ToC accounts for maybe 5% of the HO market, if that (too bad, considering it’s got so much character). Resin freight cars run in the $30-$40 range, for museum-quality kits. Resin car runs are in the 50-100 kit range, with the exception of some Westerfield cars which run more. Upwards of 90% of the HO scale market has “resin phobia”, and will never even consider building one. Upwards of 50% of the hobby are afraid of car kits with more than eight parts.
I’m currently cranking out masters for ToC boxcars and gons. One of these days I’ll start casting. When I do, I don’t anticipate running more than 20 of any one car.
Thanks for your reply, you’re the only one so far (maybe that 5%). My concept for this, at least to begin with, is to modify existing equipment on a custom order basis, i.e. “a whopper with cheese ,hold the catsup”. This may end up being an even smaller percentage of the hobby. One item I did not mention in my original statement is that all detail parts will be hand made. I do’nt know if the craftsman factor would add much value or not.
I have mild interest towards this service but at this time am not in a position to actually have anything built. Partly because I am less concerned with museum quality than I am with quality construction with an eye towards every-day use on the railroad.
Once I am in a position to spend less time concentrating on layout construction, I would be interested in something like this. I also have heard a lot of foks that would like to see earlier period models produced, such as those from the turn of the century.
Make some samples, spread the word around what you can do. List prices that your samples would cost, to allow interested parties see what they might be in for. Place a small ad in the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette, maybe un their classified ads section. Show you work on a website, with very good photos, there are many available out there for free - Geocities, Google, etc.
Search Yahoo Groups and elsewhere for groups of modelers interested in your time period. I don’t see much from this period in the mainstream publications I follow. Why limit yourself to this time period? You would be certainly limiting your possible customers.
Hmmmm…so what you’re proposing is a sort of custom kitbashing and painting service for the ToC market. Interesting, but again, I wonder what the market would really be. Most ToC fans are already forced to do this sort of thing, so the period tends to attract people who like to scratchbuild and kitbash. Of course, with Bachmann supporting this period these days the market might have grown (and might grow further, if the success of their On30 range is any indication).
I think it might be best to start off small, and see how things go. Here’s an idea: offer a range of customized cars predecorated with Art Griffin’s wonderful line of ToC decals. Modify the cars to better represent the prototypes, and concentrate on the colorful cars that haven’t been offered by the big guys. From there, offer a custom service to backdate or redetail the Bachmann 4-6-0s and 4-4-0s. Advertise as much as your budget will allow (one reason why custom services fail is because they don’t properly market) and see what happens. Just don’t expect to pay for that new houseboat with the new venture!
I am big into hand making details. Many of these I could do in batches (Hoses, headlights, safety valves, etc); most of these would be made from brass. To begin with I would like to modify existing models. As far as the quality goes all details would be affixed with a high strength epoxy (J.B. Weld) and components joined together with industrial silver solder. Not only do I enjoy making these details by hand, I feel they add to the value of the product.
The problem for your endeavor is that people expect the detail level better than say a Spectrum 4-6-0, for less than $100-. Spectrum locomotives are assembled by young Chinese women making a few dollars a day at most. Typical burdened labor rate is around $1- per hour.
Even if you are the best custom builder in the world, you are going to be lucky to net $1 an hour after materials.
I disagree with the poster above, it is not an advertising issue, the problem is that it is very difficult to make a living in model railroading. There are no big companies in this business. Walthers is probably the biggest, and they are still a very small company in the scheme of things.
Yeah, no houseboats in my near future. I have two kids yet to get through college with my real job. It’s something I love to do and I figure I could make a little , stress little, money on the side. If nothing else I’ll have efficient methods to make lots of cool stuff for my fleet.
What I need and so do alot of others is a reasanble kit builder, maybe even one who dose trades say three campbell unbuilt water tanks for a built one.
I ran into the owner of the old “front range” tooling/equipment at the Great Train Expo last February. He said that he is looking to sell it all (including existing inventory). I could probably find the card he gave me and pass on the contact information if someone is interested.