Color Coded Scale Lumber

Some model railroad structure kits come with color coded scale lumber. The ends of all the HO 2"x6"s are dipped in blue paint, all the HO 2"x8"s glow hot pink, and so on. On the one hand, this makes sorting the lumber quite easy and that is a nice thing especially when the kit requires several different sizes. However, as a consumer of kits, I'd have preferred to have that extra 1/32" to 1/16" of lumber color free. I like to stain my scale strip-wood before assembling the kit and, being frugal, I keep all the scrap ends to use as part of the scenery: randomly piled boards; bits of fencing; and general junk under the loading docks and porches of my miniature world.

Because this is my preference as a consumer, I've chosen not to color code the scale lumber in the Z-scale, N-scale, and HO scale model railroad structure kits that I design and manufacture. This is one of the many little decisions that go into designing and producing scale structure kits.

I'd be curious to know what y'all think about that choice. Do you have strong feelings one way or the other?

A New Home

The Paw of a Bear site is now on a new webhost.  Unfortunately there are still boxes all over the floor and the corkscrew is nowhere to be found.  Such is the chaos of moving.

Volusion, my old e-commerce provider, had many more options and a much more professional looking storefront when it loaded.  Sadly, it didn't reliably load.  On key days the website was unavailable. The shipping calculator broke and Volusion didn't contact the storeowners to let us know.  The credit card gateway went down and, again,Volusion didn't contact us to let us know.

The new site isn't as fancy.  For now, I'm using PayPal's shopping cart instead of an onsite cart.  PayPal seems secure for my customers and secure for me.  I don't like that it opens a new window.  Given my druthers, I'd have a cart on my site and a nice easy one page checkout process.

However, I'd rather spend my time designing a new kit than learning how to create a secure, safe, elegant shopping cart when the secure, safe, inelegant Paypal is available.

Drop me a line and let me know what you think.  Oh, and if you happen to find a broken link, feel free to drop me a line about that too.

Cheers,

mthd

Paw of a Bear Website Sluggish and Disappointing

Dateline - 1/4/2011
According to sources in the know, Paw of a Bear's website has recently been awarded the 2010 Snail's Pace Award for Excellence in Sluggishness.  When asked to comment, Michael Duggan, proprietor, stated, "Our ecommerce provider assures us that the site is never down and that there are never any problems with, for example, the live shipping rates or excessive load times.  Who am I to doubt them?"

However, Michael Duggan was overheard muttering about shifting to a site where he didn't have to spend all his time worrying about buggy subpar software.  Later, according to a reliable report, he was heard to say, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

This reporter feels confident that Paw of a Bear will soon have a new, simpler website.  In the meantime, if you do run into problems on the Paw of a Bear website, please do email mthduggan@pawofabear.com. 

All Kidding Aside

All kidding aside, I've become aware that my site isn't terribly reliable.  The most recent problem?  The live shipping rates are messed up.  As a result the shipping prices don't reflect reality.  I am in the process of figuring out a happier situation.
In the meantime, if you manage to get to the site and see something that you'd like to order, I'm perfectly happy to get an email (mthduggan@pawofabear.com) with your request and address..  I can send you a Paypal invoice that will reflect the actual cost of shipping and the kits.  I am also perfectly happy to get a snail mail and a check.
Thank you all for your patronage and I apologize for any difficulty you may have encountered.
Cheers,
Michael Duggan