Hi all, I remember back in the late 1940's that there were no model shops but I did buy plans from a shop (in NW London, Chalk Farm area) which seemd to sell everything. There was no advice as such, like 'don't do it' I built my first model boat about 20 inches loa from 1/16th balsa and powered by a recovered Mighty Midget motor and a 4.5 volt flat battery. Needless to say it was an undramatic start! Then I remember making my own design 'airboats', which were cheap and the same motor was transferred.
The first model shop I remember was Ripmax and they were very helpful but I could not afford the outlay of a model boat kit from my pocket money, which was also financing Meccano (which they sold) as well.
My first kits were rubber powered model aircraft at around 2/- (10p), and I built many of them. This was not a model shop just had a side line in these kits. Model boat kits were mainly 10+ times that. I only recently identified the Jetex powered model boat I made as coming from Adamcraft. That went very well but anything more than a £1 was not allowed by my parents.
So in reality over the years I have never been a big spender in model shops. I remember buying some Feltra (Gamages) and Veron kits when I could finance them from my own income but really I would rather have had the plans and bought the wood. Kit contents then were mainly just a lot of wood! I had to buy prop shafts and motors etc, but not many.
My biggest interest was the Model Maker magazine which I started buying in 1954. Apart from a friend who also built Keilcraft and Skyleada kits we were loners. The 'grown ups' did not want to know us!
The most money I ever spent in one go was a Fleet (non-proportional) RC set and that really worked hard for me in several boats and it was the first RC item I had bought that really worked!
I did do some kit reviews but from my background I insisted that the model must be assembled only from the kit, with the usual caveats, glue, paint. There are some very good kits out there and some less so.
I agree it is nice to go and chat with someone in a model shop but I suspect that with forums like this one and ebay the writing is on the wall for model shops. The get togethers are now in the many model exhibitions and as we at St. Albans found you have to diversify across the spectrum and of course it is possible to use common components.
I have been using some tiny 10 amp esc's in my small boats and they cost £3.99 each and work great, no pause between fwd. and rev. Not sure what the application was but work for me.
If you do the finance side and give the model shop owner a modest income of £25K with his shop 'out goings' rent, advertising and profit margins he has to have a turnover of at least £150K. p.a. You can't do that just selling model boats! You can work out the rest. I suggest his best bet is highly disposable items like helicopters?
We are doing very well with a few on-line UK traders who have moved with the times and also have been giving excellent customer service and I always use them first if they have what I want.
A close family member once in the Motor industry told me he would like to run a franchise selling cars and here he named several motor car manufacturers, I asked why as I knew he liked the high end cars. He said they go wrong a lot and there is loads of money to be made in the waranty and repair work.
I ocassionally buy ebay failures, sometimes local donated model boats and get them working properly, so I do my own warranty work!
Kind regards and as usual I have gone on a bit too long,
Roy