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Author Topic: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?  (Read 5386 times)

Positive

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #25 on: June 08, 2010, 04:57:44 pm »

Greg,
It is not exactly a business although it was from the age of 48 to 62.    Then I was able to take my full pension.    At that time, I decided to stop building them, but found I couldn't.   I do enjoy building them and that was the reason I carried on.   I am now 66.    I am now working on Nr. 241 since I started counting when I took it up full time on leaving the sea in late 1992.    All except the last two have been sold and at the moment, it is too early to know if the market has disappeared.    Maybe things haven't changed at all, but was wondering how it is with others.
Bob
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vintagent

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #26 on: June 08, 2010, 06:15:56 pm »

Compared with what you SHOULD expect from the average fine model boat, you generally are giving them away anyway.
One of my Rivas took 700 hours to build. I managed to squeeze £3600 out of the customer.  Better than a poke in the eye with a dirty stick, but not what I'm worth as a craftsman.  BUT...it was my choice to live that way.  Equally, it was my choice to work abroad as a clay modeller for the car industry earning up to £35 an hour for as many hours as I could stay awake!  Did pretty bloomin' well for a few years!
On the original question, the thing that gives way last of all in a recession is a person's leisure pursuit.  Historical fact.
I scratch build, so it doesn't bother me.  I have old but serviceable R/C, motors out of old Minidrilsl that have packed up on the electronics or I've thrown at the wall.
Everything else I can make and yes, even props.
So if you can't afford it and you still want it you'll have to learn that most fulfilling skill...model making!  Or even...Model yacht racing with Vanes and a long stick!!

Regards, Vintagent
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Subculture

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #27 on: June 08, 2010, 07:20:32 pm »

Model making is a very inexpensive hobby anyway, I can't honestly think of many leisure pursuits that would cost less- chasing a balloon with a stick perhaps?
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vintagent

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #28 on: June 08, 2010, 08:22:57 pm »

What?  £300 kits, £100 R/C, motors, ESCs ,£15 props, Gawd alone knows about batteries and chargers or IC engines and fuels.

And most people buy in, let's face it.  No, model making, as opposed to kit building is inexpensive, not tother way round.
Cheapest interest I ever had was drawing.  And it can be done with the family around on a little table, not an isolated workshop.
Lot to be said for company sometimes.  Like tomorrow...our anniversary and my dear bride's birthday!!

Regards,
Vintagent
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gondolier88

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #29 on: June 08, 2010, 08:26:28 pm »

Cheapest interest I ever had was drawing....
Like tomorrow...our anniversary and my dear bride's birthday!!

Ouch! At least you can't forget one of them!!!!

I too love drawing- having a full set of Derwent Pencils, colour and lead and a portfolio of over 50 drawings- I am in the process of setting up a little side business selling them- watch this space.

Greg
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DickyD

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #30 on: June 08, 2010, 08:31:17 pm »

Model making is a very inexpensive hobby anyway, I can't honestly think of many leisure pursuits that would cost less- chasing a balloon with a stick perhaps?
Thats what I tell my good lady, I must be as barmy as you. ok2
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Subculture

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #31 on: June 08, 2010, 09:12:17 pm »

Well for a start you don't need to buy kits to make models.

Next the materials needed to scratch build need not cost much if anything- skip salvage, timber offcuts etc. can all be pressed into service. I know one model builder who made an exquisite little tug boat using a very inexpensive vac-formed hull from SHG marine, and constructed the superstructure from cornflake packets.

R/C equipment costs a lot less than a century.

I started modelmaking as a schoolboy on a couple quid a week pocket money, and I managed to fund my hobby on that alone. Now I didn't have deep enough pockets for expensive kits, but I still managed to enjoy my hobby.

Modelmaking can be expensive, but only if you choose to make it that way.
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malcolmfrary

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #32 on: June 08, 2010, 10:24:36 pm »

Quote
chasing a balloon with a stick perhaps?
Wait until the HSE finds out about you  {-)
Subculture is right, though, about the hobby not needing to be expensive unless you decide to make it so. 
I started boating again in the mid '80's as a cheap hobby (cheaper than model railways, anyway) because I was short of funds but long on time - growing family, restricted income, some stupid bonehead in government had decided to quadruple my taxes by introducing the poll tax, and I had to learn to make things out of "found" stuff rather than just buy in parts. 
Later on, when excessive overtime was the rule I had money but no time, each time I have retired I have had time but no real spare cash, so I have gained some skills.  Not at a very high level, but skills nonetheless.
Hopefully many more can follow that path, hopefully voluntarily rather than under duress.
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Peter Fitness

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #33 on: June 08, 2010, 11:49:10 pm »

Unfortunately, the price of kits here in Australia is very high, due mainly to the costs associated with getting them here. Exchange rates are favourable to us at the moment, but by the time freight and taxes are added, a kit becomes very expensive indeed. That is one reason why I now choose to scratch build. Materials are quite cheap, I have all the radio gear I'm likely to need, including lots of servos left over from my aeromodelling days, so my main expenses are plans, ESCs, motors and propellers - I make my own shaft assemblies. That said, however, the main reason I scratch build is the challenges it brings.

To sum up, my answer to the original question is, no, the GFC will not affect my modelling.

Peter.

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vintagent

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #34 on: June 09, 2010, 09:38:46 am »

Like I said...model making isn't expensive.  Kit building and buying it all in is expensive.
There will always be those who can afford to do that.
There will always be those who can't, or, like me, won't, because there's no pleasure in it.

Pays yer money and takes yer choice.
Regards, Vintagent
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Mike S

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #35 on: June 10, 2010, 05:54:01 pm »

The upcoming nasty financial shocks are really a sequel to the banking crisis, which occurred due to the greed and incompetence of bankers. Part 2, the sequel, can be termed as the Sovereign Debt crisis, i.e. national governments have spent vastly more than they raise in taxed income, and the brown stuff is about to hit the revolving object. This will mean higher taxes in all areas for fewer services, and less disposable income for the man in the street.

How will this affect the hobby? Inevitably big ticket items, the large kits from the likes of Graupner and Robbe will be hit, but when times are hard there does seem to be a resurgence in craft based hobbies, and I'm sure there will be a swing back towards scratch building of simpler models, after all model boating is a hobby where you can spend as little or as much money as you like, it's all down to personal choice how to spend the leisure pound (or dollar).

Personally, I am in my mid-50's and still lucky enough to be gainfully employed. With the old time versus money equation I'm still kit bashing at the moment, but during the good times I have been squirrelling away tools, wood, metal, and plastic in the loft for a future return to scratch building when I get the old P45. I've been modelling all of my life and I'm certainly not giving up because a certain Gordon Brown messed up.

As Vintagent said 'Pays yer money and takes yer choice'.


Cheers,

Mike
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Colin Bishop

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #36 on: June 10, 2010, 06:00:44 pm »

Quote
'Pays yer money and takes yer choice'

Shouldn't it be the other way around?  ;)
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vintagent

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #37 on: June 10, 2010, 08:07:14 pm »

Pays yer money (or not..implied) and takes yer choice.

For those who make the excuse of time, no skills, etc. and are worried that their hobby may fall beyond their reach, I never made a model boat from scratch till I made a model boat from scratch. I just got on with it.  So, the next time I did it, I did it a lot quicker and so on.
Soon, you become as quick as the average kit basher, but still more fulfilled.  You might even become so quick you can do it for a living up to a point.

The more you attempt and do, the more you pick up (and never forget) skills, none of which are exactly rocket science anyway.

Give it a go.
You might HAVE to!

Regards,
Vintagent
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grasshopper

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Re: How Will The Financial Crisis Affect Your Modelling?
« Reply #38 on: June 10, 2010, 08:47:05 pm »

My company relies on end users that have disposable income - in this 'current economic climate' and the predicted worsening there of, that disposable income and an increase in any taxes will mean a serious downturn in my company earnings.

I once calculated that out of a 30 day month, we work something like 18 days for the government. With income taxes, tax on fuel, VAT, corporation tax, licences (tax) on each piece of gaming equipment we supply, a  company licence (tax) to operate gaming equipment, individual licences (tax) to register employees that work on gaming equipment. Road fund licence on the fleet.

I can't cut my staff wages, I can't afford to reduce the number of staff so I will work the extra hours to pull all the jobs in and I've already cut my income in the last 12 months. So, basically: will this 'crisis' affect my hobby  - YES, less money and even less time.
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