CUSTOMIZING HOBBY

Hello fellow collectors... Just wanna share with you guys how custom diecast are done.

Customizing diecast  is not an easy work.. its time consuming customising and designing a single diecast and not to mention tools n equipments needed.

Let me share the tools n things you need if you wanted to start customizing yourself..

1. Drill - a portable battery drill is need here, it can be a normal electric drill but for us customizer we prefer portable drill. Cost of the drill bnd $70-$100 

 

2. Paint stripper - normal thinner will cost bnd $7 per bottle

3. Spray paint - primer paint is needed before we spray the colour paint according to the client request. Primer usually cost bnd $4.50. Clear coating spray is also needed for the finishing. This cost bnd$4.50 per can.

spray paint varies from different brand and  colour, its up to the client to choose the colour. A normal spay paint bnd$4.50 per can. If two tone colour example BRE racing, u need 2 colour can white n red.. bnd$4.50 x 2. Tamiya spray paint will be a bit pricey but worthit. cost bnd$8- $15 per can.

4. Decals- it depends on what the client wants. For the decal paper itself have 4 types. Inkjet n bubblejet decal, white and clear. Pricewise.. bnd$7 per A4 paper. A good detailed decal will need a good printer. We customizers prefer inkjet printers. Printers which cost bnd$400 at least.

This is not including designing of decals. Some of us use adobe photoshop, some uses adobe illustrators. For me, i used adobe photoshop. It is not easy for a person who is new to photoshop editing to edit n design a decal. Normally decals we charge bnd$5 - $8

5. Diecast - this depends on the client. The price of the diecast is depends on the market price. japanese  cars diecast like Gtr r34 , datsuns 510, 620, frs, honda civic, etc.. will cost about bnd$10 each. This price depends on the market value of the diecast.

6. Wheels swap- this wheel swap depends on the clients request. Wheels of the original diecast are stock rims. It will be better if we put in rubber tyres with chrome rims o gold rims, depends on the custom diecast. 

Where did we get the rubber tyres??? Well most of the rubber tyres are taken from real riders casting, bolevard, super thunt, retro casting. Say for example, If the client wants a rim that matches the customize diecast, we have to drill it off from a bolevard series casting. The bolevard series usually cost retail value bnd$9.90 each. We drill it off, took the wheels n left the casting for scrap. Some customizers took the wheels from a JADA diecast just to make the customize diecast looks good. Some customizer customize their rims to a so called "deep dish" rims which requires 2 sets of rims to make this.

From this six steps, one customize diecast will be created.. Lets us look at the total price of creating one custom diecast:

1. Diecast - bnd$10

2. Paint stripper - bnd$4.50

3. Spray can primer - bnd$4.50 

4. Spray can clear coat - bnd$4.50

5. Spray paint colour -bnd$4.50 for one colour

6. Decals -bnd$5

7. Wheels bnd$9.90

Roughly = bnd$42.90 (excluding the cost for buying a drill and printer)

Labour cost varies from different customisers. bnd$10 minimum for the quality and services for the customizers work.

For a client whom seek for their customize diecast to be carded or box here's how the process it is created.

7. For a carded diecast, designing a card is one of customizers difficult task. To come up with a design based on the theme of the custom diecast. This usually takes 3-4days of work. Designing is usually done on adobe photoshop. Once the design is ready and finalize, we send it of to a printing shop to print it of and it usually cost bnd$5 per A4 paper. Plus the labour cost for designing will varies from bnd$5 till $10.

8. For a boxed diecast, its more straight forward. An m2 acrylic case is used here which cost bnd$5 per piece. To make it more presentable, a background with a card box will cost bnd$5. 

So for a carded or boxed custom diecast will cost additional bnd$10.

A special customize diecast will cost a minimum of bnd$25-$50 depends on each customizer. i hope by explaining the overall process of creating a custom diecast will stop buyers from judging our custom overprice.

quoted from a fellow customizer