Hello I was curious if anyone has any idea how much tooling costs to produce a brand new diesel engine. For this example let’s use Lionel’s ES44AC. How much would the tooling cost to be made by manufacturers in the US
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I do not know, but US MFGR. cannot compete with Chinese MFGR. because the Chinese GOVT. provides subsidies in the Billions(estimates) to favored Chinese companies!
I can’t speak for the model train market but I can speak from my professional experience of designing injection molded products. The company I work at purchases all our molds from China because no other tooling shops can touch them on price and still deliver high quality tooling. I have been told that tooling built in the US runs 3-4 times what a Chinese mold will. It gets even worse as mold complexity goes up (slides, lifters, complex cooling, etc.).
A mold about the size needed for the main portion of a diesel shell, single cavity, would likely be in the $25-40k range from China. Bear in mind that diesel shells usually are not one piece when we’re talking about hood units. The cab is generally a second piece along with dynamic brake cluster and all the various detail parts. The detail parts could be done as a family mold to save some cost. I imagine a Chinese set of molds to do the whole shell would be a $75-100k investment. After that, you still have the truck sides, fuel tank, and pilots. Since these parts are usually diecast, those tools are going to be pricier. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for the total tooling cost to be in the 200-250k price range. In the US you’d probably be looking at a 700-800k investment.
I have heard that excuse , for using , China for manufacturing for decades. All it accomplished , is building up the peoples republic. and the pocket books of American industry, There are many places world wide , where the work can be done including here
@Dave Koehler posted:I have heard that excuse , for using , China for manufacturing for decades. All it accomplished , is building up the peoples republic. and the pocket books of American industry, There are many places world wide , where the work can be done including here
This is destined to be another dead horse beating, I'm afraid.
This topic could only be resolved with real data from an acknowledged sourcing member of the hobby. And that isn't going to happen...because it's really none of our business. Speculation is the stuff of dreams and biases. Sure, there are lots of other places...worldwide, "including here"...but at what costs? And with what level of machine and skilled labor capital???? At at what level of profitability to provide the die makers a comfortable, competitive living income (At any national standard)? Manufacturing altruism for the toy train industry is...IMHO...a laughable absurdity.
And it's a changing business. The injection molding die making approach is really 'old tech', old skills. For a questionable...declining??...market for a new O toy/scale diesel locomotive, you'd be foolish to not consider 3D printing. If not now, would you bet against further improvements in the growth of the technology making it increasingly competitive?? I wouldn't. Look at what incredible things are done in 3D printing! And it's hardly reached the same level of maturity that traditional injection molding die making has achieved.
Speculation. Opinions. Druthers. Blathers. And, since I'm no "expert" on the matter, either, this bit of stale toast to go with the morning joe is just another piece of the pile.
Moving on...
KD
Chinese industry is funded by the Chinese government. No way we can compete with them.
U S manufacturing should have never gotten invested over there to start with. All we have done
is helped make them a super power. As stated 3D printing would be the cheapest way to do this
but your 3D printer is most likely made in China.
Many years ago, when one of the HO scale mfg companies came out with a nice injection molded PRR H21 hopper. I contacted the mfg and asked about the possibility of doing the car in O scale. The answer came back, "send a check for $75K for the mold and we will start". The HO model was a one piece body casting so it is assumed he was referring to similar molds for an O scale version.
This was probably 20-25 years ago. With inflation and higher labor costs everywhere, this gives an idea about what an O scale molds would cost. The estimate above of 200-250k in China seems pretty accurate.
I wish we as a country weren't buying as much from China - it hurts our country in many ways.
But here is another example of how the business works. I had a good friend who ran a hobby business. He wanted to bring out new F Unit diesels, He had the body molds made and wanted to make brass trucks. He sent out request for quotes to all the brass casters he knew about in the US. The best answer he got was one return that they would consider a quote maybe in 18-24 months. Someone gave him a contact in China. He faxed a drawing to the China contact and asked if they had any interest and what they needed. He said he was totally shocked, they not only quoted, but sent him a prototype in less than a month! He said he said he had no options but to use the company.
I have some interest in British trains and subscribe to Railway Modeller. Recently, several manufacturers have released locomotives (steam and diesel) in OO which use new tooling. Since demand for OO is mostly limited to Britain, I wonder how they manage to cover the costs, especially since OO locos sell for less money than O scale. It would be interesting to know how the size of the OO market in Britain compares to the O-gauge market in the US.
I can see this topic getting into politics ... and to a small extent, it already has so keep it on track. Frankly, unless someone directly knowledgeable in our hobby, "estimates" of the costs could be off tens of thousands of dollars.
The title of this thread is straight, to the point, and not political. Why is it then that most of our comments are political in nature? This is a sure way to get the whole thread torpedoed by the moderators.
It's not about China's policies, or minimum wage, or anything else related to policy and politics. It is a 'what-if' about what it would cost to develop tooling in the U.S.
I agree that none of us may be able to answer the OP's question, especially since we don't as a group have the skills, talents, or experiences with the manufacturing of small electromechanical consumer products. However our comments, when they're focused on the question asked, like the one about 3D printing for example, are quite important.
Please keep threads from getting axed. We've lost too many good ones already.
Mike
@dkdkrd posted:And it's a changing business. The injection molding die making approach is really 'old tech', old skills. For a questionable...declining??...market for a new O toy/scale diesel locomotive, you'd be foolish to not consider 3D printing. If not now, would you bet against further improvements in the growth of the technology making it increasingly competitive?? I wouldn't. Look at what incredible things are done in 3D printing! And it's hardly reached the same level of maturity that traditional injection molding die making has achieved.
I'm guessing that it'll be some time before 3D printing will compete with volume production using injection molding. Unless you're producing a very small run, i.e. less than 100 units, it would take forever to print the whole shell of a diesel for the production run. Yes, the molds are expensive, but the piece parts cost is peanuts.
Henning's Trains makes injection molded and diecast parts, I can't even imagine them 3D printing a few thousand ZW handles or the like! 3D printing is great, but it's not a panacea for any large quantity production.
Traditional tooling cut from a block of steel is quite expensive. I work in fabrication and our tooling cuts steel instead of holding plastic but nonetheless, the cost of a tool and die maker is substantial. Our tooling is made here in the US. Material costs have been rough over the last 5 years in particular and that has affected my prices more than anything. Then there's the effects of the supply chains. I can't put an exact dollar on it but I can say it's out of reach for the hobbyist. I'm going to imagine a very simple die* that stamps shells from sheet steel. Based on other products we buy dies for, I suspect we could get it made here for $25,000-$30,000.
I've been wondering what alternative routes to tooling might exist. Maybe 3D printing a prototype, then using that to produce a sand/plaster mold and then casting a shell/trucks/chassis. I think you would lose money in the fancy gating system you would need to pressurize the liquid metal to get the details (as opposed to plain die cast). I don't have any experience casting brass, zinc, pewter, etc so I'm just assuming you would need gating to pressurize the metal delivery to get those fine details. I could definitely be wrong.
Truthfully, I'd be more interested in finding out how much research has gone into alternative methods of production compared to getting real numbers on tooling costs for current methods of production.
*For my fellow fab shop people keeping score at home, I'm imagining a two piece die forming an F-Unit shell without holes for windows/vents/etc. Just making the basic diesel body shape. I based this on a die I bought that made a U shaped piece from steel. It was $12000 and I'm factoring in that we have a hood involved now if we're making diesels. I didn't run actual costs. I just estimated based on my purchases.
Ryan Kunkle of Lionel has commented on tooling costs and for a locomotive, entirely new tooling is in the hundreds of thousands according to what I recall him stating. That's probably true for both China and Korea, is my guess, as they have been the main suppliers of new tooling over the last few decades. Jason Shron of Rapido has also discussed this issue with not much lower costs for their HO locomotives.
What does the tooling look like, and what is it made of?
@Frank Mulligan posted:What does the tooling look like, and what is it made of?
It's made of steel (tool steel for the working surfaces in most cases). The dies I know of look like a bunch of steel blocks bolted together.
So it looks like a big block of steel.
@Frank Mulligan posted:What does the tooling look like, and what is it made of?
Tell you what... Go to your favorite search engine, type in "Injection molding die image", and scroll away. And think about the skills, machinery, design effort, etc., etc., that went into the making of those various complicated assemblies.
Oh, BTW... Since the plastic pellets must be melted before they can be forcibly injected into the maze of nooks and crannies throughout the die, the dies most often must be cooled...with a complementary system of internal water channels to maintain the die temperature at its ideal. Too cool, you could get 'short shots'. Too hot, the part could deform...or the material degrade...at ejection from the die.
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GRJ... Re 3D. I'm an optimist about evolving technologies. That it can be done at all is an eye-opener to this old phart of a bygone era. As the smartest minds continue to refine and improve, I've learned to not be under surprised at the leaps and bounds that nascent technology goes through on its way to 'maturity'...and replacement by something even more astounding. Think battery technology...as applied to hobbies.
Also, big things can be replicated using smaller pieces assembled...a thought starter for comparing the two part-making technologies under discussion.
All of which is a better show than most of what Hollywood produces these days...IMHO, of course, of course!
KD
@Frank Mulligan posted:What does the tooling look like, and what is it made of?
Take a look at this factory tour video that Mike Wolf did for Trainworld a few years ago. Tooling shows up about four minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYNl1D1hdMo
After seeing MTH video and all the guesstimated costs of new tooling I’d say Ogauge is still a bargain.
@dkdkrd posted:GRJ... Re 3D. I'm an optimist about evolving technologies. That it can be done at all is an eye-opener to this old phart of a bygone era. As the smartest minds continue to refine and improve, I've learned to not be under surprised at the leaps and bounds that nascent technology goes through on its way to 'maturity'...and replacement by something even more astounding. Think battery technology...as applied to hobbies.
Well, I don't want my diesel models blowing up like the new batteries! 
Does this mean that G scale locomotives tooling is at around 1 million since G scale is larger
Do you think G scale molds from China would be more than 200-250, less than or equal to?
I was thinking G may be cheaper because mostly everything is plastic. The wheels are plastic, the fuel tank is plastic etc
The tooling for injection molded plastic is still going to be steel. It will probably last longer than die cast or steel stamping tooling but it's still steel.
It's also still complicated to machine. I don't know how much different cost would be for G Scale though.
As of being a company that makes new parts and only has them done here in the US only it's not cheap to have molds made or replaced when needed. A single stage mold that is extremely simple can cost between 15 to 35 thousand dollars to have made dependentupon complexity. Tooling for a new locomotive can run up to half million dollars. Because there are up to and can be over 100 pieces of Tooling to be made for one engine along with the engineering to be sure that everything fits together as needed.
Unfortunately companies spend half that overseas with companies that are geared up to do so.
Could it be done here in states yes. We just need companies to commit to being geared to do just that all the time.
@Diego posted:I was thinking G may be cheaper because mostly everything is plastic. The wheels are plastic, the fuel tank is plastic etc
It is more expensive. You need larger dies, or you must design all of the parts to be in smaller pieces which can be combined into the larger model. Not to mention, the market share is smaller than O gauge and a lot smaller than HO. The volume of the model is roughly 8x that of O scale, and 64x that of HO, which means shipping and storage of the models (which doesn't involve tooling directly) also costs more.
And many G scale car and engine have metal parts too.
Do you guys think tooling for 53ft containers would cost under 20,000 for USA
Fun video!
That’s great overall video. and gives you some , idea Of mass production of An HO locomotive . in which 10' of thousands can me produced over the life injection Die's. Remember 0 gauge is a fraction of that size in over all numbers , both in 2 rail and in 3 rail.
@Diego posted:I was thinking G may be cheaper because mostly everything is plastic. The wheels are plastic, the fuel tank is plastic etc
What makes you think every thing is made in plastic in G Scale?
@Erik C Lindgren posted:Fun video!
Gives you real insight why tooling costs so much! 
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Gives you real insight why tooling costs so much!
Amazing and absolutely the benchmark and innovative, Drayton is such a modern legend in the industry. Wouldn't it be nice to see this is 1/48 😊🙄🤭 We need some more buyers. 🤣
As a recently retired mechanical design engineer, I just want to say the statements and cost estimates made above are correct.
All the companies, and the employees I worked with wish that we could still make everything in the USA. Unfortunately to stay in business, the only option is to go "off shore". My career spanned the 45 years from "wholly" made in american products, to where we are today. This is not a political statement, this is fact. Yes politics played into this issue, but literally "the die was cast" (pun intended) many years ago. The geo-political factors can't all be blamed on one person or political party. The world has evolved.
As far as any "all new" O Scale products, the business model Sunset/3rd is using seems to be working. I am not a personal friend of Scott, and have not discussed this with him, but believe that he is not really getting "filthy rich".
Lionel can support the high end, by selling the Lionchief Products. Those products are marketed largely on "Branding", the new millenium way to build a business. Also they have used dies they purchased for pennies on the dollar for the high end stuff.
Atlas similarly can float the O products off the HO. "Charging and arm and a leg" for their track products helps.
Menards is interesting. John has the resources and the reputation, of "doing what he wants, how he wants", "darn the critics".
The current state of O scale manufactures is not for the "faint of heart." Feel fortunate we have the choices we still do. It is only because of dedicated people that want to make it happen. None of these players are doing it "to make a fortune". All of them are WAY TOO SMART to think that.
Just my armchair perspective.
You are absolutely right about most business owners in the model train industry (especially O) not getting rich off this hobby. Most are happy if they can be profitable enough to make a living they can get by on. It takes a strong passion for the hobby to want to start a business in model trains. No rational minded entrepreneur would ever start a model train business because they think they could get rich, there are far more lucrative opportunities out there with less risk involved. Lionel’s prices are likely so high because the company is run by business execs that have a profit model with margins that must be met.
When I worked at a train store, a common saying was “how do you make a small fortune owning a train store? Start with a large fortune.”
I have had a number of cool ideas for products that may be neat for for the marketplace but the financial cost/risk/amount of work to pursue them coupled with my shortage of time and the small financial reward keep me from actually putting forth the effort. I have great respect for the people who actually follow through with their visions and start boutique businesses in this hobby. These are the business that frequently have the innovative products and add interest and character to the hobby because they sell products or services for hobbyists by hobbyists.
@MainLine Steam posted:The current state of O scale manufactures is not for the "faint of heart." Feel fortunate we have the choices we still do. It is only because of dedicated people that want to make it happen. None of these players are doing it "to make a fortune". All of them are WAY TOO SMART to think that.
Well, I know that Mike Wolf was a real train person, and Scott Mann certainly is as well. However, the top management at Lionel that are calling the shots seem more in it for the money than any love of the hobby.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, I know that Mike Wolf was a real train person, and Scott Mann certainly is as well. However, the top management at Lionel that are calling the shots seem more in it for the money than any love of the hobby.
You know a lot more about this hobby and it's history than I do. So I will defer to you on this. I definitely don't know about the Top management at Lionel.
Somewhat off the subject, but think it deserves mention. I did have an extended conversation with Dave Olsen (Lionel Director of Engineering) at the Amherst Show in January, and can definitely say he has a passion for what he is doing. Likewise when I worked as an Engineer I was passionate about my work. I also wanted my employer to be successful, so I could "pay the rent". Now I don't know his relationship to the owners. But he does seem to be very proud of the work he does, as well he should be.
I think Dave is certainly a train person, I thinking more of the bean counters that hold the wheel.
