Plans and prices.

This topic has 35 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated 2 July 2013 at 11:48 by Ian S C.

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30 June 2013 at 11:33 #123478
Mark P.
Participant
@markp
Why are plans and drawings so expensive? I realise that you have to pay for the copyright and such like,and for someones time to do them in the first place, but after all they are only bits of paper, and considering the amount that must have been sold surely they should be getting cheaper.I don't expect something for nothing but £50 + for what amounts to some sheets of paper I feel is extortionate a few quid seem to be more reasonable.But maybe I'm wrong.

Mark P.
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30 June 2013 at 11:33 #22692
Mark P.
Participant
@markp
30 June 2013 at 11:50 #123482
David Jupp
Participant
@davidjupp51506
You also have to pay for the facilities to (large format) print / store / retrieve them. I suspect the 'the amount that must have been sold' isn't actually all that many to spread the costs over.

For each order somebody has to either retrieve existing copies from storage, or 'print on demand' the required sheets, then fold, pack and ship. It all takes time.

If you look at it as buying the designer's time and ingenuity, it's a lot better value than if you think of it as buying paper.

In many ways we are spoilt with so much in the way of plans and designs available for free on-line.
30 June 2013 at 11:55 #123483
NJH
Participant
@njh
Hi Mark

Sure they are "only" bits of paper so the cost of duplication and printing will be small. The amount of work that goes into designing the project and producing the working drawings though will be considerable. The author will need to be paid for that and the supplier of the plans, who will probably have commissioned and paid the author, must arrange their printing and distribution. They are not in it for the love of it and will expect, not unreasonably, to make a profit. What I find totally unacceptable however is that many drawings have errors (see, for example, the reports in the current B1 thread) and these seem to go for ever uncorrected. For your quoted £50 (plus) I would expect at least a list of errors to accompany the drawings. Nothing is more soul destroying than working away for ages on a part only to find that it doesn't fit and must be scrapped! The " You should check it all out before you start" in my book is really not good enough. Are plans with errors "Fit for Purpose" ? In any other sphere faulty goods would qualify for a refund.

Regards

Norman
30 June 2013 at 12:19 #123484
Steve Withnell
Participant
@stevewithnell34426
Why do you assume lots of people have paid £50? why not work directly from the magazine articles as a lot of people do, personally I can't see the need to buy the plans. You might the only bloke that shelled out the £50!

To Norman's point, to overlay the cost of reviewing, updating and maintaining errata against designs which are produced from an Amateur base I think would kill off many interesting & useful designs from seeing the light of day.

What about drawings that are techincal perfect, but the subject has certain features for which the design is poor, but only becomes apparent during build? Does the author get his homework back with a instruction to re-work?

It is after all meant to be model engineering we are about, not hobby kit building.

Steve
30 June 2013 at 12:25 #123485
Gray62
Participant
@gray62
To give an idea of costs, I had a second copy made of my TE plans, Drawings are A1 or slightly larger. 16 sheets cost around £30 to reproduce (Cheapest quote, and unfortunately these guys are no longer in business )
30 June 2013 at 12:33 #123486
Steambuff
Participant
@steambuff
Mark,

I agree with CoalBurner …. Have you had a quote recently print/copy a A0/A1 sheet? You are looking at around £2.50 to £3 +VAT a sheet (Then there is postage costs if not local). That is without the cost of purchasing the rights to publish/sell, then storage costs and profit of course.

So in my view £40 to £50 for say a 10 sheet set is reasonable.

Dave
30 June 2013 at 13:12 #123487
Bazyle
Participant
@bazyle
Still good value compared to the people who want to sell you a plan for a simple tool or oscillator engine and then just expect to email you a file costing them tuppence halfpenny.

Also a lot better value than 'art' where someone takes a perfectly good piece of clean canvas, some paint that could be put to good use, and spends days rendering both worthless and have the cheek to ask £1000 for the rubbish to be removed from their 'gallery'.

Actually there are some TE drawings I might prefer to hang on my walls if only the crappy paper didn't go yellow in a month.
30 June 2013 at 13:12 #123488
Hopper
Participant
@hopper
Not to mention the hours the designer put into the design. How long would it take to design and draw up and dimension say a locomotive or traction engine? Quite possibly 100 hours or more. Last time I had my car worked on (too ill to do it myself) it cost me almost $100 an hour. At that rate, a 100 hour drawing project has got to be worth at least $10,000. They probably only sell maybe a few hundred sets of drawings, so that would work out at $50 a set just to pay the designer wages.

Those who have done it may be able to shed light on how long it takes to draw up a complex model such as a loco.
30 June 2013 at 14:05 #123490
Mark P.
Participant
@markp
I still think that they are over priced,when the initial scale plan has been done and have saved it as a computer file the printing cost is negligible, you could print off 1 or 1000 copies in not much operator time or could they not be sold as a PDF download thereby saving the printing cost? OK someone has to scan them but I feel as they are mostly from the original blue prints/drawings that is not particularly labour intensive to re-scale them,this is only my opinion.

Mark P.
30 June 2013 at 14:14 #123491
Keith Long
Participant
@keithlong89920
Mark

The answer is simple – if you don't like the price then don't buy them!

But I'd suggest that you'd do better coming to terms with the real world and the costs involved.

Previous posters have given you plenty of guidance on this. The costs of having the drawings produced, archived, copied and processed are NOT trivial.

Keith
30 June 2013 at 14:16 #123492
JasonB
Moderator
@jasonb
There are enough dodgy copies of drawings in circulation as it is, making the rest available as PDF will mean a major loss in sales.

Look at it this way a TE or loco could take 1000-1500hrs to complete is 5p an hour much to pay for your enjoyment?

J
30 June 2013 at 14:35 #123495
Mark P.
Participant
@markp
I'm afraid that the real world is the problem,people are expecting and willing to pay over the top prices for things,and do you really need A1/A0 sized drawings? I recently bought a spiral book of fully dimensioned drawings and construction notes/photos of over 100 pages all A4 and very readable for building an air rifle for £25. If more people said no I'm not paying that much just watch the prices fall,as I said before I don't expect something for nothing I am willing to pay a reasonable price.On another tack the prices that ME suppliers charge for materials seem to me to be more than I would expect, OK small quantities will be more than bulk buys but instead of buying for example 300mm of 12mm steel bar why not buy 1000mm a local engineering shop,they are more than willing to sell it to you at a fair price,or even a well known Internet auction site?

Mark P.
30 June 2013 at 15:58 #123497
David Jupp
Participant
@davidjupp51506
Don't confuse the marginal cost of production of drawings with the the 'all up' cost. It's a bit like comparing just the cost of petrol for a journey with the equivalent train or taxi fare (conveniently ignoring the money already put into buying, insuring, taxing, maintaining the car and paying the driver).

The air rifle book raises interesting points – if sizes can be kept 'mainstream' and enough copies produced/sold then both the unit costs of producing fall, and any payment for designer, or element of profit can be spread over a greater number of units.

Some people design / publish 'for the love of it' – some are running a business, some are in between. Don't be surprised that they do their accounting differently.
30 June 2013 at 16:00 #123498
JasonB
Moderator
@jasonb
Multipy the number of parts in an air rifle by 5 to 10 times and the cost of a set of TE plans look quite cheap by comparrison.

As for why are larger sheet sizes needed, imagine trying to look at 5 elevations of a cylinder casting and a couple of sections all on separate pages and trying to relate one to teh other. Or spreading a loco frame over 3 pages or making it so small to get on one page you can't read the dimensions

J
30 June 2013 at 17:11 #123503
NJH
Participant
@njh
Quite so Jason. The drawings were published, along with the text, in ME (when the format of the magazine was far smaller than at present) Possible, I guess, to build just from the mag. but hardly desirable. There are enough complications on a large project without adding to them unnecessarily. £50 or so is pretty small beer compared with the cost of thecastings and materials – and infinitesimal if you count your time! Let's face it ME, especially in the larger sizes, is not a cheap hobby!

N
30 June 2013 at 19:19 #123507
nigel jones 5
Participant
@nigeljones5
Drawings are expensive…..but castings are horrendously expensive…lathes and mills arent cheap, raw materials also not cheap…copper and silver solder, well, dont ask!

This is a financially demanding hobby, to say the least!
30 June 2013 at 19:20 #123508
nigel jones 5
Participant
@nigeljones5
Forgot to mention…babies are far more expensive!!! Childcare £1000 per month…dont get me started!!
30 June 2013 at 19:55 #123511
NJH
Participant
@njh
Hi Fizzy

….and you 'aint seen nothing yet!

The needs of kids just get bigger and bigger and, as they grow older, more and more expensive! Then they leave home ( don't think you are finished then) but you maybe think things will quieten down and then a whole new expense of Grandbrats arrive…. but hey – what else do you have to spend your dough on? ….. and you've already found out they are worth it!

N
30 June 2013 at 20:06 #123512
Danny M2Z
Participant
@dannym2z
G'day

I have had a few model aircraft plans published here in Oz.

Never was paid a razoo for the articles, the plans are on sale for $20-$30 by the magazine (+postage). I can take the same plan to a local mob on a memory stick and get a laser printed A0 copy for $3.50.

I have always suspected that selling plans was a lucrative way to pay for somebodys beemer

Regards from the land of the kangaroo

Cu Later * Danny M *
30 June 2013 at 21:00 #123514
John Rudd
Participant
@johnrudd16576
I may be speaking out of turn here and quite frankly I couldnt care any the less……

But…I agree it does cost to produce a plan for whatever it is…and agree it does cost to reproduce it….

Why do we pay extortionate prices then? Because we want to or because we have to?

All down to market forces and being greedy I'm afraid……and that's the world we live in.

' If I can make a buck or two from something I will' Its called being enterprising but overcharging…thats greed! I support the OP…

Do you buy MEW because you want it…..at the price it is?

I rest my case……

I expect my post will be censored because it is not what people accepts as being 'moral'

Outspoken is often met with criticism…but then we do live in a world where free speech is permitted?

Edited By John Rudd on 30/06/2013 21:00:50

Edited By John Rudd on 30/06/2013 21:04:01

Edited By John Rudd on 30/06/2013 21:06:57
30 June 2013 at 23:34 #123516
nigel jones 5
Participant
@nigeljones5
still a rip off…can i get a refund for all the errors in my drawings…..nope!!!
1 July 2013 at 00:34 #123517
jason udall
Participant
@jasonudall57142
Mr Rudd. As to censorship…differing opinions seem to tolerated.. here….btw I sort of agree..part of the PRICE of plans is reproduction cost ..part “stock holding of originals” part “intellectual property”
And part “what the market will bear”
.as has been said plans for a model for ?50 seems to bear no relation to value of paper on said plans..ever bought any music?.
1 July 2013 at 00:42 #123518
jason udall
Participant
@jasonudall57142
Gaah! do Ihate this editor. ….as I was saying..music is a good comparison to plans…I mean it’s just notes isn’t it?
In boat building you can often buy “study” plans for a nominal amount refundable when ordering full plans..these give you a chance to decide in an informed manner prior to shelling out for the full set…
1 July 2013 at 00:50 #123520
Hopper
Participant
@hopper
Posted by Danny M2Z on 30/06/2013 20:06:55:

G'day

I have had a few model aircraft plans published here in Oz.

Never was paid a razoo for the articles, the plans are on sale for $20-$30 by the magazine (+postage). I can take the same plan to a local mob on a memory stick and get a laser printed A0 copy for $3.50.

I have always suspected that selling plans was a lucrative way to pay for somebodys beemer

Regards from the land of the kangaroo

Cu Later * Danny M *

Unless you signed a waiver giving the magazine copyright ownership of your plans, you should be due a cut of the profits from the sale of your plans. The Australian Copyright Council will be able to give your more info.
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