I have always wanted to build a small 28 hr stockyard , I finaly got the plan drawen out for a 16 car faculty app. (14"by 25") in ho a 4 car unlodaing ramp with two rows on holding pens also a small office/bunk house and a hay yard. the shock came when i added up the cost for the material almost 60$ us just fo the evergreen order 16 packages of scale 2by6es for a start . was just wondering how many of you have started a project and abondned it because of cost?
jim

jim currie Wrote:I have always wanted to build a small 28 hr stockyard , I finaly got the plan drawen out for a 16 car faculty app. (14"by 25") in ho a 4 car unlodaing ramp with two rows on holding pens also a small office/bunk house and a hay yard. the shock came when i added up the cost for the material almost 60$ us just fo the evergreen order 16 packages of scale 2by6es for a start . was just wondering how many of you have started a project and abondned it because of cost?
jim

If you wait until the e-mag comes out, I wrote an article about just this subject

Hint - there are cheaper materials besides evergreen styrene. I have cut down plastic "for sale" signs, and am cutting down some paint stirring sticks for building a roundhouse.

jim currie Wrote:Was just wondering how many of you have started a project and abondned it because of cost?

I am not sure that I have any that were abandoned, per se, but I have a pretty good list of ones I have not started...! Most of those are acquiring-brass-locos-and-installing-sound-decoders type projects.

Andrew

Jim ...

I have never figured the total cost of any of my projects up front for the particular reason of the avoidance of shock! hock: Knowing, for instance, that to build a model railroad is an expensive project all by itself ... the lumber for benchwork ... the sheets of 1/2" plywood and Homosote for roadbed/subroadbed ... plus track-laying supplies, structure kits, scenery materials and this time - a DCC system and a bunch of decoders ... I prefer to make the purchases as I need them and refrain from looking at the "overall big picture" because this is my hobby ... I rejoined this hobby after a long absense to in order to find the "calm" inside in the evening after having spent the day being creative-on-demand and debating with mechanical engineers about the perceived value imparted to a product by the use of thoughtful industrial design and how the few extra dollars spent up front in tooling and materials would pay off in the end with increased sales over the life of the product. 8-)

So ... I don't worry about the total cash outlay for the project in my basement (or now, as a retired guy on a very fixed income, starting a new layout in one half of his living room) but instead, I've adopted a pay-as-I-go approach and I'm striving to eliminate the risk of stroke or heart attack when I look at the final dollar figure.

nachoman Wrote:Hint - there are cheaper materials besides evergreen styrene. I have cut down plastic "for sale" signs, and am cutting down some paint stirring sticks for building a roundhouse.

Keven some how cutting 14,000 scale feet+ of 2 by 6 lunber seemes just a bit to much time involved I have tried cutting strips and the time and flustration involved is not worth the savings to me so its either evergreen or northeastren for me.

P5se the cost of the layout as a over all expence is not what I was refering to I just had a space to put something and with the increase of cost evergreen went up to 75$ and north eastern was 96$ evergreen would have been more but have a stock of it unlike me wood supply. i can build a farm scene for under 35$ that was the cost i was refering to. jim

AHHhhhhh! Sorry, Russ ... I totally misunderstood.

(Seems I'm doing a lot of that lately! Must be the lack of social contact that is affecting my ability to comprehend what people are saying. To bad, I was working so hard at being curmudgeonly! Guess I'll have to go to the grocery store more often and strike up more random conversations!)

But if you seriously want the scene, could you not plan it out so it can be built in several less expensive sections? In the end, you get what you wanted, your modeling budget isn't nuked all at once ... it just takes a little longer to realize the completed scene.

[Am I still not getting it? Sometimes I read this forum in the middle of the night when I wake up and can't get back to sleep ... maybe that's the problem!]

jim currie Wrote:... almost 60$ us just fo the evergreen order 16 packages of scale 2by6es for a start . was just wondering how many of you have started a project and abondned it because of cost?...

I have been in that situation this week. My open building would need lengthwise and cross beams under the roof. 5 - 6 bags would have been required. I omitted the lengthwise beams because I have to pay for one bag of Everegreen 5 Euro/ 6 USD. That was to much for a barely seen detail under the roof.

jim currie Wrote:Keven some how cutting 14,000 scale feet+ of 2 by 6 lunber seemes just a bit to much time involved I have tried cutting strips and the time and flustration involved is not worth the savings to me so its either evergreen or northeastren for me.
jim

Jim, 7,500 individual shingles. :o
Then again, I have reached an age where I have more time than money. ................... :oops: and maybe sense.

Quote:Jim, 7,500 individual shingles. :o
Then again, I have reached an age where I have more time than money. ................... :oops: and maybe sense.

Pete cutting shingles is a snap but trying to cut strips for me is a trying thing. just a few years till i got more time to try things like that though.
jim

jim currie Wrote:I have always wanted to build a small 28 hr stockyard , I finaly got the plan drawen out for a 16 car faculty app. (14"by 25") in ho a 4 car unlodaing ramp with two rows on holding pens also a small office/bunk house and a hay yard. the shock came when i added up the cost for the material almost 60$ us just fo the evergreen order 16 packages of scale 2by6es for a start . was just wondering how many of you have started a project and abondned it because of cost?
jim

Jim,I always found a alternative solution..In my case I would go with one of these kits:

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I know its not rolling your own but,this kit would fill my needs at 1/2 the price..

Jim, when I started buying Evergreen strip styrene (and shapes and finished sheets such as clapboard, etc.), I would buy what I needed for small projects. Eventually, I began to see which material was most used, and began to buy a pack or two every time I went to the LHS, even if no project was currently underway. If a size seemed like it would be useful for a future project (we all have those "someday I'm gonna build..." thoughts), then I'd pick up some of that, too. Eventually, I had enough to require a place to keep it organised, so built this rack from leftover pieces trimmed from a tub enclosure installed for a friend.


The packages are arranged by size and type, similar to what you'd find in a store display, although most of the packages contain several packs of material in a single "sleeve". I can't say how much is there, but certainly several hundred dollars worth, all purchased, for the most part, a couple of packs at a time. (Of course, if I start a particular project, I'm sure to find the one size that's in short supply.)

And you're correct about stockyards "eating" strip styrene: I did these two at the same time, and have probably two more of the smaller version yet to be built.




Wayne

Doc you guys that post photos of your neat work area just put slobs like me to shame, wont post photos of mine:cry: for the obvious reason , I do try to keep a running stock of plastic but don't have a LHS to go to so its either mailorder or wait till a road trip and the shops in Tucson and Phonix often don't have the quanty i need.
great looking yards by the way , one thing on the loading area as you see in the photo attched that the first 4 borads are almost touching this is done on yards that serve more than just cattle(hogs and sheep ) to keep them from trying to escape and hurt themselves.

I can understand the cost problem. I entered the 2009 scratch build competition and you might look at my entry for some ideas.
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One thing I have discovered is scrapbooking tools work quite nicely in scratch building. I have a cutter <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.acmoore.com/p-54480-cricut-trimmer-.aspx">http://www.acmoore.com/p-54480-cricut-trimmer-.aspx</a><!-- m -->
that would make cutting a for rent sign into strips easy.

For me it's akin to what Wayne suggests, getting a little here and a little there adds up over time. Trouble is, by the time you get the time, do you still want to take the time to make the thing or have interests changed? I guess stripwood or strip styrene can be just about anything you want it to be.

Purchased a 5 pack of blue point switch machines and a #4 L-hand turnout from my LHS today. They had been on order and somehow I missed the call saying they were in back in mid June hock: :oops: But even so, the money to pay for them had been sitting in my wallet since I ordered them. On a basic monthly stipend of 'mad money', plus any extra I make on funerals or weddings (honorarium) that doesn't go to a household project (most recently a new screen door) I get by okay. But then again it takes a while to collect all I need. It'll be a few more months at least to acquire the rest of the track for the layout, plus wire and then there's the material for the backdrop, sky blue paint...etc. Just a question of budgeting.

All that to say, go for it. Build the stockyard! But search for free or cheap materials first. You could build several stockyards with all the little strips leftover from bottle rockets collected on our street after the 4th of July. In fact, that would make a fun contest...maybe early summer 2011? Hint hint...

Galen

I'm with you, Galen! and with doctorwayne, too! Some things are always on the shopping list, "whether I need them or not."

if you really want something, you will find a way to get it. One of the reasons I had so much "material" to work with when starting out on the Big Blue 2010 Summe Structure Challenge was because over the years, when I went to the hobby shop, If there was an interesting structure that I thought had potential, either on it's own ar as a kitbash, by itself, with another like it, or maybe with some other structure, and I had a couple of bucks, I would buy it. Sometimes that has worked out, sometimes not so much. Do you know anyone who is looking for an FSN Enginehouse (yellow box) or an SS Ltd. Victorian Station (before they came with an interior) ... or how 'bout one of Durango Press's "The Palms" station kits? :?: :?:

Like doctorwayne I have quite a collection of packets of strip styrene, acquired the same way he acquired his, although mine do not reside in such a fine rack (but will soon ... the next time I fire up the hot glue gun and cut up corrugated cardboard boxes.) I get the strip styrene as much to add on detail or trim to some kit I'm building or brace the interior of a structure somehow as to use it to scratch-build something.

So, yeah! Go for it! If you want it, build it! Just start -- you'll find a way to fund it as you go.