Scarcity is becoming a real issue on the second hand market. I bought 75% of my stuff second hand, during the recession and after for about a decade, there was plenty to choose from at great prices, add in estate sales and for me it was great despite there being no new product, but those days are over. I have noticed a few things. The second hand market supply has flattened. There are alot fewer used things for sale on Ebay compared to even 5 years ago. I suspect this is due to the facts that those who got out of the hobby post-recession are now long gone. Ebay’s seller unfriendly policies don’t help either. Add in the new idiotic IRS tax on any sales over $600 and that second hand items are now getting fewer because people have left the hobby. Also add in that sellers are now asking more, A LOT more, than 5 years ago. It’s like someone noticed that there was less for sale and what was out there was selling for more, sometimes more than the original MSRP. Even the cheap battery stuff like Eztec is creeping up to Bachmann and LGB prices a few years ago. They may not sell but the perception of value is still there. China is no longer a cheap place to make anything either. Witness the asking MSRP for Bachmann’s newest diesels, wow! Overall this niche hobby is right back to where it was in the early 1990s, a small, poorly supplied niche hobby in a bigger niche hobby. So while I can only hope we see further growth, new layout posts are few and far between because lets face it, this IS an expensive hobby today, it always has been but once upon a time even a poor schlimazel like me could get started and build a respectable collection. One still can, but patience and diligence are an absolute necessity. For me, I have more stuff that I can use, but thats only because I took advantage of the opportunity to feed on the carcass of the pre-recession exuberance. I’m reworking my old inside layout and plan to run what I have until I croak, I’ll get rid of the larger stuff I realize doesn’t work on it, but I’m not expecting to ever buy something NIB ever again, simply because of the shear cost of new items.
My two cents worth, and it probably isn’t worth that much. But I am old enough now to have seen a serous decline in “hobbies” in general. We live in a very different world than when we were kids. But what I say I see as a decline in “hobbies” is a decline in the way we do hobbies and what we consider hobbies. As much as it pains me to say this, “kids” those 30 and younger, do have hobbies. But they revolve around computers, gaming consoles, or social media. I am not sure what that means. Likely what we know and think of as “our” hobbies will continue to decline.
But do we have the same hobbies and do we interact with them the same way that they did in the 1800’s. I don’t know too many people who are blacksmiths. In wood working we see very few wood carvers anymore. These were the hobbies of the day. What would an 1850’s wood carver think of a multispeed powered wood lathe with a duplicator on it. What would they say about a router and a cabinet full of bits.
Anyway this brings me to what I think the future of this hobby is and we have had this argument, but we had better embrace 3D design and technology if we want to see it continue and entice younger modelers. For one 3D printing and the likes opens a huge door to modelers and they don’t need to seek out Bachmann or USA trains. They create their own. Given the robots hobby there are all kinds of motors gears,servos. etc and with things like Arduino we can create our own drives. throw it in a 3D printed design we made and we don’t need anyone else. And this is highly rewarding and plays into the nerd of today. Lets face it we are all nerds, and always were. And so we need to cater to the new nerd.
I see guys like Mike Williams becoming the wave of the future. Small operations catering to a worldwide crowd for a very niche market place. Guys like Dan Gilchrist will become the kings of the hobby. He is producing what I think will be the way of the world. Now Dan is generous and shares freely that which he designs. But guys like Dan C, Dan H, Cliff, and even myself, who have learned this technology and have learned to design “kits” are where it is going. Its two fold. I think you will be able to buy kits produced by others for your assembly, or people will sell design files and you can print your own.
I don’t pretend to have the answer. And I could be 100% wrong. But I think the old school way of doing things is going to continue to die and will be replaced with a virtual world at least in design if not the entire hobby being somehow virtual. Pretty sure the guys who played with their tin toy trains never saw their toy train hobby turning into what it became. We have no idea where this is going but I feel unless we embrace the not so new anymore world of 3D tech we will find ourselves going with it.
One thing I am confident about. . .I will never not have a supplier for my hobby.
Great analysis, Devon. I am in full agreement. The world has changed VASTLY in just the short time I have been here. Where there used to be several hobby shops close by, now you are fortunate if you entire city has ONE. Imagine trying to open a new one today! Things do change and technology sure has changed EVERYTHING. The scratch builder is now from the past, and if you can’t model and print you WILL be left behind. I’m not sure that all of our shows will continue in the same format!
I guess that’s exactly why I got into operations. It’s fun for me and you don’t have to do all that much; in large scale, it does take a lot of room, but also seems very welcoming to spouses. My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed our visits to railroads around the country. Of course it’s still a tiny niche in a tiny niche so who knows?
What I have seen of the quality of printed stuff is not impressive. The affordable home printers have come a long way, but still have a long way to go getting layer lines out and looking good without have to sand and file. But that may be part of the draw to that.
I’m into the Bachmann steam and the prior comments are exactly on regarding eBay. A few years back, I finally got the chance to pickup a K-27 and a 2-6-6-2 used but at high prices, well above the street price when they were new, but I got them. Today, they are going for a good 50% higher than I paid. I was fortunate to snag a yellow C-19 at TrainWorld on their close out but that stuff is gone. Even the old Shays with broken trucks are high considering they will take the $250 metal trucks to revive. That one guy on eBay still has some of the newer climax for “reasonable” prices of $369 but they will be gone soon. I had also got one of the Spectrum caboose when still available new but did not get a box car or gondola. Now impossible to find. So if you want it, grab it when you see it and suck up the cost cuz they will only be harder and harder to find.
Devon, while I totally agree that 3D printing will be the future, there still is an elephant in the room that is the biggest hindrance to the scale. There are very few DRIVE MECHANISMS available on the market. This is pretty much what’s out there:
Bachmann’s and USA’s replacement diesel blocks.
Piko has some for the 0-6-0 and one(?) of the diesels
LBG I know they have some for the Stainz but others???
There really needs to be some customizable plans for drives that can be printed and assembled by home printers that can utilize readily available gears and motors. That would really open up the potential and possibilities.
All I can say to this is you are way behind the times then. While still not yet perfect, filament printers have come a long ways. Take a look at what the Dan’s are doing with them. Great detail and those build lines are all but gone. And there are NO build lines in resin printing, if there are you are doing it wrong, and things need to be re-orientated for printing. And you only do this in the test printing phase. When you go to production it will spit them out close to perfect every time. 8K resin printers now available to the home market for reasonable prices print in exceptional quality.
Here is a model I designed, my friend printed, and another friend assembled and painted. This is a resin printed model. And I assure you there was little to no sanding, filing, drilling. And this can and was printed on a hobby printer. Now Mike is progressing well past the hobby printer in his production but that is due to the high demand for his products. But he was printing great quality pieces from small machines.
Here is where I will give you that the technology isn’t there yet. Even the best mixes of resin are still too brittle in my opinion for general hobby use. You have to take care with them. But that is for the hyper fine details. I could print a car of equal quality as any generic Bachmann car on an FDM printer with little to no build lines out of something like ABS and have it be as strong as an injection molded styrene car.
I used to have very much the same opinion of 3D printing. Big chunky build lines, rudimentary detail, and hard to sand and drill. Those days are going or gone. The technology is coming along in leaps and bounds.
I too thought this. But drive mechanisms aren’t the problem. Drivers and wheels to for them are. Everything you listed is a drive mechanism produced by a G scale train manufacturer, for their product that you must rob or buy as parts. But there are all sorts of motors, servos, gear boxes etc out there. You can buy them all day long and twice on Sunday.
https://www.megahobby.com/categories/tools-supplies/motors-gears-and-lights.html
Just one of a million places.
“There really needs to be some customizable plans for drives that can be printed and assembled by home printers that can utilize readily available gears and motors. That would really open up the potential and possibilities”
There already is exactly what you are asking. Its called FUSION 360. A free program (or you can buy it) and you learn it like I did and then you can produce in CAD what ever your heart desires to fit what ever your needs are, and then you print it. The problem is it requires the modeler to learn a new way of doing our hobby.
This is precisely to my point. You are thinking about your way of doing the hobby. And we all admire your way of doing the hobby. I love that you turned me onto Lil Big Haulers or their motor blocks and have several in waiting. But you are used to doing what you do, a certain way, and because you are finding it harder to do it that way because availability, does not mean that there is not another way to approach the hobby.
I can now take a generic motor/gear box and in CAD design the chassis to fit it and then design my model around it. I haven’t had the need to do this yet. But I have no doubt I will be. Mike Williams is producing 3D kit models around drives and selling them. He isn’t using the drives made by the “train” guys and repurposing them.
We HAVE to start looking at this hobby in a new way. IF you want to model in 2030 using 1980 technology and parts yeah you are going to have problems finding what you need. But if you learn to model a new way you will have more than an ample supply.
Again this is all just my opinion. I am neither right nor wrong. But I do believe sincerely that , right or wrong, this is where the hobby will go. We can choose to keep up or struggle. This is coming from a guy who not so long ago “hated” 3D printing and considered it “cheating”. I decide to join in on the fun. And now I can say will 100% confidence, I will never ever not be able to have exactly what I want when I want it.
Vic,
I mentioned that I think the problem that remains isn’t chassis, motors, or gear boxes. All of that is easily overcome. In fact you have given me an idea, that if there really is a need for motor blocks and people are not wanting or willing to make their own, then maybe I should start.
But the problem is availability of metal drivers and wheels to attach to the gear boxes. I have not overcome this hurdle yet. Since there really is no cheap small hobby CNC mill/lathes this is a problem. If I could make or buy drivers for steam stuff or just metal wheels I could put on axles for diesel blocks I would be set. Its the metal wheels that are the problem as I see it.
In the UK they have several manufacturers of gearboxes available. IP Engineering used to ship to the US, but no longer.
Can’t metal parts be printed? I seem to recall that being available now. Probably expensive but then likely cheaper than a milling machine.
Take a look at the Slaters Plastikard wheels. They are stainless tires on a nylon/resin/fiberglass injected wheel, and they are fully quartered using square axles, and come with bosses for the rods. They don’t make it easy to find the right wheel, but they have a tremendous selection if you do the math and figure out what actual size the wheels are!
This is a 49" wheel in Fn3 for an EBT Mikado, though I never got around to using it. (Prototype used 48".)
Vic,
IMHO hard to do a what if drive design as there are generally too many variables. design for available space and desired ratio as a starting point is needed. ( I did machine design all my life) Stock Drive products is a good source for commercial gears. a couple of years ago i identified the axle gear from the Bachman C-19, and purchased a spare gearbox and cover for future use.
Al P.
Vic,
Metal parts can be printed, however i have found different shrink rates in different axis. for example i did main rods for a C-18. the length of the part initially was either to long or short i cannot remember (look up my thread on C-18 conversion from C-19) ultimately had to run another set after calculating the shrink rate in the long direction. this part was too long to run in brass as that would have been my first choice. i have not attempted wheels. another thing, this material is not friendly to rework i.e. drilling (with carbide) tapping is a no go at least in smaller sizes.
Al P.
I will be the first say that I have never personally used one, but every thing that I have seen printed is not what I would use. Now I have no idea what they were printed with or any of the technical specs AND have no idea what their printers cost. So I might really be way behind the times on this.
Peter,
Slaters is a company I really need to try out. You have mentioned them several times in regard to finding a suitable driver for the project I was working for the CR&N #4. Though Kevin was never sold on them because they didn’t have the right driver for that project, they do have plenty of nice drivers and I had completely forgotten about them. Certainly for making generic blocks to build projects off of they are more than adequate. Thanks for reminding me of them.
Vic,
I am very intrigues with the 3D metal printing. I know very little about it, but from what I gather it is not “metal” in the sense of a solid piece of metal. Its metal impregnated resin. And last I checked is very very expensive. But that was admittedly quite some time ago. And when I say expensive, I mean cost prohibitive type expensive. A few motor blocks and you could buy a CNC machine kind of expensive. But that was long enough ago and the technology changes so fast that this could very well be a viable option.
Metal sintering is fusing metal powder with a laser, so it is, indeed, solid metal.
She’s been making metal sintered sculpture for a long time now, its fascinating.
First let me apologize if that came of as condescending and rude. After your response even I thought I sounded rude. But I certainly didn’t mean it that way. So if I gave that impression I apologize.
What I was more properly trying to say is that both the technology and the materials have changed radically in just the very short few years I have been into it. I had the very same concerns as you. And wasn’t going to buy into it for exactly the reasons you mention. But we all know how fast things change in today’s world. Not so long ago a cell phone came in a bag and looked like a brick. Not something I would use or carry. Now, if I desire, I can wear a stylish cell phone on my wrist and it will not only make a phone call but tell me how many steps I took and how many calories I burned.
My point is don’t look at what was printed 10, 5, even 2 years ago and lock yourself into the idea that is what it looks like today. If, and that is a giant IF, this is at all something you are interested in, or you have a need for a one off part that you can’t get, I highly recommend you give 3D printing another look. I am willing to bet You would change your opinion.
I just printed this. Its a test print. It needs revision. But this is the second time I printed the engine, and the first print for the belt pulley and saw. No build lines, fine detail, dang near production. Can you honestly tell me that is not something you would use. If it isn’t you are far more picky than me. And with some revision, Mainly in orientation for printing, what few blemishes I do have won’t show up in round two. And a bit of sanding and all the little pimples from the supports are gone.
I know I sound like a broken record and a salesmen for 3D printing. But I assure you I am coming from this from a totally different perspective that that. I am not a CAD draftsman. I had no idea how to do it. I am not a tech nerd who has to have the latest and greatest gadget (Unless its for cooking, then I admit it). My roots are in scratch building and kit building. I have worked with models all of my life in one for or fashion. When a kit wasn’t available for the thing I wanted, I started gluing up wood and styrene. And I was an amendment detractor of this technology and very vocal about it.
But then I saw that people were producing some pretty cool stuff, albeit kinda ugly with their nasty build lines and the materiels were kinda hard to deal with. Then my close friend got into this new thing called resin printing. Everything changed. Now that I have learned CAD and can pretty much sit down and design what ever my heart contents, and machines are available to the hobbyist to produce them. a world has opened up to me that would have never been possible before.
I wasn’t going to let the cat out of the back quite yet. I was going to make this a “surprise” when it was done. But it illustrates everything I have come to love about 3D printing. But I wanted to model a very specific caboose. An ex Milwaukee rib side caboose. NO ONE comes close to making anything like this in Large Scale. Right down to the trucks. Sure I could probably invest a great deal of time, energy, and materials to scratch build it. But that would likely mean it would never get done. But with 3D printing, especially both formats (resin and filament), I will have a completed model very soon. The test print for the ends is on the printer as we speak.
This is EXACTLY why I fully believe this is where the future of the hobby will rest. There are so many options. You can design and do it yourself. You can pay for someone to design it and you can print it yourself. You can design it yourself and pay someone to print it. Or you can, or soon, will be able to by a kit that comes in a box or a fully assembled ready to roll model.
And that is from the consumer end. We haven’t discussed the retail end. 3D printing will be the way of the now and future because it allows the manufacturer to offer a product that they need not stock on a shelf or make a production run of a couple hundred and have that investment sitting there hoping it sells. They “store” the file on a computer, they buy some resin, and if and when an order comes in they print it and ship it. Way low overhead in a niche market that no one can predict what or when something will sell.
I just think it unwise to continue to raise our noses at a technology that EVERYONE knows is where the world is going. I am a fan of Big Block gas guzzling 500HP gas burning muscle cars. But I know that they are dead and I will be driving a Prius like everyone else. We just have to accept the inevitable or pray our passing comes soon.
Bob,
What did I ever do to you to make you hate me? I have no idea what this voodoo is that you speak of but it sounds like I have an expensive new toy in my future.
I love spending other people’s money.
No need to apologize as I was not offended. I am actually technically adept as I have a software company and have been dealing with technology back to punch cards. I considered getting a “toy” but seeing the samples I decided it was not prime time just yet. But I may reconsider in next couple years.