from the archive. Smitty's by Bob Bruce

Competition (don't promote or link it on this site)

I want to be really clear here.  We don’t mind or fear competition.  We make the best card models in the business.  What we detest is a supplier who offers poor quality knockoffs that will leave builders with a confused or bad impression of card modeling.  We have recently seen kits and textures so similar to ours that I had to download some just to check that they weren’t lifted from ours.

There can only be one reason that someone would offer the exact same shingle. 

The textures I saw had very noticable repeatable pattern in the tiling.  Some of you might not know what that refers to.  That’s because we put in hours of effort to avoide it as much as possible.  Hey guys, why not put out something new and needed (afterall we can’t do everything).  (I was going to be less PC and say get your heads out of our ass, but this is a family website.) (oops)

The kits, from what I can see use the construction method favored by Scale Scenes, (a fine manufacturer who we respect) however the fit was not very good in the samples I viewed.

Back when we first started, there was Paper creek.  They made excelent kits in a western theme.  We could have shamelessly coppied, but we chose to head off in our own direction, featuring a more urban style.  We stayed away from western style buildings untill P.C. ceased opperation.  We don’t do English or European styles for the same reason.

Most of you who have built our kits know how hard we try to offer cardstock that out performs wood and plastic.  All of our kits are high quality and recognized as such.

So…getting to the point.  DO NOT LINK or PROMOTE another manufacturers kits on this web site.  Yeah, I get it, there are a lot of free kits out there.  It’s part of the cardstock culture and we offer some exceptional free kits to honor that.  But, we also WORK to create a better quality experience.  This is my living, not a side job.

We are PRO cardstock.  We support the culture and hobby.  It’s not too much to ask that you limit yourselves to conversing about our products, (pro or con) on our website.

So hey, you guys want to be in this crazy business, more power to ya, BUT do the hard, honest work.  Be creative and original.

19th. century railcars

Continuing the thread on passenger cars from the 1900’s, I have just finished revisions and an additional color scheme, for a combine and a passenger car. These cars are based on photos but are extrapolated from several cars and don’t have a specific prototype. The cars, in 4 color schemes will be available numbered and lettered and blank. Shown here, is the SR&RL combine. The kits have an improved clerestory that goes end to end.

You can only get this kind of work from Clever Models LLC.

Use the search button

If you’re a model railroader or a cardstock modeler, this web site is a gigantic resource for you to use. I get questions daily. Can I do this? Do you have such and such? It goes on and on. Most of the time the answers can be found in these pages.

Sure, we have a couple of free kits for you to try. The’re good quality kits, not just an outhouse or something cheesy. We rotate full on quality kits through the freebies, in hopes that people will appreciate our work and want to support us by making a purchase. Yes there is the tips and tricks section, but there are also dozens of great builders who share their knowledge. There are dozens of photos in the blog section and yes the search button really works. I have a backlog of photos to share. We will keep the good stuff coming as long as you keep showing your support and letting us know that we are on the right track.

Take some time and enjoy all the great pix in the blog pages.