diecast vs brass

daylight posted:

Hopefully this topic hasn't been beat to death but is it less costly to do a steam engine in diecast vs brass given the exact same engine with the same detail.   If true why is it less costly

I use to think that brass engines had a higher resale value vs diecast but don't think that any more.

 

Thank you

Die-cast unit-cost can be less costly than a pure brass loco (don't forget that almost all those nice details on scale zinc locos are added-on brass parts) if the size of the run is large enough. 

The set-up costs for die-cast items is larger than that for formed-brass work. I don't know where the production number lines on the graph cross.

Brass has a higher labor cost per unit than does die cast. That labor cost decreases only slightly or not at all no matter how many units are produced.

MELGAR

I bet Scott Mann can tell you.  It is probably close to brass vs. plastic, and Scott has precise numbers on that.  My guess is 100 Diesels is the break point.  Lionel has the steam computations, but you could guess by seeing how many brass superstructures Lionel produces?

Diecast requires very costly tooling to make the dies.    So to keep the price reasonable, you need a larger production run.    With brass the work is done with simple fixtures and jigs, the tooling cost is relatively very low.     Labor goes the other way, the brass is all manual labor while the big pieces on diecast are done as chunks.     

Now with all the add-on details mentioned above, there is still quite a bit of manual work on diecast, but generally the major pieces such as boiler, with basic details, cab, tender shell, frame etc are cast and handed to the assembler.    With Brass these would be fabricated and require more labor.   

As mentioned the cost per unit for brass does not really go down as much for longer runs as does diecast.    Brass when talking scale models vs toys however does still require the research and engineering to the get the dimensions right to make an accurate model.     It seems with diecast, this is sometimes done, and sometimes not so much.    

I don't know the numbers but I think with a brass steamer Scott can do a run of 100 or so while I think with diecast the mfg would need to talk in terms of at least 1000.   

I asked one maker some  years ago who was doing an HO PRR H21 hopper, if he would do one in O also.   His reply was that he would start when I gave him a check for $75k.    At that time that was he estimated the molds for injection plastic would cost.    That was more than 10 years ago.    So today it might be 125k-150k for a freight car mold.    I think a diecast die/mold would be in the same price range.    They both require detailed machine work on a block of steel to make a mold.     So if a single  unit is 125k a steamer and tender might be 250k.     If we assume you could sell this for $1000,  you would have to 250 just to pay for the tooling, before labor, design, packaging and all the rest - plus you have to make a profit.     There are just big number involved.

Honestly I wish they made die-cast as kits and let US add the details / final assembly.  Probably would solve some of the quality control bugaboos too.  Depending on the design, the chassis and drivers would probably have to be already assembled at the factory.  Speaking of which, if anyone has a 700K lying around that they don't feel like building, ship it to me!  

Ted S posted:

Honestly I wish they made die-cast as kits and let US add the details / final assembly.  Probably would solve some of the quality control bugaboos too.  Depending on the design, the chassis and drivers would probably have to be already assembled at the factory.  Speaking of which, if anyone has a 700K lying around that they don't feel like building, ship it to me!  

You mean like we used to do "back in the day" in HO scale... 

Mark in Oregon

Yeah, and "back in the day in HO", we could get all these different little steamers....as long as they weren't zamac and came with warped castings like some did!

Ted S posted:

Honestly I wish they made die-cast as kits and let US add the details / final assembly.  Probably would solve some of the quality control bugaboos too.  Depending on the design, the chassis and drivers would probably have to be already assembled at the factory.  Speaking of which, if anyone has a 700K lying around that they don't feel like building, ship it to me!  

I bet there are fewer than 100 O gauge hobbyists out there interested in building steam locomotive kits of powered models. Even in the HO world, which is a much larger market, the kit makers have either transformed into RTR models (Bowser) or disappeared entirely (Mantua). Kit sales nose-dived in the hobby a very long time ago.

And kit manufacturing saves no money in tooling costs. Plus, the need for careful production, sorting and packaging of so many small detail parts nearly offsets the cost of assembly. You would only see a small discount for unassembled locomotives.