Excuse me, but I didn't offer to sell - you offered to buy. Not only that, but I didn't specify a price, just a suggestion where the bidding MIGHT start. I guarantee that any accepted price will be above that. JM
That's OK. There are some things that you should consider when you plan to buy a used ship. They're not like used cars, or other used manufactured goods, in the sense that the value drops the moment you drive it off the lot. Model ships aren't mass-produced, identical copies of a common design. Each one is engineered & built by hand & no 2 are exactly alike even where the same builder uses the same materials. The "$150 Rule" gives a ballpark estimate of material costs only. It does not take anything into consideration for the time & effort on the part of the builder. Is the builder's time & effort worth anything? Is there any value in the builder's time & effort, that should go into the value (cost) of the ship? Perhaps more to the builder than to anyone else, but then again, what's the value TO YOU of NOT having to put all that time & effort into it? I think that if you added up all the hours spent, & applied a reasonable labor rate, material costs would be 1/2 or less the total cost of a completed, functional model warship. If you're buying a used ship from someone, would you expect any sort of "Technical Support" from them after the sale? In other words, would you expect to be able to contact them & ask questions, or have any "problems" fixed? Would you expect any sort of documentation to be provided, to help you make sense of whatever it is that you bought? If the answers to any of these questions are anything other than a flat-out "NO", then what is the value to you, the purchaser? Bottom line: If a completed ship has $1000-1200 worth of material cost, you shouldn't be surprised to pay $2000-2500 to have all those parts & materials put together for you into a functional, working combat warship. Any less & you should expect crap - or, at the very least "some 'work' required". Perhaps there's a seller who's "highly motivated", but I'd still question why somebody would want to "get rid of it". It may end up costing you more, in terms of cash, time and effort, or some combination of the 2, to get a used ship working to your expectations than it would have cost you to build your own in the 1st place. I bought a used ship once, for $500, & it was definitely in the category of "some work required". At the time, I was in the middle of building my 1st ship, & with nobody else around to help, I felt like I needed to see what somebody else had done before I got too far into it. The used ship clarified a lot of things for me, showed me some things that somebody else had done, confirmed some things that I had only guessed at, gave me some ideas that I hadn't thought of before, & led me to believe that some of my own ideas actually were actually pretty good (& some weren't). I put plenty of work into that ship, to get it operational, & ended up selling it (trading, actually) for the same $500 I'd spent on it initially. The cost of the work I put into it was well worth the value I got out of it in the end. There's something to be said for a used warship. Just don't expect it to be "cheap". It costs plenty to end up with a fully ready-to-fight combat warship that's well-built & reliable. Whether that cost comes in cash money or time & effort is a choice to make, but that cost will be in there somewhere. If you expect something to be ready to fight they day it arrives on your doorstep, then you should expect to pay plenty of cash for it. OTOH, if you want to reduce your cash outlay, then you should expect to put a lot of your own time & effort into it. Either way, in the end, it tends to balance out in terms of total value. If you have money, then spend money; if you have time, then spend time. Or something in-between, depending on how much time & money you have available to spend (or want to spend). JM
I don't have any. I built 6 identical (or, as nearly identical as I could) Liberty Ships many years ago, but turned title to them over to the club I belonged to. Estimated cost was about $300 each. That includes everything, ready to go, & was probably a little on the high end. I've built some other transports, too, but always for the club. There are a lot of good things about scratch-building a cargo ship. For one, if money is a concern, time can easily be stretched while cash is compressed. I think I had about $30-worth of materials in those Liberty Ship hulls but somebody could get it down even lower than that by making use of scrap wood. At that kind of price, a 1st-time builder can make all sorts of mistakes without it costing a lot, & learn tons in the process. JM
I figured since I am on this very big Island and the only fellow here with Combat ships and a club being the only member in this club to have these ships I guess I am an independent. So it's up to me to try and stir up interest here. If I can get 4 or 5 people I would be happy with that. Going to be a long time though. Doesn't matter to me I still enjoy building and sailing.
I am, as of now, Inependant, i havent gotten inot the hobby yet, but as soon as tugboat comes back, i will buy a hull, and start work. i will be most likely joining the IRCWCC North East Task Force for next season, and i hope to have a fully operational LST-542 class convoy ship ready to rock the boat.
Nawww I got good company even though they don't talk..lol...Lets see Prinz Eugen, Roma,Bismarck, Tirptiz, California, KGV, Graf Spee, Warspite(refit for my buddy)Gata, Seaview, dozen Tanks, Helicopter, Plane, and oh yea about 200 plastic models... whew...lets Party!!
Hey Curt , I think I am becoming like you Tirpitz, Vanguard, KG and 2 Graf Spee's. Man where did all the projects come from?
Boomerboy, What hull are you going to buy from Tugboat? He's bought my molds for a couple of WWI armored cruisers (Warrior and Duke of Edinburgh Classes), plus molds for the British Kent Class and similar Spanish Canarias Class heavy cruisers. All 4 are good combat models. I used a Canarias for several years and had great fun with it. Now I'm running two armored cruisers: a Duke of Edinburgh (HMS Black Prince) and HMS Minotaur (made from a Warrior hull cut in half and lengthened by 1"). If you decide to move up to a large ship after experience with a smaller one (which is recommended) Tugboat will soon have my molds for HMS Hood and HMS Vanguard. Bob
Well Bob, although monk tries to tell me otherwise, im trying to get a LST-542 class hull. And after this ship, i will most likely build my own hulls, and those will be mostly be American and French battleships and cruisers. And monk, you know im doing this to get into the hobby, without spending too much money.
Boomer, There's nothing wrong with building a convoy ship (or combat ship) that's likely to be sunk. Trying to keep from being hit and sunk is another way to enjoy the hobby. That's the way I started out, battling my small Class 2 monitor HMS Terror against Curt's Class 6.5 Bismarck and being sunk nearly every time, then battling the long, fast but poorly turning HMS Courageous against Bismarck and being sunk repeatedly. Great fun, except when the water was too cold! Bob
