Cardstock info

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Thanks! The cardstock weights are very helpful. To see the rest of the site, I had to use this url...

Here's a cardstock N scale Amtrak Acela Express trainset...

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

On 2/9/2008 12:49 PM Wolf K. spake thus:

I know you meant to be helpful by posting this, but it's not very useful: first of all, a lot of those weights aren't "cardstock" at all (like 20 lb. bond, which is ordinary typing/copy paper).

Keep in mind that people who work with paper (designers, printers, etc.) never use the term "cardstock"; that's a model-railroad magazine creation. "Card" means any kind of cover stock of at least 65 lb. weight (which is pretty flimsy; most uncoated business cards are on 80 lb. stock, which is pretty much the lightest usable stuff for models).

If you want to explore paper, go to a local print shop, tell them what you're looking for and see what they can show you. Most likely they'll give you a sheet or two of cover stock for free, which will be enough for a small project. If not, you can order small quantities of printing paper from any good paper supply house in a larger city.

Erm, did you notice the home page, which is:

On 2/9/2008 5:22 PM Wolf K. spake thus:

No, I didn't, but now that I've looked at it, so what?

I did notice that the author used to teach at one of my alma maters, Pima Community College in Tucson.

Just that there's no law that requires the practitioners of one art to use the terminology of another, even when they use the same media.

There is a reason why so many folks have killfiled Nebenzahl. And the above set of exchanges is a perfect example.

On 2/10/2008 5:02 AM Wolf K. spake thus:

No, of course not: you're free to use whatever terminology you like. But consider this: how seriously would you be taken here, say, if you insisted on calling the thing behind the locomotive the "coal car", as so many do on eBay Or if you always referred to steam trains as "choo-choo" trains?

(Humorous usages excepted--if they're good!)

I'm not understanding - the term cardstock is used pretty much all over the place, googling brings up at least 6+million results (true, so what - but a good percentage was distributors & stores selling 'cardstock' - OK, the first few pages of results at least, I didn't check all 6million results), heck I was at Wal*Mart yesterday (yeah, I know), and saw plently of packages of 'Cardstock'. Lots of people do publishing through Kinkos (again, yeah, I know - but they are often the local face of printing to the public) - they use the term 'cardstock'. Cardstock, cardstock, cardstock, everywhere...I guess this is one instance where the Model Railroaders have won.

Speaking of printers & publishers etc (who apparently never use the term cardstock), I remember reading Kevin (from Forgotten NY) saying many independant local printing firms had gone out of business over the past decade (I guess like many other local independant businesses, such as recording studios and travel agencies) - anyone have any idea on the loss here, and whether it's due mostly to technology (home printing) or consolidation (say Kinkos...sorry, Fedex Kinkos, Staples, etc)?

On 2/11/2008 7:50 AM Sir Ray spake thus:

I can answer that, having recently owned such a business (small neighborhood print shop, in Berkeley, still operating). It's a combination of several things: the move towards "desktop publishing" (which doesn't make print shops obsolete, but reduces their business), digital technology, but most of all, on-line printing. Now, instead of going to your local print shop, you can order much printing over the Internet, from business cards to letterhead to club cards to sell sheets to whatever. There's no way a small printer can compete with these guys.

The other factor, and the one that drove me out of the business, is simply how expensive it is to run a shop. The only successful shops left are larger ones. In my neighborhood alone, I've seen half a dozen print shops (including one good-size one that had been there since the 1940s) go under in the last 4-5 years.

The small print shop still has a role: students needing copies of dissertations, businesses wanting high-quality custom printing, and other stuff the big shops don't offer.

As another printer told me, 4-color printing is no longer a craft: it's now a commodity.

"David Nebenzahl" wrote

He's right. A luthier friend of mine has a stock answer when he's told how wonderful it must be for him to make a living by hand-building his guitars one at a time.

He says, "It's awfully difficult to make a 2008 living with a 1908 skill".

Pete