New Dapol O Gauge Wagons

[Dave]

Thanks Richard... a voice of balanced reason concerning R-T-R at last....

I think what really gets me riled is this notion that anyone relying on R-T-R to any extent whatsoever is somehow in the "Toy Train Brigade"...

...I get the impression (maybe wrongly) that there would be a preference by some if others did indeed do "Nothing" in this scale because if they do "Something", using R-T-R, it is somehow "dumbing down" the scale as a whole.

I don't think it's like that, Jordan. Not as far as I'm concerned anyway. I've got one RTR loco (Ixion Manning Wardle) and two RTR wagons (Lionheart 16-T minerals). As far as I can tell, having looked at various photos, the Manning Wardle is spot on. I can't comment on the absolute accuracy of the minerals but they have no glaring errors that I'm aware of and stand to be corrected if they do have.

RTR is perfectly fine - there's no "dumbing down" providing it's well-made and accurate to the prototype being modelled. But these Dapol wagons are not only poorly made (brake gear not lining up with the wheels went out when Adam were a lad) but they don't, in fact, portray what they are supposed to. We're not talking about an individual modeller scratching something out of whatever he has to hand - we're talking about a major producer of railway models that has far more resources and plenty of skilful people to hand yet can't be bothered to produce something that's accurate and, most likely, doesn't care so long as they shift boxes, which can't be good for the scale. If people like Adrian go out of business who do we then turn to when we want something that isn't going to sell in its thousands and the likes of Dapol aren't going to ever make?

So it's the likes of Dapol who are dumbing the scale down and not the people who buy it and use it.

 

[SteveO]

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, I approached this company too. I submitted two proposals, both of which included the person retaining the role of consultant/designer for future product and revisions of existing product. Both proposals were refused point blank because they didn't meet the owner's (highly inflated) valuation of the company.

 

[djparkins]

Why would you, as a kit producer, pay even that much? Surely, it's a fiver's worth of raw material, a couple hours of your time and a wheel set? This, incidentally, works out to around £35 inc P&P using your price list when you include the wheels, which automatically begs the question; why are you charging it if even you would pay it?

No offense, but with your vast catalogue, if you're not making even this much you're doing something very wrong. With a conservative average order as low as £25 (approx 1 wagon kit) that's only 54 units per week - I would assume an average order is much, much higher than this, considering you don't have a web presence and don't accept credit cards, albeit with a frequency that is very low.

Again, no offense, but most kit producers and smaller suppliers don't know how to sell their product. I'm not pointing fingers but if I didn't know how to do something I would ask somebody who did. I've read various posts by manufacturers over the short period of time I've been in this hobby and can't help thinking that they are just busy building the slippery slope they're about to take a ride on. It sounds all too much like sour grapes to me.

Which reminds me, I'm going to open another bottle.

By the way, if you are the genuine A.B.S. and wanted to sell up, I'm all ears.

Wow Steve! Don't be bashful - Don't feel you have to hold anything back now!

I remember Jock Stewart in the 1960s & 1970s ran a model shop in Bournemouth [ERGs] - He tried to sell it in an advert in the Railway Toddler and I can still remember the wording now - 'No experience required. Any modeller will tell you how to run it!

BTW - I do not think it easy to sell 54 7mm wagon kits week in-week out through out the year. I might be able to think of one week in September where you m-i-g-h-t just do it!

 

[BrushType4]

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, I approached this company too. I submitted two proposals, both of which included the person retaining the role of consultant/designer for future product and revisions of existing product. Both proposals were refused point blank because they didn't meet the owner's (highly inflated) valuation of the company.

Sounds like the same one

 

[SteveO]

Wow Steve! Don't be bashful

I've sobered up a bit now - drinking in a hot bath is only for professionals! However, I stand by what I said in most part. And you may be missing out on a bigger trick. The biggest barrier-to-entry of your highly acclaimed kits is the time it takes to make them - this has been widely reported. So why not produce them RTR? Gathering an experienced builder pool would be the biggest hurdle but with a growing retiree resource you could get a highly skilled, fairly cheap labour market right here in the UK. Add a healthy but not over-the-top margin and you could have a profitable additional (but limited) market, which would also help sell your kits. Effective advertising and marketing is the most underused but most powerful resource for smaller companies, especially when trying to compete with higher profile, advertising-savvy 'big boys'.

 

[Adrian B.Swain]

Hi all I'm having to think about how to reply to some of the posts without being offensive. I wonder what the demise of Hornby Dublo, Lima, Airfix/GMR, Mainline/Palitoy, Graham Farish OO,Trix OO( was it once twice or three times??) was caused by ?? Not to mention innumerable smaller firms. Having survived for nearly 45 years
running MY OWN BUSINESS I think I may now be the longest survivor. Maybe I AM doing something
right. I used to advertise years ago, but never found it paid for itself, so I stopped. I believe in the old adage about
the man who makes the best mousetrap. I buy RTR because, amazing though it may seem, with my huge range,
there actually are things I want, but do not make !! Nor do I have much time spare to build models to the standard that I wish to keep to. I shall shut down in five years (if I make it to 75) but with all the proliferation of kits and RTR I would be delighted to sell five O gauge wagon kits each week in addition to the hundred or so in total I sell at the four main GOG shows each year. That is what the market is really like, even with more kits in my range than any other supplier. That is also why investment in new kits is now a loss-leader most of the time, not when you take all the research, pattern making, mould making, production, packing, despatch and book
keeping time into account.
I don't employ chinese workers to do most of the work, I now do neraly ALL myself and I am not prepared to do it for a bowl of rice a day or even two or three. There have always been people pontificating about how I should run my business, I remember well being told that my first 4mm whitemetal kits would never sell and I
would not last the year !! Well they are still in the range and still sell even though no longer in dozens. If all O gaugers want is a range like Dapol's in OO, a hundred liveries and nary a one an accurate model ( well maybe
one or two ) they should rush out and buy as many in O gauge as they can afford, but beware !!
Gosh it's bedtime already and I was having such fun Adrian

 

[Ian G]

I cant remember the last time I bought a piece of RTR rolling stock to convert, as most of what is on offer in 4mm needs tidying up in one aspect or another.
The only RTR rolling stock in 7mm I have tarted up are a couple of Lima 33's, as I buy mostly kits and modify them for my needs.
I am looking at a Heljen OAA to buy to possibly make a few more as the PMRPR needs a bit of work to get it to look right.

Ian G

 

[28ten]

I've sobered up a bit now - drinking in a hot bath is only for professionals! However, I stand by what I said in most part. And you may be missing out on a bigger trick. The biggest barrier-to-entry of your highly acclaimed kits is the time it takes to make them - this has been widely reported. So why not produce them RTR? Gathering an experienced builder pool would be the biggest hurdle but with a growing retiree resource you could get a highly skilled, fairly cheap labour market right here in the UK. Add a healthy but not over-the-top margin and you could have a profitable additional (but limited) market, which would also help sell your kits. Effective advertising and marketing is the most underused but most powerful resource for smaller companies, especially when trying to compete with higher profile, advertising-savvy 'big boys'.

I have built several Catfish, I find they take 40 odd hours to build properly, at £10 an hr thats £400.......
How many do you want? There are some who will pay that, but not many.

 

[Jordan]

I don't think it's like that, Jordan.

RTR is perfectly fine - there's no "dumbing down" providing it's well-made and accurate to the prototype being modelled. ....

So it's the likes of Dapol who are dumbing the scale down and not the people who buy it and use it.

Agree with you entirely, Richard, maybe I didn't say what I meant very well.

 

[SteveO]

How many do you want?

Let's look at it another way. Instead of rating the hours, lets unitise the cost instead. The kit costs £36.50, which includes a margin already so I'm going to be very presumptuous and take the margin off. Now we're at the £20-25 level for the raw materials. Let's add in a keen semi-retired craftsman who'd like to add to his pension income, and he has plenty of time to spare. A week of his time would cost £100-125 including his materials. Now we're at a gross cost of the finished kit at somewhere between £120-£150 so we can add back in a margin and retail for somewhere between £200-£250.

Even at that cost there won't be many that would sell, but for marketing and advertising purposes of the kits it would be worth the extra admin.

I really don't want to offend any of the manufacturers at all, I know that their business skillset is limited to their field of knowledge, experience and expertise, but I see a lot of businesses that don't live to their potential – I'll also add that many small businesses don't want to grow as it just adds more barriers and admin (employees, and all that they come with as an example). The difference between when I sit back and read and when I start typing is when I see complaints that bigger companies are killing their businesses with inferior product, and that is simply not the case – or shouldn't be.

 

[djparkins]

I've sobered up a bit now - drinking in a hot bath is only for professionals! However, I stand by what I said in most part. And you may be missing out on a bigger trick. The biggest barrier-to-entry of your highly acclaimed kits is the time it takes to make them - this has been widely reported. So why not produce them RTR? Gathering an experienced builder pool would be the biggest hurdle but with a growing retiree resource you could get a highly skilled, fairly cheap labour market right here in the UK. Add a healthy but not over-the-top margin and you could have a profitable additional (but limited) market, which would also help sell your kits. Effective advertising and marketing is the most underused but most powerful resource for smaller companies, especially when trying to compete with higher profile, advertising-savvy 'big boys'.

Well I have not complained anywhere about low sales for my own kits so do not need to increase them - across my four mainly military ranges I sell well enough kits and am overall very happy. I just said that increasingly the economics of being a 7mm-only kit manufacturer do not stack up. I posted in reply to you only to indicate that you might be way more than a little optimistic in thinking that any manufacturer can sell 54 wagons a week [as Adrian has since confirmed to you].

As regards the build time of my kits - let me assure you that not all our customers see that as a negative as they get more build-time £ for £. Remember some of us just like building.

As regards RTR production - I've got the RTR T-Shirt and I threw it in the bin in 1984. I've not built anything for anyone else or overseen any RTR commissions since then and have no intention of doing so now at my age - it is the stuff of which nightmares are made. You can never get it right.

You have two very experienced manufacturers on this forum now with jointly well over 60 years of successful operation behind them. I would respectfully suggest that if you are thinking of running your own kit manufacturing company one day then you tap into that experience. The ability to listen and learn [rather than lecture] and to gain from the experience of those who have done it successfully already may well stand you in good stead - I know I found this to be so in the early years of my career.

DJP

 

[djparkins]

Let's look at it another way. Instead of rating the hours, lets unitise the cost instead. The kit costs £36.50, which includes a margin already so I'm going to be very presumptuous and take the margin off. Now we're at the £20-25 level for the raw materials. Let's add in a keen semi-retired craftsman who'd like to add to his pension income, and he has plenty of time to spare. A week of his time would cost £100-125 including his materials. Now we're at a gross cost of the finished kit at somewhere between £120-£150 so we can add back in a margin and retail for somewhere between £200-£250.

+ VAT @ 20% on top! + DO NOT presume that I for one would give up any margin! I'm too sodding mean!

 

[BrushType4]

You have two very experienced manufacturers on this forum

You've got Adrian from ABS, who's the other one David?

Enough leg pulling, but don't forget Graham Harrison of GJH Plant is also a member here and has had many years as a kit manufacturer.

 

[bogusman]

Hmm I have been following this thead for awhile now without putting my two pennance in but I now feel I must put pen to paper (or is that keypad). As I mainly model in the 4mm scale it may sound a little bias between the big boys and the smaller supplier. The thing that I find now is that the years are passing and I still have not built as many models as I would have liked so what is the answer. For myself I have purchased Bachman P.O wagons (blue ribbon range) for a quick turn around but being a masochist I decided to fit sprung w irons and etched brake levers as I do on my kit built wagons why!!!!!! as from 3 feet away can we tell the difference in this scale as they trundle by. Now all I do is change the wheel sets and fit safety loops and they run very smoothly . If I am doing a model to enter at an exhibition then yes it will have all the bells on but these are few and far between. Now as for locomotives most of mine will are/ be kit built the only exceptions are the ROD and the 38xx. Having purchased the 38xx I was very impressed with the overall appearance of the locomotive including the backhead detail to me it looks right, yes it will need some work on the cylinder front area but this is a small price to pay, the only other way for me to get a model of this loco was to scratch build one and life is too short. Now as for the small supplier I remember many years ago talking to 2 suppliers about the chance of a certain GWR 4-6-0 being produced neither would do it as they thought the other one would make it to this date there is still no decent 4mm etched kit of this class is this an oppertunity missed? I know if the big boys produced one now I would seriously consider it. Now my experience of the small supplier is that they are normally a small operation and do it for the love of the hobby an hopefully make a profit. As for the comment of finding a semi-retired craftsman I find that these are getting fewer every year (being one myself). Not all these semi-retired craftsmen I have known was once their day was over they went home and that was that. In all my years in that field I only ever came across one other than myself who had an intrest in model making and had a full machine shop at home and he retired in 1984! As for marketing well as I have no idea how much this would cost would it be cost effective for these small suppliers as there have not been a vast influx of 4mm models these last few years. My final point that I think most of us have overlooked in this thread is the recession that we are stiil in as I know it has curtailed my spending most of this year.

Pete

 

[SteveO]

...you might be way more than a little optimistic in thinking that any manufacturer can sell 54 wagons a week [as Adrian has since confirmed to you].

Maybe not in on a unit basis, but in a financial equivalent Dapol have done it already, and with an alleged inferior product. I know that they operate in a different marketplace but comparisons can be made.

As regards the build time of my kits - let me assure you that not all our customers see that as a negative as they get more build-time £ for £. Remember some of us just like building.

Nor do I see it as a negative, not at all. I don't have much time to finish three simple wagons at the moment so I can't be considered an MMP customer yet, but when I retire I'll be in your queue for sure (that's still 20 or so years away mind...).

You have two very experienced manufacturers on this forum now with jointly well over 60 years of successful operation behind them. I would respectfully suggest that if you are thinking of running your own kit manufacturing company one day then you tap into that experience. The ability to listen and learn [rather than lecture] and to gain from the experience of those who have done it successfully already may well stand you in good stead - I know I found this to be so in the early years of my career.
DJP

Noted, and agreed. I would never presume to lecture anyone on how or why to run their businesses. I've consulted and advised but lecturing is not my style, nor is it effective.

It's not that I want to get into this particular industry, it's business in general (and politics) that are probably the most exciting pursuits I've been involved with (I'm not including cycling as I was never competitive, although I did love it).

Brining it back on topic, Dapol created a market with their price point and people bought it - all of it. To some people it's not what they thought it was, but to others it was a 'way in' for an acceptable price. In a marketing sense, this could be a disaster for future sales of their 08. Personally, I don't think it will be because there will always be people who will accept inferior quality over price, and they will alway be the majority, like it or not. Just think VHS vs Betamax as one in a very long line of examples.

 

[Adrian B.Swain]

Hi all What I want to know is WHY did Dapol decide to reinvent the wheel and turn it into a thrupny bit
(Yes ! I remenber them well ) when there was nothing wrong with making a slightly cheaper wheel. Was
it Gross Incompetence by the designers who decided to redraw the existing G.A.s, Inability of the Chinese to read
drawings in English or a total lack of Quality Control either in Wales and/or China. Perhaps they started off by designing different wagons and changed their minds halfway, it certainly looks like that on their 5 plank offerings.
I even have a sneaky suspicion that the Chinese were not told that British and European O scale is NOT 1/43 but 7mm/ft which is only approximately 1/43. That would account for the error in the overall length of the Dapol models almost exactly. Normally the Chinese work to 1/43 for model cars etc rather than 7mm/ft. When designing model vehicle kits I actually used 7mm/ft simply because they got measured to the nearest 1/8" and I was used to conversion to mm, Yes, I know it was a bit lax to only work to the nearest 1/8" but have you ever tried measuring a car !! Of course it also meant the models were marginally more suitable for O scale model railways.
I recently placed an advance order and deposit with Kernow for the 7mm Beattie Well tank but only after being
assured by them that they had complete quality control over the model and that if Dapol did not make it to
a satisfactory standard I could get my money back. Here's hoping, it will be a long wait but in any case as
one of my best friends has just said " What's a hundred quid to rich b****r like you" Adrian

 

[Phill Dyson]

let's hope that Dapol announce that they are following up their 08 with an 07 and then that might persude ABS to release the kit for the 07 that they have been sitting on for so long

regards

Mike

Will the 07 kit resurface Adrian ?

 

[28ten]

Adrian, one of the problems inherent with outsourcing the CAD is that inaccuracies creep in, contract CAD monkeys could be drawing o gauge wagons one week and Bob the builder the next, they simply dont have the subject knowledge.

 

[Pugsley]

Adrian, one of the problems inherent with outsourcing the CAD is that inaccuracies creep in, contract CAD monkeys could be drawing o gauge wagons one week and Bob the builder the next, they simply dont have the subject knowledge.

Even when you do have the knowledge it's easy for mistakes to creep in, I've done it myself!

Having said that though isn't that why people, who do know what they're looking at, are employed to check the work of the contract CAD monkeys?

 

[40126]

WOW !!! What a great debate.

Im new to kit building, But have helpful advice from Ross Peacock, Phill Dyson & Lancer1027 (Rob). Ive started & finished some slaters wagon kits, Learning all the time. I must say im enjoying the process. Ive also bought a fair few (RTR) Triang / Big Big minerals, off eBay, which with some help from Rob, have been transformed into good looking wagons (See my workbench).

I also have a Judith Edge class 06 being build (By Rob). & im currently building a part scratchbuild BY & Slater's BY. & two Heljan shell 26/27's into fully functional loco's.

& last but not least, i have a Dapol 08 on order.

So im doing all across the spectrum. I cant afford Heljan RTR loco's, But Dapol might, if done well, fill that gap.

Steve