I want to know how much time some of you spend on a build. Now there some who spend a lot of time I know. Then here’s everyone else. Myself, Well, I have been known to spend as much as five years on a build. Why? I don’t spend all my time on one subject.
A good For instance is the Paper Model Ship I have been writing about. Why? I have to create a bunch of small parts for it. Sooo-I got out my Model RailRoad refinery supplies and started sorting them for use on the ship. She requires a lot. I still don’t know how much time the designers spent on the Prototype, but I bet it was an awesome amount of time. I took a rest and worked on the Dash and Door panels on my 56 Chrysler 300.
It is now entering it’s second year. The Anthracite paint was the hardest. Four thin coats of the shiniest Black I could get. Then two frost coats of Anthracite( It’s transluscent anyway!) and one very thin coat of Clear gloss. let set for five months in a dustproof container in the garage. Exposed to High Heat and Extreme Cold.
I buffed it out by hand last week and it was like buffing a rock! The paint was very hard. But she Buffed out to a gorgeous realistic shine. Now for Foil Chrome and the Molotow treatment. I have been known to spend as much as seventeen months on a client model for Court.That doesn’t happen anymore. To Intense!
It seems like they get slower as time goes on. As a kid, they took an hour and the glue was still soft when I was playing with them. As a teen, maybe a few days. Now, I sometimes work on a project for 10 minutes and sometimes several hours, so the entire model may take months. I don’t think I’ve hit a year, but might on my 1:32 F-16 when I start that.
I think that I have three or four factors that come into play for time spent on a build: 1, the complexity/parts count of a kit; 2, how many changes that I will make to kit, either AM or scratch work; 3, how many projects I have going on at that time- is this a solo project, or am I rotating thru multiple builds at once.
Two additional contributing factors: how many distractions do I get from bench time? Being on a trip or having visitors come over; and lastly, do I lose interest in the project, run out of steam from my modeling muse, or hit some major problem along the way, forcing a sidelining of the build.
I can still turn out a quick build, weekend, week length on occasion. But most of my current projects take weeks or more commonly, months.
How long does it take? A better question is, “How many builds wind up on the Shelf of Doom?” I have some builds that have languished for 10, 11, 12 years.
By contrast, the fastest build I’ve done, since returning to building models, is a build that took about 12 hours, spread over three weeks.
Even for the most complex projects, I’ve rarely spent more than six months on a build. I used to occasionally build industrial models to order, so I guess I just got in the habit of time-scaling to a reasonable schedule; a client didn’t want to hear that you’d lost interest or didn’t feel like modeling that day.
Having said all that, the same limit broadly applies to most personal projects – although there are a very few that I’ve started…then put aside for as much as five or ten years, before suddenly getting the ‘lightning strike’ impulse to go back and finish them off. I think the old Revell Ford Futura-to-1966 (TV) Batmobile conversion hit about that 10-year mark, before getting the sudden mj to complete the project in all its nostalgic glory.
I generally do not build a kit from start to finish at one time anymore, but generally work in spurts on a kit for a couple weeks then set it to the side for another, then return to the original in a couple weeks/months.
The weather also ties in to build speed, the colder it is out, the slower my fingers work. I can only do my rattle can painting outdoors, so in WI it leaves the painting window from May to October.
The last couple years I have started and finished 5 to 7 each year though, of varying scales. I’d estimate 1/48 and larger take two or three months in total, 1/72 armor and planes are knocked out in a month. 1/700 ships about 2 months, depending on the amount of PE and paint scheme. The smaller scales are my cold month builds, since I can brush paint them.
Several more astute replies above, it depends. One rule I sick to is two stash between one new. It does pick up the pace. And not a rule, but one off the SOD every four or five other models.
As far as storage space, I either give away or throw away my completed models so it doesn’t factor in.
I have too many other interests. I can also be lazy. I’ve had some sitting on the shelf for 15 years or more. Probably an average time is six to eight months, depending on the complexity.
From now to infinity. Some simple aircraft kits, like the Lindberg racing planes go together in less than a week. I am still working on a couple of ships that I started years ago, and though they are on my shelves of doom, I do occasionally work on them, so I hope they are not doomed. But for complicated ship kits the answer seems to be- approaching infinity. It depends soooo much on the kit. Mephistofele took me four months.
That’s partly how I end up with so many builds on the SoD. I’ll do the same thing, get into a pace, and work on several builds at once. Sometimes I can do some steps in assembly-line fashion, as appropriate. Or I’ll work on one build while another is waiting for glue to cure, paint to dry, decals to set, etc. But if I hit the wall on a build, it’s enough to make me lose interest and stop, and then never get back to it.
I have been so busy since I retired. I have no idea why I am so busy, but I am. Because of that, it takes a while to finish a build. It took over 3 months to finish my Ferrari 312T.
The longest maybe 3 months, shortest time about a month. I started about 2 months ago on 3 builds, completed 2 and started 3 others so I have 4 active builds as of now. Not rushing work but looks like maybe 2 months or less for their completion.
Yeah, I think about it in terms of hours, too. Start and finish dates are one measure, but we’re not working on the build in all that time.
It’s like any other project: it has a start date and a due date, by which the project is expected to be finished; and hours expended. If we delve into project management, we can go one step further and think about estimated hours and actual hours.
Those old builds I referred to, they went long past their original projected finish dates, but I probably haven’t spent more than 8 or 12 hours on any given one.
Heh…I don’t even want to think about how many hours I put into a modeling project. As far as the length of my projects goes, I think the 1/32 F-16CJ took about a year from start to finish if I take out the time gaps where I wasn’t working on it. I remember the other thread where we were all talking about how much we’re willing to spend on a model, and I agree with the connection between price and hours spent. The more time spent on the pricey models, the better the bang-for-the-buck. The current 1/32 Su-25 project is about 500 parts if I don’t include all of the extra armament I won’t be using, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll have it done by the year deadline of the group build I’m building it for. I’ll certainly try, but I’m not going to rush anything, and I want to get it as close to perfection as my current skills will allow.