[Old Crow]

Yesterday, while briefly visiting Burbank's House of hobbies, I observed some new 1/200 Gemini civil airliners (I do not collect these but they are very sharp). In any case, it was pointed out to me that this line is manufactured with die-cast aluminum instead of zinc. Purportedly less expensive.

I'm just curious if anyone has heard of this or whether this may be the potential wave of the future. While the aluminum is, at least for the time being, possibly less expensive than zinc, I wonder whether the overall cost is less since it seems to me the cost of electricity to process the aluminum may be more than the zinc.

[no4mkit]

At the very least it could reduce postage costs!

[conemaugh]

Just an interesting personal story on this topic. I was doing some geologic work for an aluminum smelting operation in the Southwest. Huge amounts of electricty is needed to run the smelters for these operations and often the plants have their own generators. Anyway, some bean-counter in the accounting department determined that the plant could make more money selling the electricty to Los Angeles then it could by making aluminum. Consequently, everyone in the plant received an impromptu "vacations" for 6-months during the summer (read: peak electric draw in California).

Sorry no diecast for you while we sell electricty.