You’re luckier than me. Still waiting for the deals on the brass I want.
Keep looking. I was pleasantly surprised I was able to win two Overland wide vision cabooses off of eBay for $90 each, unpainted. One D&RGW 1500 class and one UP CA-5 (Utah Rwy acquired two CA-5/6 class steel cabooses from the UP).
On March 27th, there was a thread on the cost of brass going down, guys were showing off the deals they found.
Mike.
Yes. They were showing of silly low priced stuff. But I didn’t bring it up first here! [angel] That was Gary’s privilage.
I wish you the best on that. I and others I know found age discrimination is rampant.
Good luck
Paul
Hear that, couldn’t find a job around 2002, aroud 49 and up age group.
Yes, I saw that thread. Started looking in its wake. Maybe I’ll have better luck finding FSM kits.
While the FSM kits contained some nice detail parts, I never cared for the structures themselves…very fanciful and filled with impractical features which would not be used in real buildings.
An nearby LHS (now gone for some time) used to get many of those kits, unbuilt and in many cases, even unopened, when they bought estate lots, many of the latter which were purchased at prices up to six figures.
Apparently the kits were a highly sought-after item, and commanded (in my opinion) ridiculous prices. Even if I could have afforded such kits, I wouldn’t have bothered, as I’m not at all a fan of building models using wood.
Wayne
FSM kits were the first kits with step by step instructions, they even told you what colors were recamended and what company made them and how to build them including bracing. Their kits could make a master builder out of a starter in just a few kits.
I have sworn off craftsman kits because of the amount of time it takes to build them. I have done a few FSM kits and they are outstanding and I have the FSM kit based on John Allen’s engine house which I intend to build but I’m not buying any more. Life’s too short.
In most endeavors, you have a choice of paying more money or investing more time to get what you want. With craftsman kits, you do both. You are essentially paying for the privilage of spending more time. Yes they do look outstanding when they are completed but at what cost? Woodland Scenics produces some outstanding pre-built structures and offer many of them in kit form as well at less than half the cost. Why would I want to spend 80-100 hours when I can go buy something right off the shelf for less money.
My biggest gripe with craftsman kits is that some of them are nothing more than a box of sticks and a plan. I have to cut the scale lumber to size and cut the openings for the windows and door in walls. What am I paying for? I might as well scratchbuild if I’m going to go that route.
I found just the opposite problem. I purchase FSM’s version of the John Allen engine house off ebay a few years ago. I think the kit came out in the early 1980s. The walls were so dry they were brittle and one broke apart along the clapboard line. It wasn’t a hard fix but I learned I had to handle with care.
I hear you John. Parts that break or split (or come that way) is one of the risks of wood kits, even newly issued ones. It is common enough - routine even - for the thin sides made of wood that Jeff Wilson’s book on building structures provides suggestions for fixes on the assumption that if you build enough wood kits it is something you’ll run into.
Most wood rolling stock kits had thicker sides than some of these high quality structure kits.
Dave Nelson
Haven’t gotten an unusable kit yet from any of the FSM, Campbell or other wood kits I have built. Sure there were warped peices in some but sometimes peices came warped at the getgo but most the reason is not the storage (asuming a dry place) but from the repacking of kits after examination by the oringinal owner especially in FSM kits with their sometimes very heavy castings. Bought one wood kit off e-bay and all the heavy castings were on top of very thin stripwood so they were broken and bent (I have lots of stripwood so no issue) but this was due to very bad repacking.
Besides being an operator first, another reason I have no interest in FSM kits is that I don’t model the early 20th century; somebody already mentioned this upthread.
Like the “John Allen’s Enginehouse” kit. It would be supremely out of place on my 1980s railroad. And for those keeping score at home, the 1980s were over 30 years ago; they ARE “the old days.”
And I’m going to stick my dinkie in the meat grinder here and suggest that this hobby overfetishizes decay. I saw the NMRA Bulletin featuring the convention’s winning models 4 or 5 years ago, and not a single winning entry was of something in good condition. And I don’t mean “weathered,” or “beat up” – I mean out and out derelict.
Anybody looking in from the outside would think we were modeling urban blight, not railroads.
Yes, the 80’s were 30 years ago, but not everyone models an era that they lived thru…and some of us go back a lot father than that even if we did.
I don’t model the turn of the last century either, and most of these kits do not fit my era or locale either, at least not as proposed by the kit maker…
And I’m going to stick my dinkie in the meat grinder here and suggest that this hobby overfetishizes decay.
Well, on that I am going to agree with you and defend you.
Carefully crafted as it may be, the F&SM is a caricature. The Great Depression was not that depressing visually, not by any long shot. While I respect the builders skill and talent, it is not a modeling style I imbrace.
In real life, in any given moment, in any given place, there things in decay, things that are new, and things in between.
I have no interest in modeling poverty on a large scale…
While many consider Selios’ F&SM a masterpiece, my biggest criticism of it is that the entire layout is uniformly over-weathered. I’ve never seen any urban area where every building is equally dilapidated. Some would be kept in poor shape, but many others would be freshly painted, while still others would be anywhere in-between.
As far as the FSM kits declining in value, anyone who buys model train items on speculation that it will be worth more someday is taking a risk.
How did you spend 100 hrs on a FSM kit unless it is the John Allen special. I did the icehouse in about 20 hr, 5 of which was planing upgrades like I didn’t like the two peice deck.
My thought is, who counts hours when your working on your hobby? and why?
Mike.
I also agree with you.
Personally, when I build in wood I make it look in good condition like it’s currently being used.
As for collecting kits, well I do sort of. I have a fair number of kits, but they were all bought with the idea that eventually I’ll build them.
Paul
Good for you, I don’t know that I could build that kit in 20 hours.
And, I think a lot of the later, larger models could easily be 50 to 100 hour projects.
Sheldon