Manufacturing Process; conception to hobby store

Tooling for injection moulding is horrendously expensive & to recuperate the cost of the tooling means that the manufacturer will have to pop a considerable number of kits from said mould to break even.

Before the tooling is the design process & the moulding process itself cost's, after that there are the other cost's like packaging, instructions, decals, marketing & possibly even royalties to the manufacturer of the actual real life product.

The existing kit makers have to take these things into account when planning a new kit & for these & other reasons they are quite specific about what they choose to & not to produce.

As far as I'm aware most if not all manufacturers have their own in house injection production, getting a third part to do this is possible, but it's just going to be someone else taking a slice of the expensive cake...... A Google of "injection moulding services" should yield some information on the subject.

No plans to start producing my own models, but I would love to watch a video of the process ,from design to packaging. That would be cool. Might  also help people understand why a box of plastic costs so much

Marketing and development phase - determining whether a particular subject would be a profitable kit to release, choosing a scale and price point if it is.

Design phase - coming up with the model, breaking it down into component pieces, adapting those pieces for molding, laying out parts trees, decal sheets, etc.

Prototype phase - making initial temporary molds to run off test kits to see what needs to be corrected, rinse and repeat, drafting instructions based on these test runs.

Pre-production - getting your molds manufactured (VERY expensive), printing boxes, decals and instructions, arranging distribution channels, advertising, etc.

Production and distribution - actually producing kits, boxing them and packaging for shipment, shipping out to distributors.

Just a VERY rough idea of what's involved - all the stuff I used to know about it is too many years in the past. The actual process is far more complex and lengthy. I've seen quotes of as much as 2 years from concept to product. The majority of proposed kits never see the light of day because they are deemed as too unprofitable. What we see on the shelves are the ones that companies are confident can make them money after production costs are amortized.

Resin kits might be an option, or vacuform.

Why nit scratch build?  Today's technologies, with homemade PE sets, lots of resin casting supplies, and such, people are turning out really nice scratch models. If you want to build something that no kit exists for, seems to me it is easier to scratch build it than to produce kits.

Regarding marketing:

If you're dead set on modeling construction equipment you need to call the manufacturer before you start anything and see if they'll license their name to you.  My company did some products for John Deere and that locked out any other manufacturer from making that specific product during that time. That contract cost us over 50 grand per year btw.

Even scratch building a model for sale and distribution can get you in trouble with the manufacturer if they (or a licensed competitor) gets wind of it.  Not just because they want more money...  quality control is a huge part of licensing.  They want to see & test everything to make sure it's safe and is up to their standards.

Most licensing contracts (for us anyway) were all encompassing for that product's genre.  If JCB granted Ertl the rights to make die cast equipment and they only have a few tractors at the moment, they probably bought the rights to make ALL JCB die cast equipment for the duration of that contract.

Please don't think that I'm trying to discourage you.  I think its great that someone has that kind of ambition and passion for this hobby.  Just trying to make you aware of some of the challenges you may face.

Regarding manufacturing:

You might want to take a look into resin casting for small run kits.  It can be done at home and you can make the parts as you need them.  Dig through forums involving construction equipment models and see what components need better detail or more accurate scale and try producing those individual pieces first before jumping into a full kit.  It will get your name out there and allow you to get your feet wet without a huge capital investment.  Use the profits & knowledge from the castings as a springboard for your first kit.

Good luck!

Hi :

   I do have something to add here , that bears repeating .There must be ,after careful market research a percentage of folks willing and able to buy it  .If there is no apparent interest over a very wide spectrum it would not even pay for the research into the product !

i think what tankbuilder says is spot on except one thing. i dont think they have to do the r&d work if it comes down to a german tank or a sherman  those two specific item no matter who makes them a cheap co or an exp one that niche are always hot and will always sel  l imho

joe

There's always 3D printing available. If you can afford a decent 3D printer, you can do it all yourself, providing that the manufacturer of the equipment that you're modeling grants you a license to do so. No molds to worry about, just desinging and printing the parts.

I know that the guy at Indycals has had his creations (tires engines etc) made in a 3D computer program.  Then has them 3D printed by Shapeways.com (a place that will print your 3D model for you).  And then has them cast in resin.  He makes a decent penny with his creations too.

Resin is indeed the way to go for low volume stuff. I know several folks in my area that have a basement/garage industry of making very low volume resin kits.  Of course, the resin is expensive, and to cover the overhead the result is fairly pricey kits.

a question about resin   i know that resin molds are only good for just so long, if the comp. making the kit wears out the mold they have to make a new one.  so the question is is it possible that diff runs would be of diff quailty ?

Yes.  However if you keep the master build and recast that then you wont lose any detail.  I have a 1/24 1941 Chevy COE I casted a bit back.  I keep the same body so I can use it to make a new mold if needed.  I recntly retired the rubber mold and will be making a new one soon.   I made around 20-25 bodies and it was still fine however I made a mistake in the rubber mold.  A mistake I then had to correct on every body I made after that.

To give you an idea on the cost it was about $50 for the rubber mold.  About $1-2 in resin per body.  I was able to sell them for $20-25.  So it was profitable.  I would like to get into HO casting.  There is money there for custom vehicles and accessories.

There's the rub :

     I do work for a Museum here in town .A lot of scenery and buildings ,as well as retaining walls etc. are made from resin .Cost -High . Quality , to me questionable at best .For instance an " N ' Scale ( 1/160 ) 55 Chevy convertible is eight bucks .

   Not bad you say ? How about if you spend over eight hours in totally correcting the body then making new tires because the ones supplied don't fit and are too small to cut thinner ?

   Then there's the painting .Remember , with resin you should prime first after soaking the thing in Wesley's Bleche-White and then washing it off and letting said widdle biddy auto air dry      If you have a friend of the feline puurrrsuasion you may never find it again either !

  No , mine didn't do that .She decided they didn't taste good . Now , I have seen some done on a 3-D printer . Nice product , Eleven bucks though ! In closing , resin is good , depending who is doing the part .I have a U.S.S. ALABAMA correction set that I got with the ship , from a friend .The main deck-house has a half to quarter inch pour plug remaining remaining  .Great detail , But how the heck do I get that thing off ?  

      I would say it all depends on how super detailed you want to go . The steps to just getting an injection mould are not cheap and the tooling is costly .That's after you pay license royalties and designers , engineers and  production salaries . We must not forget the marketing here too . These folks wouldn't know how to go about doing a new kit , for the most part .

   Why ? well , lets see .Incorrect information , bad photos they are working from , ad infinitum .

     If it's a civilian vessel , of which there are few examples or fleet support vessels then I scratch-build them .Why ? nobody cares to do them ." the market won't support this " is what I always heard in the sixties .      Tanker - Builder      P.S. If the market seems as strong as it is ,why didn't REVELL re-tool the U.S.S. MISSOURI instead of re-hashing the old incorrect dinosaur . Fact is , no ones come up with one that I can afford except that one .I don't want it . Do you ? It would take a total rebuild to correct it  .Now the ARIZONA isn't great , but she's not the worst either .