Is Lindberg's getting out of the model business ?

Lindberg's model selection is so poor. No ships, etc. Does anyone know the story ?

Please sell your molds to someone who would use them.

Thank you.

Joe

Reply to
Jee Modeler
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You may find the two books on the model industry by Tom Graham of interest.

While they don't answer your question they are great reading with copious photos.

One is on Aurora published by Kalmbach and is out of print, but shouldn't be too hard to find.

The other is on Revell by Schiffer and is currently available.

Another good read is Creating Space by Mat Irvine, published by Apogee and easily available. Covers space oriented models with interesting text and tons of photos.

Tom

Reply to
Maiesm72

Lindberg's entire model kit "selection" has been "poor" for years now, not a new thing.

I would submit (although not a ship modeler!) that Lindberg's ship kits, such as they have always been, have met with somewhat limited favor in the marketplace, at least by a significant portion of the modeling community, by virtue of their kit tooling all dating back nearly 40 years, or more (almost stone-age model kits?). Couple that sad scene with the very real stat that ship modeling isn't nearly as large a hobby as aircraft, cars, or armor, and the picture gets even less pretty.

The economics of model kit manufacture (at least US based corporate office) in the US is such, that if a kit is proposed, either as new tooling, or as a reissue, unless there are sufficient firm orders placed for it in advance, it almost cannot happen, there being little or no financial room for producing model kits on speculation. It's been that way for several decades, and likely that won't change anytime soon.

Art Anderson

Reply to
EmilA1944

as they have always been, have met with somewhat limited favor

That explains why Lindberg hasn't come up with much of ~anything~ new in the past decade or so. Its ship models are almost all repops of the old Pyro kits from the 1950s. (Except they don't issue the ~interesting~ ones, like the outrigger canoe [WWII diorama with a downed naval aircraft comes to mind], the Paddy Boat [Vietnam-era diorama] or the Persian dhow [Gulf War diorama]) Funny thing is almost all of their better 1:48 civil aircraft line were reissued by Peguso of Mexico, with some of the worst decals I ever did see.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

Reply to
The Old Timer

Lindberg's current money-makers are hopper cars so that's where it's investing its money. Seems logical to me.

Still, they do reissue some of their old stuff from time to time, and I think at least some of their excellent 1/25 scale car kits are in production at least sporadically.

Reply to
Al Superczynski

Weren't a lot of these recycled AMT kits? The 1934 Ford Pickup looked familiar to me.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

Reply to
The Old Timer

I was told several years ago by a hobby shop owner that Lindberg ( I think it was Lindberg) was a plastics company that produced model kits as a means to recycling the scraps of plastic that remained after the production process. I've never seen this with my own two eyes, but he said that there was a time that you could find Lindberg kits molded in all sorts of colors. I took that to mean either several different colors of parts in one box (one color per tree) or a swirled mix of colors in individual parts.

Any old timers have anything on this? I've never dipped much into the Lindberg line and have never seen this with my own eyes. If it's true, maybe Lindberg, never was really in the model business.

WmB

Reply to
WmB

Re plastics recycling- I really doubt it, given that most of the plastic used isn't styrene. I think they must have bought whatever color was cheapest and used that. You can't mix different kinds of plastic for molding- melts at different temps, different plastics flow differently at the same injection pressure. Some molds have to be reworked if the same part is going to be made out of a different plastic- change injection gate sizes and the like. Never mind trying to glue ABS or Delrin instead of styrene!

Reply to
Jim Atkins

i have seen black, yellow and green.

Reply to
e

Sorry for the confusion, that's not what I meant. I should have said remnants instead of recycling. The story was they were using remnants from their own production of plastics, not collecting scrap material. I would assume that it was all mold grade styrene, they just weren't picky about the results they got from mixing colors. The point he made in telling me this (and that I forgot to mention in my original post... duh!) was that the model division existed for the sole purpose of using up the remnant material and maximizing production efficiency. Hence the unfortunate use of the term recycling and my comment that maybe they never were in the model business to begin with.

Like I said, it was a tale I was told a long time ago. Luckily the hobby shop owner that told me this is still in business. I'm going to try and run him down one day this week and revisit the subject. Interesting tale if it's true. Just another brain fart if I got the story wrong or remebered it wrong. Just wondering if anyone ever saw anything in a Lindberg box that might support the story?

WmB

Reply to
WmB

I've never seen any Lindberg kits molded in that swirled plastic but the original Jo-Han was famous for it, mostly for the plastic used for their 'plated' parts.

Lindberg was among the very first of the US plastic kit manufacturers.

Reply to
Al Superczynski

Take a look at the Maquette Boeing 307/C-75. It contains a stock Frog B-17 with new fuselage halves made from a plastic that most resembles a really ugly linoleum floor.

Tom

Reply to
Maiesm72

And almost as unworkable! ;-p

Reply to
Al Superczynski

No,

Lindberg did not "recylce" any AMT tooling save for the '34 Ford pickup. The story of that tooling is that it was delivered to a tool shop in Windsor Ontario (one that used to do all of AMT and MPC tooling, also some Monogram tooling as well) for repair/rehab, in late 1980-early 1981. AMT was in terrible financial shape at the time, due to money problems at their then-parent company, Lesney (the Matchbox people).

The short of it was that Lesney went bankrupt in early 1982, taking their AMT operation down with them. The 1934 Ford tooling was apparently missed in the asset inventory (believe it or not, I have that asset inventory here someplace, as I was an unsecured creditor of Lesney AMT for a number of builtups I had done for them, for the trade show season in early '82).

In the early 90's, George Toteff (an early AMT exec, and founder of MPC) had put together a package to buy Lindberg. He and some of his staff paid a business call at that tool shop, and learned of the old AMT tool that was sitting there, against an unpaid bill. Lindberg took the plunge, probably at a bargain price, then had new PVC tires tooled for it (check out the tires in the Lindberg version, they're Armstrong tires -- the tires that Griiipppppp the road!).

The rest, they say, is history.....

Art Anderson

Reply to
EmilA1944

Their F-80 was white, the Corsair was light blue and the 'Me' 109 was silver. These weren't to any set scale as the first were smaller than

1/72 and the latter waslarger than 1/72. Their 1/48 F11F was in blue if it was the Blue Angels version but white for the 'regular' kit. I know the green you mean. :(

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Reply to
William Banaszak

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