought even by those who have sustained the cast resin market for decades.

Recognizing the gap between what can be done and what is commercially viable would be a good first step to a better life for all the lamenters.



I agree with this, but having said that, there are "labor of love" products that do appear for hobbies, but you are right in that we cannot expect a company to do these. in the free flight community there are people that do beginner free flight kits at very low volumes, basically as a service and because they enjoy it, not because they expect anything. There are also low-volume "short" kits that do this. But expecting someone that is trying to feed themselves, or even support their hobby, to do this for money is probably unrealistic. (And I say probably because I may be wrong about the market size.)