Hobby Shops in Tough Times

[RobertInOntario]

I know what you mean, in my shop, I specialize in vehicles, people, structures, details and scenery.

There is a shop in the next town (30km away) who specializes in motive power and rolling stock. He gets in anything that features a Canadian road name. The last time we chatted he was saying it is unbelievable how anal people are getting about the prototype. He says he has guys ordering product, then bitching at him because the manufacturer did not make it "right". Wrong style of headlight, grab irons in the wong place, vents not positioned exactly right.

Personally, my layout is set circa 1900, on a line with very few photos available. To me as long as it gives the "feel" of the era, it will work. No sense being anal and counting rivets, I want to run trains and have fun.

The other factor hit on here too is that creativity seems to have taken a back seat to RTR. In all facets. I did a clinic on Scenery at a local train show. Told how you can dry coffee grounds, colour sawdust, make your own ground foam. I showed how for less than $3.00 I filled two 4L plastic Ice cream containers with ground foam and it took me less than an hour.

After the clinic two guys came up and asked why I was wasting time on making that stuff when Woodland Scenics was selling it for only $10.00 a jar. I tried to point out that I had made 4 jars worth for less than $3.00 but their arguement was, yeah but you wasted an hour. Sometimes I can't figure people out.

Excellent points, Will. I agree about not being overly fussy about the prototype. I mainly model British trains, and I think the situation is even more extreme in Britain. The thing is that MRR companies are making RTR stock to such high standards now -- this is partly being encouraged or fueled by modellers being increasingly particular or demanding in terms of accuracy. I think one fuels the other. Bachmann Europe, for example, recently released a model of a 4-6-0 4MT loco that looks excellent to me -- yet there were pages of complaints on one UK forum about all the inaccuracies it had! Personally, I'm willing to tolerate some discrepancies and am happy to simply to get a good overall feel or look.

I also agree (to a point) about re-using household items (such as dried coffee etc.) on your layout. On the other "Z" forum, there was a lively thread there once where folks submitted their various ideas of re-using household items on the layout. Maybe we could start one here again. There was advice for re-using all sorts of things -- wire, bits of plastic... You'd think this would be a popular trend during a recession.

Having said all that, I've tried to re-use some household things or make MRR buildings and items from scratch, but they never look as good compared to what you can buy at your LHS! For example, I once tried to build a tunnel from re-using a bit of packaging styrofoam. I thought I was being clever and saving lots of money. However, I ended up using a fair bit of paint & spent lots of time on it. In the end, it didn't look great and not that realistic. My wife kept rolling her eyes saying how strange it looked. In the end, I threw it out!

The commercially-made MRR products look so good. I guess you have to weigh your time against the money that it costs to buy something new. I could spend hours making a fair-looking product, yet spend a few dollars more and buy something new that looks great. I still want to improve my scratch-building and "re-using" skills though!

Rob