Im looking for small HO vehicle manufacturers, not the big guys like Classic Metal Works, Athearn, Atlas, Ricko., I mean the small kit makers. I have found that I really like kitbashing HO vehicles. Putting one manufacturers cab on anothers body. Im working on an Athearn wrecker body with a 41Chevy COE body right now. I know about Sylvan and Sheepscot, any others??? One other thing, Im thinking of selling these, give me your opinions as to how well they might sell.
Jordan Miniatures. All are unpainted plastic castings. Not sure about the resale value after you perform your surgery, because it would probably be a very, very small market demand item.
I’m sure that anything nicely modelled will sell if the right buyer comes by, especially if the item is unusual and/or different from what is normally available. The question would be do you expect to profit from the adventure? You have your cost of the original models plus whatever other material (glue, paint) you need. Then how long did it take you to complete the project? If you place a value of zero dollars on your time, then you only need to price the item at whatever your cost was.
But where are you going to sell them? If you will personally sell them at a train show, then you need an adder to recoup what it cost you for the display table. If it is over the internet, then you have to deal with website cost, which you’ll want to recover, plus recovery of shipping cost.
And since you valued your time at zero dollars, you still haven’t made a profit. The way I look at it is that I can earn $7.50 an hour working fast food, so if it took me two hours for the project I’d want to add an additional $15 to the sell price.
Now, if your enjoyment is to do the kitbashing and then find a home for the item so that you can have the funds to buy more kitbash material, that’s a totally different subject.
Just my opinion, of course.
You may want to check Greg’s Garage. He produces MANY 1930s-1950s Cast resin kits. They are solid so modifying them may present a problem. I assembled a Ford Woody & am happy w/ the results. I don’t think he has a web site but you can find the models at various suppliers. Jerry
Jerry
Do you have a website address for Greg’s Garage or a site that sells them? I did a Yahoo search and all I got was some 1:1 auto repair shops and a guy that does super car bodies for Hot Wheels cars
I ran this idea by the owner of my LHS who does a lot of custom loco painting and decoder installs. He said that most people do not want to pay more than $15 or $20 for a vehicle, even if it is bashed and custom painted.
Do you have a website address for Greg’s Garage or a site that sells them? I did a Yahoo search and all I got was some 1:1 auto repair shops and a guy that does super car bodies for Hot Wheels cars
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There was a question concerning Greg’s Garage in a thread started in September 2006. See: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/74450/896816.aspx. Note that the link referenced in this thread seems to no longer work. However, there are photos of what used to be available and a link to the 1/87 scale vehicle website.
[quote user=“G Paine”]
jerryl:
Greg’s Garage. He produces MANY 1930s-1950s Cast resin kits. Jerry
Jerry
Do you have a website address for Greg’s Garage or a site that sells them? I did a Yahoo search and all I got was some 1:1 auto repair shops and a guy that does super car bodies for Hot Wheels cars
[/SOrry I didn’t copy the web site. I just Googled Greg’s garage I found a website that caters to 87 scale vehicles & has a complete catalog of Greg’s garage vehicles.
Here’s a list of many HO vehicle manufacturer, large and small.
Both Jordan and Sheepscot & Sylvan are on it, and many other (no Greg’s Garage, thou).
Unfortunately Greg’s Garage is out of business. There was another manufacturer that made similar clear resin models, Vulcan Hobbies which is out of business too. The pictures that were on the former thread were done by the Train Exchange in Kokomo Ind. which did a lot of custom painting of them. Last time I was in there about a year ago they still had some that were painted left but very few that were unpainted. There was a guy about a year- two ago that was selling some of these on ebay but it turns out he took and made molds of these and was casting them and passing them off as his own work. After complaints Ebay shut him down. It’s a shame these aren’t still in production they were nice litle kits.
The best resource to find a lot of these obscure vehicles is www.truckstopmodels.com
Jim
Thanks for the info guys, my appreciated. I will probably stick to building them for myself as was posted, it would be a hard to make a profit with the costs involved. When I get one done I’ll post some pictures if anyones interested?