The Reset Button

Earlier this year I wasn’t sure if making model train kits was going to continue for me. And in some sense, it isn’t going to continue the way it was for the last few years. I had hoped that leaning into it, and pushing every idea that the community had suggested, even if to just do a quick evaluation on each, would somehow turn into something that could pay it’s own way, considering 3D printing is a different animal that most other production methods. When the head accountant and I went over the numbers earlier this year, it became very apparent that this was always going to be a labor of love at best, and if I wasn’t careful, it would cost me not only my own hobby time, but sink my personal hobby budget. Even though I always knew that in back of my mind, that true-up realization really dropped me to a new low in my enjoyment of this hobby, and just accelerated my burnout from chasing ideas that I really didn’t have a personal connection. The big part I had misread was that there is a huge divide from a successful personal project to making that into a community-acceptable kit that can be sold, and having enough kits sell to cover those additional costs.

I enjoy the creating, the making, the problem solving. But I also need to set some boundaries, and some realities. What I think this can be for the time being is what it started as: I have some projects that don’t exist that I want for my hobby enjoyment, and if they lend themselves to a kit that others can buy for what it takes to make, then I will reprint, or make a new kit. But I can’t fill every void that the world can find in the history hobby space, it’s just too much for me to take on. I don’t plan on any further work on other scales, or chasing even more obscure variants than the niche modeling in which I’ve already buried myself.

Corey Bonsall