Helijan O Gauge

If you go to the US site there are no locos or rolling stock listed under 0 gauge, only buildings.

Ollie

"John Ruddy" wrote

The Bachmann UK (American page) website is a mess and very misleading. There are no O-gauge locos listed, although there are some O-scale narrow gauge. The headings (in blue print) bear no resemblance to what follows them. The Plymouth diesels listed under the O Scale heading are actually N-scale.

It's been pointed out to Bachmann before but they don't seem interested in rectifying things.

John.

A kit for a Hymek will cost £429

On another page..

it seems that motoring this Hymek will cost another £55.

DJH kits and the motors aren't far behind pricewise...

Yes but will the Heljan be truly RTR or will it be a half-finished kit of parts like the 00 Western?

(kim)

"kim" wrote

Me thinks you protest too much. The H52 did require some detail parts adding, but that is fairly normal with most ready-to-run models these days. The more recent Hornby diesels have buffer beam pipework so fine that it defeats my eyesight to contemplate fitting.

John.

It does seam expensive but...

DC Kits produce "o" gauge HEA`s for £ 45.00 in kit form and £ 65.00 rtr ( which means the heljan Model is over 7 times more expensive than a wagon). to compare the price ratio it does roughly add up though,

A Hornby Hymek ( using E Hattons site ) is £ 43.00 the Hornby HEA is £ 6.00 thus the loco is 7 times the price of the wagon

kindest regards

Simon Judd

"John Ruddy" wrote in message news:dgpt74$da6$ snipped-for-privacy@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk... Is anyone here shocked at the price being asked for the new O gauge Hymek? £475 each puts me off starting in O Gauge - I'd much rather try my hand at a cheap loco kit and hope its not too difficult! I find it interesting that Bachmann can do O gauge american outline diesels for substantially less.

( which means the heljan Model is over 7 times more >expensive than a wagon). to compare the price ratio it does roughly >add up though,

6.00 thus the loco is 7 times the price of the wagon

Using a similar argument to Simon's on a scale calculation.

The increase in volume between 7mm and 4mm scale is (7/4) x (7/4) x (7/4) = 5.359

Therefore a likely increase in cost between the two scales could be expected to be of a similar magnitude.

This is not a bad approximation for the likes of DJH loco kits, by the time you've included all the bits.

A kit for a Mercian Models Barclay shunter is only 3x more expensive in 7mm when compared to 4mm.

Parkside wagon kits are in the 4-5x price increase between 4mm and 7mm scales.

Cheers, Mick

I've recently bought a Hornby Class 50 and when I saw all the little bits that were already attached to it, I thought there must be some poor sods in China being paid 20p an hour to glue tiny little handrails and other bits to the models all day long. It must drive them nuts!

Fred X

"Mick Bryan" wrote

I remember talking to someone at DJH just after they'd released their first O-gauge kit, and they were totally surprised at the number they sold and as a consequence made a real killing, having expected to have to recoup their tooling costs over a much lower volume of sales. The sad thing is for O-gauge modellers is that established the sort of price which the kits could command.

John.

Not really. The migrant girls who do it earn more in a week than they would in a whole year back home working in the paddy fields. A lot of the money is sent home to support their families. Their working and living conditions are constantly monitored by government officials.

(kim)

"kim" wrote

I was told they earn twice the average that they would back home, which even so is quite a premium.

John.

Mick,

Surely you can only apply that reasoning to the materials which go into a kit, and I would reckon that the cost of basic materials in any kit is quite a small proportion of the whole price. I would suspect that most of the cost of a kit is the R&D which goes in to designing it, and that should be fairly independent of scale.

And with a flatpack etched kit, shouldn't the calculation be

7/4 x 7/4 = 3.06 :-)

Jim.

It *should*be a similar calculation for the etched kits, as the thickness of the etch should also increase by 7/4!!

:-)

Mick

Not necessarily. 7mm etches can be pretty close to scale thickness, while smaller scale etches must sometimes be thicker than scale, otherwise they'd crumple just by breathing on them. In fact, a 4mm loco frame will need plates of about the same thickness as a 7mm loco, just for the strength.

In terms of cost factors, the usual weighting is: No.1 R&D (or tooling) No.2 tooling (dies, moulds, cutting jigs etc) (or R&D) No.3 distribution (warehousing/packaging/advertising/invoicing) No.4 plant overhead (labour/energy/building/etc) No.5 materials

The first two usually amount to about 50% of the kit cost. The third and fourth take most of the rest. Materials are the least cost of all, in many case amounting to just a couple percent of the total. The total cost must be spread over the expected sales for the item's first run, which will usually be much less for 7mm than for 4mm**, which translates into a higher per unit cost of R&D and tooling, even if the R&D is apportioned equally to the two scales (which it should not be IMO, since fewer 7mm units will be sold.)

What amazes me is the _low_ prices that the cottage industry owners charge for their goods. For many, probably most, it's a sideline, so they don't fully cost their own labour. If they did, you'd see at least double the current prices.

**" It's true that 7mm attracts proportionately more builders than 4mm, but not enough to make up for the minuscule size of the O scale market compared to HO/OO.

My 2 cents (Can) worth.