Something to Make the SPF's happy

[nscalesteve]

...

[DKS]

Oh, nevermind. It's not worth my time giving it away trying to explain why it's not worth giving away.

[tom mann]

Is this a bad time to ask when the SP G100 Ore cars are coming out?
 ;D

I would like to pre-order one of those

[TrainCat2]

Ink, Have at it Amigo. I am not going to waste anymore of my time with your outlook. Good luck to you. BTW, South Florida is only seven feet above sea level. No basements here.

Hey Tom, I will propably do the 80Ton Pollock Hot Metal car next since I am so far along on it. The plans for a DRG&W Nn3 Stock Car are sitting on my desk. Although produced in brass by Lok14, it was difficult to put together. I want do my own design to make it simple. I also just acquired three large sheet plans for a Southern Pacific Class C-40-3 (Steel 1940) Caboose from a SP Collector. IF I do this one, it will also be a brass kit. All of this is future speculation at the moment. My big push is the bridges that are already in the works and developing the manufacturing process for doing quality castings. If that takes three months or nine, I don't care. I would rather have it done right to my set of standards.

[gunner]

The time is free.  Really it is.  We are not talking about a business with a payroll and rent and all the other overhead.  We are talking about someone knocking these things out in his free time.  Actually the mold making time is very small.  Making the master is more time consuming because any flaws in the master would be replicated over and over and over again.  So the real work is in the master. 
[/quote]

Since free time has no value, how about 50 sets of N&W HL hopper decals in 17" lettering with 50 differnt road numbers when you have the spare time?  I would be happy to pay for the materials to get them right the first time.  Go ahead and pay for the basic equipment out of your own pocket, do not bother to charge me for utilities or your spare time taken to develope the product and you should probably avoid doing it on employer time as I would hate to dee you lose your job working on your hobby.  You can keep the master file, I just want accurate decals. :.  Sounds pretty rediculous, doesn't it?

Really though, we all get wrapped up in how much the hobby costs, but forget the time devoted to bringing a product to market.  The time spent in research, artwork, planning, scheduling and executing a model in any medium takes time.  Take into consideration what you make and hour or day for your living wage and apply it to the equation.  That Bob choses to sell models that he finds desirable should not diminish the value of his time spent on those projects, we should be thankfull that he shares his skills with us at reasonable prices.  As an example, look at any MTL special run price per unit.  The BLW spec runs range from $19 to $59 per single car depending on model.  Considering what I charge on side jobs to cover liability insurance, disability benefits and wages, as an industrial electrician and robot programer; you would be paying a great deal more just for product developement.  MY time and particularly my SPARE time in the hobby room is not cheep!  Please try not to diminish the value of another mans time.

I see the diminishing of the value of time spent on the intangibles of bringing product to market as the metality of the predatory society that has developed recently.  If this is OK for you then fine, just do not complain when you become the prey.

If anything you should really consider supporting the cottage industries that make our hobby that much more satisfying instead of trying to tear them down.

Bob

[Sokramiketes]

Don't forget that the per-unit cost NEEDS to take into account the time needed for the creation of the mold.

Sure, it may cost the producer $2 to physically make the car, but what's the going model making rate? I have a feeling it'd take more than a few hours, and time like that isn't cheap, even if it is your own.

I know that it'd take a lot of cars to make my hourly rate worth it, and I'm just a lowly web developer...

The time is free.  Really it is.  We are not talking about a business with a payroll and rent and all the other overhead.  We are talking about someone knocking these things out in his free time.  Actually the mold making time is very small.  Making the master is more time consuming because any flaws in the master would be replicated over and over and over again.  So the real work is in the master. 

Hey Inky- Add this to your reading list and then tell me again that a man's time is free:

[GonzoCRFan]

The time is free.   

There is no such thing as "free" time. Time is the ONLY thing you have in this world that once it's gone, you CANNOT get it back. Therefore, it can have a pretty high value, depending on who you talk to.

I had a client who wanted me to paint some containers for him in the BNSF "swoosh" scheme. 6 of them, to be exact. Each would get 3 color passes (orange, black, and silver roofs), plus decals. I quoted him $80. $80 to custom paint and decal 6 pieces.

He then proceeded to complain, because the containers themselves only cost $20. I decided to break it down for him. Assuming I only spent 12 hours on the project (which would have been highly unlikely), at $80 I would have made slightly less than $7 an hour on the project. I could take that same time and spend it at work instead, and earn about 4 times that amount when making overtime.

I can think of literally hundreds of things I would rather do with my time than spend it on someone who thought it wasn't even worth $6.67 an hour. So the fellow ended up getting his containers sent back to him with a note saying I wasn't interested in doing the work, and good luck to him in finding someone who would have worked cheaper than that.

Whether you want to admit it or not, doing custom model building work involves skilled labor. It takes a lot of time, effort, and talent to produce quality work. And it rather pisses me off when people act like those things have no value, and the person who is doing the work shouldn't be compensated for it.

[sparky]

Inkaneer- you have me dumbfounded.  Are you really as ignorant and clueless as you appear in this thread, or are you just yanking our collective chain?  I hope for your sake you're not serious....  ???

[Chris333]

I'd rather spend an hour showing someone how to do something than an hour doing it for them.

[nscalesteve]

I had a client who wanted me to paint some containers for him in the BNSF "swoosh" scheme. 6 of them, to be exact. Each would get 3 color passes (orange, black, and silver roofs), plus decals. I quoted him $80. $80 to custom paint and decal 6 pieces.

He then proceeded to complain, because the containers themselves only cost $20. I decided to break it down for him. Assuming I only spent 12 hours on the project (which would have been highly unlikely), at $80 I would have made slightly less than $7 an hour on the project...

that's why I did stop painting cars for people - I was tired to show them this callculation over and over again - demand something and pay for it or better bugger off... 

Whether you want to admit it or not, doing custom model building work involves skilled labor. It takes a lot of time, effort, and talent to produce quality work. And it rather pisses me off when people act like those things have no value, and the person who is doing the work shouldn't be compensated for it.

thank you... !   :-*
undfortunately something not many people do agree with...

[wm3798]

All this discussion about the value of time... I struggle with this all the time.  I bill hourly for my services, but I always round down, some times significantly, if I feel there's going to be a sticking point for the client.  As a designer/draftsman, I used to bill only for production time, when pencil was in one hand and T-square in the other.  I'd throw a few dollars at the design aspect, but production was so time consuming, it drove the cost of that end way up.

Now that I've computerized everything, production takes a fraction of the time.  Now, I place as much emphasis on the creative aspect, if not more, than on producing prints.  In reality, that's more reflective of the true value of my work.  A trained monkey can click a mouse and draw plans, (I think this is how most Architects work...) but it's my experience actually building things, my ability to solve structural and aesthetic puzzles, and a talent for translating all that into a working set of drawings that sets me apart.

The overhead from that isn't that tangible...  It's more than the rent on the office and the monthly payment to Dell...  It's the 12 years of working with construction projects, and even 30 years of building scale models.  How do you quantify that?  People ask me how long it takes to do an illustration, I say it took 40 years to get good at it.

Sean's absolutely right.  Your time is the only thing you have that you can place a price tag on that shouldn't be negotiable.  If you're giving your time (including the years of accumulated experience!) to a project, there should be a reasonable expectation that you should be compensated for it.

Lee

[inkaneer]

Inky .. with all due respect, maybe you need to make these gons ..

I fully intend to along with some other cars not available.  That won't happen till I retire.  But I don't think I will market them.  I want to retire from business and enjoy the hobby.

[inkaneer]

Inkaneer- you have me dumbfounded.  Are you really as ignorant and clueless as you appear in this thread, or are you just yanking our collective chain?  I hope for your sake you're not serious....  ???

Tell me something.  Why should a resin car cost more than a plastic injection one?  Consider the equipment needed for both.  Plastic injection requires a heck of a lot more equipment and raw material too.  Resin casting is essentially a one person operation with minimal equipment and raw materials that can be carried in two hands.  But if you want to pay $16-25 for a resin car then be my guest.  Now let me add this.  I can see paying that much for one or two cars.  But we are talking G39's here.  These things ran in unit trains not just one or two.  At $20 apiece how much would a fifty car train cost? 

[DKS]

Tell me something.  Why should a resin car cost more than a plastic injection one?

Because once the injection process is running, production runs can be in the tens of thousands or more; the cost of tooling and production is distributed across vast quantities. (Many freight cars and other items today are still being cast in tooling from the 70s--the tooling cost is now down to fractions of a cent each.) For resin, you've got a mold lifetime of what, a dozen? Then you have to start over. Resin casting is a very slow, labor-intensive process by comparison, and there is hardly any cost savings in long production runs because you constantly need to re-invest the time and money in new molds. I fully expect a decent resin car to cost more than a mass-produced plastic one.

[sparky]

[Resin casting is a very slow, labor-intensive process by comparison, and there is hardly any cost savings in long production runs because you constantly need to re-invest the time and money in new molds. I fully expect a decent resin car to cost more than a mass-produced plastic one.

Reading some of the posts by others leads me to conclude that most of us here understand and agree with that, David.  Others simply refuse to see the forest for the trees.  Or, believe that craftsmen should be fairly rewarded for their efforts.