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Hello All,

 

Does anyone know if Paul Fisher is planning to reestablish his business?

 

I know they lost their home & workshop in the Paradise Fire last year, but

the website is still up with a "not taking orders now" message up front.

 

I can't imagine the feelings they have dealt with since then, but just wondering

if anyone that knows them personally could provide any insight.

 

Thanks in advance,

Tlott

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13 hours ago, Tlott said:

Hello All,

 

Does anyone know if Paul Fisher is planning to reestablish his business?

 

I know they lost their home & workshop in the Paradise Fire last year, but

the website is still up with a "not taking orders now" message up front.

 

I can't imagine the feelings they have dealt with since then, but just wondering

if anyone that knows them personally could provide any insight.

 

Thanks in advance,

Tlott

Doubt it. Everything is gone. Destroyed. Just think if your house was destroyed. And your place of employment was destroyed. What would you do? 

You could start over. But you have no patterns, no molds, no casting equipment, no reference material. You are living with your kids hundreds of miles away from your land, which is just a plot of ground, no house. And probably fighting with the insurance company to rebuild?  Not to mention that Paul is older, like many of us, in his sixties. Tired. Not physically able to start all over.

Just my guesses, of course. Look, I am 68 and had been making vacform kits since 1985. But after all those years and all those kits (over 100 different kits in both 1/48 and 1/72), a couple months ago I woke up and thought "eff it, I ain't getting any younger and have no more energy for this." So I closed the business and have been tossing all the molds and equipment. Now I am just building kits for fun, and enjoying it!

So given all that, and snippets of what Paul has been saying on Facebook, I'll guess that we won't see any more and that he will enjoy his forced retirement. Again, my guesses.

Bob 
Retired owner of Sierra Scale Models

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Also, the town of Paradise was completely destroyed. There may be a house or two left, but the town itself is gone. Would you want to go back? To a burned out area in the woods. Not me, I would just sell the land and settle near my kid(s) in Colorado. Again, just my thoughts.

 

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Paul mentioned on LSP that he is looking into other options to bring the business back on line but with less work.  Like making and remaking masters, but contracting out casting, packing and shipping to others. 

I'm sure he is still up to his neck with rebuilding or relocating.  That in itself is probably a 2 year project at the least.    God willing if he does make it back to the market, I won't be hesitating to pull the trigger on products I put off on buying. 

 

...And the wife wonders why I don't wait to buy when I'm ready to build. 

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Thanks Scott, that's the kind of insight I was looking for. The fact that he hasn't taken his website down

is what made me wonder. Like I said I can't imagine what they have been going through since the fire.

Here in Colorado Springs we had two devastating fires back to back (Waldo Canyon in 2012 and Black

Forest in 2013). Some folks were rebuilt and moved back in a little over a year, some are never going back

and others are still chipping away at it - the Flying W Ranch is doing bare-bones operation while they

rebuild their infrastructure. One of my Army buddies and his wife bought a place on the edge of the

Hayman Fire (2002) burn that shouldn't burn again for a very long time.

 

I'm 61, retired Army and semi-retired myself - I understand that at some point you just want to take it

easy. Still got a little fire in my belly but I can see it coming. I know Mike West has been looking for

ways to restructure his operations @ Lone Star Models so he can enjoy life a little more.

 

I spent last night online and in my personal library researching JATO/RATO boosters for my next

1/72 B-47 build. Couple of pictures in Alwyn Lloyds' "B-47 Stratojet", some pages from an original

Aerojet manual on the 15KS-1000 bottle from 1963 and part of a DOD report on long-term storage

of the same and I've got dimensions, weights and diagrams. May end up making my own, but  Pauls'

set is/was a masterpiece that will be tough to match.

 

That said, I'll be all over the Cobra/Lone Star upgrade/detail sets for my KC-97 and early F-8 Crusader

build when Mike gets back online. Life's too short!

 

Tracy

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6 minutes ago, Tlott said:

I spent last night online and in my personal library researching JATO/RATO boosters for my next

1/72 B-47 build. Couple of pictures in Alwyn Lloyds' "B-47 Stratojet", some pages from an original

Aerojet manual on the 15KS-1000 bottle from 1963 and part of a DOD report on long-term storage

of the same and I've got dimensions, weights and diagrams. May end up making my own, but  Pauls'

set is/was a masterpiece that will be tough to match.

 

AMS in the Netherlands still has two sets in stock:

 

https://www.aviationmegastore.com/boeing-b47-stratojet--horse-collar--jato-set-a72007-fisher-model--patern-fisher-a72007-aircraft-scale-modelling-detailsets/product/?action=prodinfo&art=134970


Rob

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Thanks Rob - I'll have to check on the shipping. Found the Eduard photoetch set for the KC-97

@ a shop in Italy for a reasonable price, but their economy shipping was like $25. OUCH!

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4 hours ago, sierrascale said:

Doubt it. Everything is gone. Destroyed. Just think if your house was destroyed. And your place of employment was destroyed. What would you do? 

You could start over. But you have no patterns, no molds, no casting equipment, no reference material. You are living with your kids hundreds of miles away from your land, which is just a plot of ground, no house. And probably fighting with the insurance company to rebuild?  Not to mention that Paul is older, like many of us, in his sixties. Tired. Not physically able to start all over.

 

Bob, thanks for an insiders view. One comment: the Fisher castings were so good IMO that they could easily serve as masters for fresh molds. That leaves the equipment.

 

Rob

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5 minutes ago, Rob de Bie said:

 

Bob, thanks for an insiders view. One comment: the Fisher castings were so good IMO that they could easily serve as masters for fresh molds. That leaves the equipment.

 

Rob

 

Paul mentioned something about masters having to be a hair larger due to shrinkage of the resin as it cures.  He had a lot of us, including myself volunteering to send him back out kits and parts to make new molds.

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31 minutes ago, Scott Smith said:

 

Paul mentioned something about masters having to be a hair larger due to shrinkage of the resin as it cures.  He had a lot of us, including myself volunteering to send him back out kits and parts to make new molds.

 

There's a trick to create slightly larger molds. A loooong time ago had a car model wheel that was loose fit inside the tire. I needed to increase the wheel size from 17.5 to 17.7 mm, about 1.1% gowth. I decided to try a trick to solve that problem. I had figured out that the very different coefficients of thermal expansion of silicone rubber and resin offered possibilities for both enlarging and reducing parts. If the resin is left to cure in a hot mold, it will become larger, because the mould has expanded a lot, and the part will shrink much less during cool-down. Rough calculations showed that a 60 degrees Celsius temperature increase gives a 1% larger part. I needed slightly more than 1 percent, so I tried 80 degrees first. The size increase was less than expected though, and in the end I needed a 120 degrees Celsius cure to get the desired size.

 

The technique requires an extra mold, but it surely is a lot less work than creating a new master.


Rob

 

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I believe Paul is still active over on the Vendor Board on LSP, so if you have specific questions, that's the best route to get an answer.    Still sad that I didn't pull the trigger on his A-1E conversion while I had the chance! 

 

 

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1 minute ago, 11bee said:

I believe Paul is still active over on the Vendor Board on LSP, so if you have specific questions, that's the best route to get an answer.    Still sad that I didn't pull the trigger on his A-1E conversion while I had the chance! 

 

 

I was fortunate enough to get one of the later Navy AD-5W conversions just before the disaster struck. 

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11 hours ago, Rob de Bie said:

Wow - 23.10 Euros for the set, and 32.16 Euros for shipping. About what I expected...

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3 hours ago, Tlott said:

Wow - 23.10 Euros for the set, and 32.16 Euros for shipping. About what I expected...

 

.. but you can add probably 10-20 more aftermarket items before the shipping cost increases. Since AMS is probably the biggest shop after Hannants, you'll probably be able to find other things to order.

 

Rob

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  • 9 months later...

 

Since you brought this thread back up, I’ve got to post this.   When we were told to stay home for the COVID, I pulled out my Fisher Guppy conversion and knocked it out in 5 weeks.  

 

NzSlJs.jpg

 

rgkrQ0.jpg

Edited by Scott Smith
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