 jgrease wrote: |
| Wow. That was gruff. The guy asked a question - relax. |
|
It's not so much being gruff, but rather honest. Even though it seems simple to "plop" a resin island onto the kit, there were many external changes made to Enterprise in the 1982 refit. Just to reinforce what Ed has mentioned, Jim Corley of Nautilus Models and I investigated this conversion about three years ago, and came to the conclusion that this conversion is quite an extensive one. Besides the island, the sponsons were changed during this refit, and each of these are as necessary as the island. There are slight changes to the flight deck that may or may not be relevant, but there are needed changes to the catwalks.
What really made the decision for us is this. If you have a choice, as a manufacturer, of producing just an island, as opposed to a complete conversion, you're running the risk of upsetting some for selling an incomplete conversion. At the same time, if you choose to create a complete conversion, the price (we guestimated a price of $250) could make the conversion too expensive to justify the work necessary, with reference to the demand for one. Also, you have to decide what refit to model. Do you choose an as-built configuration, or one of the later fits? As mundane as this may sound, it does affect the demand for a product such as this. Jim has experienced this with his CV5/6 conversion for the Trumpeter Hornet kit, and we have experienced the same with our SCB-27A conversion for the Trumpeter Tico kit. The demand for this sort of conversion is very specific, in reference to the individual modeler, and there's not much information for a manufacturer to make a decision with.
It really isn't a matter of the desire to make a conversion like this, but more of an inability to come to a sucessful economic decision for this situation.
Jon