Recently I was browsing through kits on an internet store and I have noticed something like 'resin' kits. They are roughly three times the price of an ordinary revell kit! I am wondering what makes them so expensive?
Maciek
Basically, it's because they're done in short runs and are *very* labor-intensive.
and the raw material is very expensive as well Remove nospam to reply!!
And, the resin material is itself fairly expensive.
Small production runs, the mold rubber is expensive and the resin is too. Keep in mind that 50 casts from a mold is very good mold life.
As others suggested, the resin itself (similar to fiberglass resin) is on the expensive side. These models are individually cast and the plastic must chemically cure in the mold while a typical thermoplastic styrene kit is literally shot into a mold in seconds and almost immediately cools enough to be removed and handled. As such, the resin kit is usually low production by its nature.
OTOH, this means that a subject of limited interest can be made more economically than if it were a full-production (as in, obscenely expensive, but easily mass-produced) styrene kit. As a Car Guy=A9, I have models of a 1961 DeSoto, a 1962 Chrysler wagon (both of which I owned) and a 1965 Plymouth Satellite (next door neighbor's), among others, none of which were ever 'kitted' - because some wonderful artisan decided to give them a chance. The cheapest was ~$35 and the expensive ones ~$75. Some resin bodies to 'convert' production styrene kits (a Dodge B100 van body or chopped-top pickup to convert the 'Little Red Wagon' wheelstander, f'rinstance) are as little as $10 or so. At the other end of the spectrum, the 'Exotic Furrin' Racecar Guys' are used to paying $100-150 and more for conversion bodies & parts. These are reasonable prices to me to get a decent looking replica I couldn't get otherwise.
-- C=2ER. Krieger (Been there; done that)
One more reason resin cast costs more is that the scrap-loss ratio is higher than for injected styrene parts - and on short runs, bad shots can add up on limited life RTV molds, expensive resin media, etc.
WmB
I don't believe it is that much higher. Warriors Scale Models, for instance, has reportedly gotten the rate down to below 2%, with consistency. And what they classify as a "reject", is often of a higher quality than other companies' for-sale merchandise. And of those "rejects", most are chopped up, and dumped into the molds, as "filler", before the liquid resin is poured in.
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