Great looking backdrops, Dave!

Cheers!
Marc

Have you any plans of extending the Size and Height of your Back Drops photos? Where the Mountains are 24 inches tall and the total height of the Back Drop is  48 inches tall?

The 17 inch height is fine for the guys building shelf Railroads but I have plaster Mountains that will exceed 30 inches from the horizon and the back board I'm using is 48 inches tall. Also in some places the horizon is 26 inches below the table base.

Thanks

Hi Dan,

The short answer to your question is yes there are plans to make taller sizes. 

The long answer is that when the business was started I was using a commercial printer to do my printing.  There were a couple of problems with this.  The first was that I had to choose between charging outrageous prices or making little or no profit.  The second was that by using a commercial source I had less control on sizes to offer and quality of paper or ink.

I really felt that to move the business forward I was going to need to do my own printing as this meant I would be able to get the highest quality paper and ink so the product would be as good as possible and still charge a reasonable price to my customers.  The reason for the 17" printer was that it was what I could afford and I wanted to prove my customer base before investing the 4-8 grand for the larger printer.  Future plans include a newer 44" or perhaps 66" printer in the next six months to a year.  This would allow much taller backdrops which would be good for the reasons you pointed out.  These printers are also rather large so I would likely need to rent an office or other space, so you can see how the expenses add up.

Thanks

Dave

p.s. skateboard with three wheels????

That will work for me as My plans for a larger building for my railroad has been set back a couple years. By the time I get to where I'll need the 300 plus feet of back drop I'll be wanting you may be ready for my order. Thanks again for your response and good luck with your business.

Oh and Thank You for placing your Company Adds for your Back Drops with MRH,.I'm sure it will be worth every penny you put in.

Hey Folks,

Just posted a few new backdrops, one new city scene from the Boston waterfront.  Also started a page dedicated to skies and clouds.

Evening folks.  Just posted a bunch of new backdrops to the site.  Check em out and let me know how they look.

Two new things in the works I'd love opinions on.  The first is to develop a line of kits which would be printed on adhesive vinyl.  The modeler could order structures, clouds, fuel tanks, intermodal containers, etc. then cut them out, peel off the backing and stick to the backdrop as desired.  Thoughts??

The second is with the arrival of the adhesive paper the backdrops are now going to be offered on adhesive vinyl.  This will be a little more expensive but could be a nice option for those who want it.  

Appreciate any feedback.

Dave

The first is to develop a line of kits which would be printed on adhesive vinyl.  The modeler could order structures, clouds, fuel tanks, intermodal containers, etc. then cut them out, peel off the backing and stick to the backdrop as desired.

If they were appropriate for my layout I would pick them up in a heartbeat!  Plus it skips the step of having mount them to cardstock etc. as I've done with Kingmill structures.

...develop a line of kits which would be printed on adhesive vinyl.  The modeler could order structures, clouds, fuel tanks, intermodal containers, etc. then cut them out, peel off the backing and stick to the backdrop as desired.  Thoughts??

This sounds intriguing for what I'm planning on part of my layout.  Most of it will get a painted backdrop, but I'd like to use photo backdrops for structures behind the city and perhaps some industries elsewhere.  If I understand correctly what you're describing, it sounds like various items that could be pieced into a backdrop, along the lines of the aforementioned King Mill offerings.  This sounds like a good idea, as more variety in such products is welcome to avoid every layout featuring the same old stuff. 

When you say vinyl, is it a material that would take paint?  I would be adding foreground trees and such, so would prefer something that I could paint on as needed.  Otherwise, would the same structures, storage tanks, etc. be available on paper?

Here's a suggestion... how about a selection of roads heading off toward a vanishing point?  Many of our model scenes have roads running into the backdrop, and having a photo-realistic road to carry the scene into the 2-D as needed could be used as an enhancement to other backdrops that lack the roads to start with.   Make the road wider than needed in the foreground, leaving it up to the modeler to trim as appropriate so it blends with the 3-D scene.  You could have city streets with sidewalks, rural two-lane asphalt, one-lane dirt, etc.  Some straight, others intersecting the 3-D scene at an angle maybe?  Combine these with some groupings of trees and the various structures and such , and you could almost have a modular backdrop system, something nobody else really offers.  It may not be practical, but I thought I'd throw it out there...

Thanks for the feedback guys.  Hopefully in the next couple weeks a couple of these kits will hit the site.  A couple samples are out to previous customers for review so I can make any suggested tweaks.  The reason for using the vinyl is really that it comes with the self-adhesive backing.  There is no reason the kits could not be made out of the same paper that the backdrops are currently printed on.  I am thinking both the backdrops and the cut out kits could be ordered on either the enhanced matte paper I currently offer, or the vinyl I have just received.

Dave

Okay folks the first kit is online and available now.  It is an intermodal kit consisting of individual containers and stacks.  There are numerous copies of the individual containers that can be cut out and arranged as desired.  There are also three stacks of containers.  Currently it is only available in HO Scale.  This is because I don't have any N or O containers to compare scale to.  N and O should follow in a couple of days.  I decided to stay away from the adhesive paper for now as it really brings the cost up. (adhesive vinyl paper is 4x as expensive.)  This may follow shortly depending on the feedback I receive.

There is also a kit of fuel tanks in progress along with some individual structures.  Please let me know what you think as this is a bit of a departure from the full backdrops.

Thanks