Biting off more than you can chew?

J-Hulk wrote:

Tankmaster7 wrote: youch! 18 pounds for the 1/48 panther? here it is 25$! And here it's $13 USD!

gah!!! envy + jealousy!  23.50$ price tag at the LHS made me refrain from the 1/48 Tamiya line 'cept for the Tiger I early which I got soon as it came out.  It just doesn't justify it to buy a 1/48 less detailed panther when I can have a 1/35 perfectly fine Dragon ausf A or D for less than that.

J-Hulk wrote:

Tankmaster7 wrote: youch! 18 pounds for the 1/48 panther? here it is 25$! And here it's $13 USD!

grrrrrrr....

Tankmaster7 wrote:

youch! 18 pounds for the 1/48 panther? here it is 25$!

And here it's $13 USD!

youch! 18 pounds for the 1/48 panther? here it is 25$!

I considered picking up Tamiya's 1/48 panther G for the Battle for Germany GB, after all it was only £18, or $35 and didn't need indy link tracks at £23 a throw, or a load of PE.

But that would have been a rational decision, so I ended up forking out over £90, $180 on the kit, a set of Friuls, 2 lots of Eduard PE, a JR replacement barrel and the obligatory reference material! I figured if I was going to do a Panther, I wanted to do it justice, as well as trying out some new materials and techniques. As it was the costs were spread over 3 months, and therefore didn't break the bank, or go over the budget my wife and I have for hobbies.

Since then I've picked up, and started, Trumpeter's KV2, I know should have waited till I finished the Panther, but opened the box, and it all just ran away with me from there!

My biggest problem, 5 kits on the go, 2 98% complete, 1 90% complete and 2 about 60% complete.

Karl

I know the feeling... on the one hand buying bigger and better always challenges my skills and helps me grow as a modeler... but it also challenges the bank account. 

I've got to rein in my wife interestingly enough... if we see something she likes.. which is just about everything big and complicated (read: expensive) she thinks it is a must I buy it.  Instead I usually wait for the squadron and GM sales for the big stuff, and keep checking Hobby Lobby during their 40% and 50% off sales for new stuff I like.  Slowly I've built up a small stash that could keep me busy for awhile if I had to conserve on buying new kits for whatever reason.  Interestingly enough it has also gotten me into building 1/72 stuff as well as 1/48.  At $10 US per kit that is a lot cheaper than the $40 Tamiya and Accurate Miniatures I am used to.

Recently I've gotten into armor but thanks to Hobby Lobby and its 1/2 off sales, the $40+ Dragon Tiger II with all the goodies included only cost me $21 dollars etc..

At first my wife thought my hobby was costing a small fortune compared to hers. Until she seen some prices on the internet. She stumbled across some tanks, planes and ships.

She came to me in the other room and asked me - "do those guys build just one or two ships? I said - "Heck no, they build a whole fleet or two". She then said - "When you're ready we'll work on getting those more expensive racing and foreign cars you want". I asked her why what's up and she told me she was glad my "expensive" cars might not go over $26 because she seen some of those tanks, planes and ships costing more than $100.

Thanks guys for helping me build my stash...

I'd say Jim, you have it made. Your interest is way cheaper than most of us armor builders. I did buy a Tamiya car once for $26, but the majority are in the teens. Armor, for a decent kit anymore, will run you in the upper $30's to the mid $40's. Can't buy much of a stash for that.  Thank God for ebay. So many people willing to part with their kits for so little. 

I hear ya eizzle and can sympathize with you.  I spotted some car models that were very tempting, but $35 to $70 for a kit just didn't seem justifiable for me because they had steel rims, wheels that turned or doors that opened. After all, they'll just be sitting on a shelf behind glass doors when I'm done building them. My wife even suggested that I collect the die cast cars... nah... what fun would that be, they're already painted and put together LOL.

I think some of my harder to find cars for my collection will cost a bit more though.

What really helped the most for me and my wife to put things in perspective and budget things out, was for me to make out a few list. Something along these lines -
1.) All the American Muscle Cars I want in my collection, whether they were made or not who knows. Finish building the spray booth, need exhaust/blower fan.
2.) I'll probably need another AB for fine detail auto work come summer time.
3.) All the Racing cars I'm interested in.
4.) Either another AB just for modeling or one for general purpose auto work so we don't have to share the original between the two projects.
5.) All the European Sports Cars I'm interested in.
Plus we setup a bank account with a credit/debit card (and keep a certain balance in it) just for the hobby stuff and buy when we see or find them online.

My wife has however deviated slightly from the lists that she had me make for her. She found a few Euro Sports Cars cheap and bought them already. She's already figured out that if you wait too long and they're no longer on the shelf, it ends up costing much more "if" you can find it later. And to think it wasn't so long ago that she asked me why I was buying more kits when I haven't finished the few I had yet. Now I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever finish the ones I've got, let alone the rest on my list. I might need to build another shed for my stash. 

Guess I could always pass them on to my son...

nah... I best get busy... LOL

It seems like you have a good system down Jhande. I have a couple more planes I want to buy, but I really have to stop after those! I am buying more than I am building, and these things ain't cheap. The grand kits do seem to promise opening this and that and moveable this or those, and real exhaust! Its just so tempting sometimes.

Agamemnon wrote:

Why is it that one always tends to go for something a bit too grand and impressive instead of the merely reasonable?

Well, I took the cheap route in the hobby compared to some of you guys... I'm building my favorite American Muscle Cars first. Then I'll move on to "some" racing cars, and then some of my favorite European sports cars.

I've made a list, checked the different model companies and decided to go with the cheaper Revell or if I have too the lousy AMT brand. I'm getting what I can from my local Wal*Mart, drug store and then I'll order online the rest of my collection. My wife and I agreed to how much I can spend at each purchase, well actually my wife said more. My wife will remind me when something's not on my list when I say "Hey, that's a neat model". But "sometimes" she'll give in since it's only $10 or $11.

I think having a list and only buying what's on the list for the stash helps me keep on track.
It also helps with the wife, she can see how much it's going to cost, well at least for this list. And then knowing once we spend the said amount of dollars I'll be busy for a certain amount of time. Well at least till fishing season when I'll need a new canoe.

I happened to notice the pricetag when I visited the hobby shop in downtown Helsinki, looking for some sheet styrene, a new hobby knife and brushes.

I've read the reviews on the Karl, and I know the Trumpeter is by far the superior kit, though I'm sure I'd go mad building it. Either one, for that matter. Still, I'm sure it's worth every cent. Compared to what I've seriously considered paying for Forge World products (over 200 euro for what really amounts to a solid chunk of resin), it might even be considered reasonable. Maybe in about 20 years, eh.

Hey, it's those grand projects that get me more excited than anything else. The bigger, the better. Biting off more than you can chew is what keeps things interesting.

 

BTW, where exactly does Dragon's Karl Morser cost 110 Euro???

CHeck out the Trumpeter one:

http://www.militaryhobbies.ca/product.cfm?ProductID=5147

 

Comes with railway carriers, and is much more detailed. However, much more difficult, with many more parts to build. It's 180CAD, about 130 euro, but you get a lot more in the box. Trust me, it's a hell of a model.

Ya gotta shoot for the stars, baby!

My motto when it comes to models is "there's always just a bit more bench space".  Especially when it comes to group builds on this forum.

Cheers