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How many hours does it take you to finish a kit


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I couldn't imagine any way in the world I could keep track of or determine how many hours I have into a build. I wouldn't even want to know.

Ken

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Well, lets see...

I just finished the Encore Olympia and that took me just shy of 3 months. Now I only get to build on weekends and then only about 4 hours a day.

That's about 8 hours a week, and lets call it 8 weeks, so that's approx. 64 hours for that build. Sounds about average now that I think about it.

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I'm guessing around 100-200 hours. If you add in the research portion, you can double or triple that number. I don't time my builds but I did note that it took me approx 6 hours to build a couple of small avionics boxes for the back of my AH-6C Little Bird. Not sure if that means I'm an awesome builder or just incredibly slooooow. Probably the latter.

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That is for the A-4.... LMAO you don't want to know what you have to do for the Phantom..... And yes vote for the NDP crossed my mind..... LMAO

Wow, I couldn't even lie about voting yes for the NDP. Thats one hard challenge.

Edited by phantom
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I don't know about hours, but I rate mine in years. I do know that it is roughly about 60-100 hours for most kits and 100+ for the super detailed kits depending on the scale.

Dave Fassett

Edited by Bulldog 09
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My models take typically a year to build, which means 9 months (270 days) of actual modeling if I take off 3 months for vacation, etc. Average work per day is about 2 hours, but I have been known many times to spend 6-8 hours modeling on a Saturday, so my best guess is 500-600 hours per model. Like putting together a gas BBQ, I could re-build these models in half that time if I knew what I was doing the second time around, but that never happens because once I'm finished a model, I rarely do another one like it. 500 hours seems like a crazy length of time on just one model, but I break up each build into several "mini-models" of the cockpit, engines, whatever, so that each stage is a separate project in itself to keep me interested.

A lot of this "modeling" is doing research and posting WIP threads here on ARC, so the real time spent handling plastic is probably 350-400 hours per model- and I have yet to get tired or burned out on a project! :thumbsup:

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Lack of time and life gets in the way.....

Emil

I'd like to second this sentiment. You could time each of my builds with a calendar, not a clock. I sure would love to be able to devote more time to the hobby which I love. But on the other side of that coin, spreading a build out over months or even a year or more means that I won't really get burned out on it. I can work on it for a couple of hours over the weekend and then I can retreat from it for a while. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? When life allows me to delve back into it several weeks later, I can do it with a renewed enthusiasm.

At the same time, since it takes me so long, it means that if I'm going to do something, it is in my best interest to do it right the first time around. I don't even want to think about how long it would take me to complete a model if I had to go back and fix a screw up. That's not to say I haven't buggered up a model. I botched up a paint job and it was probably a good year before I felt the motivation to go back and strip the entire airframe. When I did strip it, I did it over the course of a couple of months on and off. Life just gets in the way. I love my hobby but I love my family even more. They come first.

Eric

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When I build MY last 2 model , One was 1:144 scale..that took no more than two days.

My 1:48 scale build took a while as I was building it while on duty ..the model was not built

at home but it took ME almost a year... :rolleyes:

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I've never timed a model, and would never think of starting. It's a HOBBY, for pity's sake; start putting a stopwatch on it, and FUN goes out of the window.

Edgar

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30 hours spaced out over 4 -6 months. Thats just time sitting at the bench, I don't get to my workbench as often as I like. It takes about 60 hours to figure out what I want to build next.

Geoff

Edited by Geoff Murphy
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I already have 40 hours into an EA-6B I am building and I have only glued like 4 pieces together. I am trying new techniques and refining old ones at the same time too though. The last Prowler I built I had about 200-250 hours on. getting everything together just to tear it apart and do it again differently because of something you forgot :bandhead2: or having second thoughts of doing something cool looking that you didn't think of from the get go. lol Thats my problem I always think about the cool looking things after the model is built. Then comes out the Ax. :doh:

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To those guys who take years, decades, whatever to finish. Is it simply due to a lack of time, or do you have some secret meticulousness that makes your models awesome?

No secret. I'm so ham fisted that I often have to do things several times to get them right. My strength is patience, not skill, and understanding that the things I ***** up won't get better by being ignored. But it makes every model a long term project.

Shane

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Add me to the years/decades list. It's definitely lack of time, as none of my models could be considered awesome, especially when they are all partially built!

I have three young kids and they break things faster than I can fix them. Add kids activities, normal house and car maintenance, a wife that also works full time, and all the other daily/weekly/monthly chores and I'm down to about 10 minutes of free time a day, right before I pass out.

And even if I did have more time, I have other hobbies to squeeze in like backpacking, camping, reading, etc. I find that I won't touch a model for six months, get the bug again and make some progress, then drop it for another 6 months.

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To those guys who take years, decades, whatever to finish. Is it simply due to a lack of time, or do you have some secret meticulousness that makes your models awesome?

I ask because I find that after my 30-40 hour average (spread out over anything ranging from two weeks to several months), my builds end up being only ok. I don't think I have a single finished model that doesn't have some lamely hidden dork-up or two on it.

I tend to get half way through a project then one of two things happens:

1. I come up against a problem (with the kit, or of my own doing) and put it away to solve later and forget about it.

Or

2. I find another model that I like better and make a start on that, and leave the first one to 'finish later'

To try and finish a model I have just bought a 1:144 AV-8B which once I have opened the box I am not going to look at another kit. (small model, bigger chance of finishing it) Fingers crossed it will get finished!!

Al

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thought about this a lot and I really don't have answer. Im getting more efficient but the types of models I do really cause variance. I kit bash, or its a complex scheme, I rarely if ever build OOB and since I do what ifs there arent really instructions, a bad day with a razor saw can add hours...

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Thought about this a lot and I really don't have answer. Im getting more efficient but the types of models I do really cause variance. I kit bash, or its a complex scheme, I rarely if ever build OOB and since I do what ifs there arent really instructions, a bad day with a razor saw can add hours...

Ain't that the truth. So can a bad few minutes with a paint brush.

:cheers:,

Ross.

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I got the fuselage closed and wings on my Airfix F4D over the weekend. You know, the one for the "Ghost Town" group build that ended a month ago? I'd guess it's got about 50 hours in it now. No superdetailing but a lot of tweaking. Depending on what I decide to do with the landing gear it's got maybe 20 more hours.

That's probably about par for me on a 1/72 single or twin. Maybe half that for a 1/72 armor piece or a 1/12 scale bike.

Not that I've completed a statisitically significant sample over the last ten years...

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