Originally Posted by Espeefan
It's a difficult question to answer. Often times you can look at something - a single part, or a complete model - without fully realizing the investment in tooling, equipment, time, talent, and materials to create such things. There is a lot behind the scenes, backing these builds up, that you might not consider.
It might not be so much a question of asking if it's cost prohibitive to just buy a model, or instead buy the shop equipment you need build your own. I think it's more a question of do you have the will, time, desire, skills, learning ability, and patience required to do it? Shop equipment and the skills to run to make what you need is an investment. The models themselves, not so much.
You can work for yourself for free, but you'll pay through the nose to have someone else build a model from scratch for you. Such talent and skills is expensive. Consider that fact that if you had the ability, you'd do it yourself, but if you want someone else to do it for you, it is going to cost you! If it comes down to you deciding to have someone build it for you, vs. just buying a readily available model, I'd say the readily available model is the better deal. Unless you want something that no else has, or you are well off and can afford it.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of these scratchbuilt models could be valued at $10-$15K, or more. Maybe no one would spend that much to purchase it, if it was put on the market, but I'd wager some of the more elaborate models cost at least that, in time and materials alone.
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