charlie8575

I LOVE THIS! Charlie Larkin

I have a Jo-Han '64 to build. You're selling me on this color. I might do just that. Charlie Larkin

Remember this... With your discount, your cost with us often matches or beats online, especially once shipping is included. So, tell me...do you also refuse to shop at grocery stores that use rewards cars to offer special savings? How about Lowe's? They give 10% off to any active-member military or military retiree with ID. That's the same basic thing they're doing, or do you like the sound of your wallet being sucked dry? What about gas stations that give you a free coffee after 10, but only if you take the card? This is a foolish way to shop, frankly, and no, I will not retract my statement. You seem to enjoy spending more money than you have to- your call. Here's what my store WILL do for you. If you're a regular customer and buy enough stuff, we give you 10% right off the top. No questions asked, no club memberships required. While I haven't quite figured out the owner's formula for determining this (I think it's part dollar volume, part how you treat him and the employees, and part do you contribute to other hobbyists by sharing knowledge and the like.) Want a special-order item? If it's not a regular-stocking item, we'll take 10-20% off, depending on its margin and category (and in some cases, whether the manufacturer will allow us to.) If it's a new item and you pre-order, we'll give you 25% off if you pre-pay. On either of the above, if you pre-pay with CASH (as in real money,) we will generally allow a 30% discount because it's a guaranteed sale and we still make money. Again, it will depend on manufacturer policy and margin, but that's usually what we do because it's out the door on arrival. We're generous with the cash discount because we can use it to stock more items for regular inventory and it saves us credit card fees, which can be up to 5% on certain cards. Oh, and we'll try to match Internet prices for anyone; even if we can't penny for penny, we can still usually give you a good enough deal to make it worth your while. Plus, with about 90-95% of the entire current plastic kit catalog (from all manufacturers) on the shelf at any given time, odds are you'll leave with what you want. While I don't own the store, I still take this as a personal attack on me because you have chosen to verbally assault the place I work as unethical, which is in fact reflected upon me, as an employee. While Paul might have his quirks, we haven't stayed in business for 43 years (and I've been a customer for well over 30 of them) by screwing our customers. Charlie Larkin

At full list, it's about $2.10. We're selling at $1.99, unless you're a club member or a courtesy discount, in which case, it's 10-20% off. Charlie Larkin

Don't confuse it with the Custom Lacquer. The particular paint I'm referring to is in the Model Master line, which has reasonably-scaled metallic components. The "Root Beer" in the Custom Lacquer line isn't too bad, either, although many of those colors, I will agree, are a bit over-scaled. Charlie Larkin

Ad Blocker fixes a lot of these problems. Charlie Larkin

While the licensing agreements might have existed, the royalty payment, at least to the scale it is now, didn't until about 25 years ago. Charlie Larkin

That's a complicated question believe it or not. Right now, at my shop, I'd say about half the customers are between 35-60, and the other half are over 60 and under 35. Of the younger portion, I'd say roughly college age plus or minus five years in the bulk of them. We do, however, have several customers who are regular and teenagers that do planes and armour. Most of the cars seem to go to the 20-50 year-olds. As to what's selling, armour is our largest seller by far in dollar volume- we're #1 or #2 for in-stock armour in New England, and there has been an absolute proliferation of product this summer with many new releases. In terms of out-the-door volume, I think armour and planes are tied for first. We have the largest aircraft selection in New England. This summer, it's been ROCKETS! Rockets in terms of volume are probably #2. Cars are selling okay, but not as fast as you'd think. What has kids coming into us, though, are snap kits, rockets, science kits, 3 and 4-D puzzles and a decent selection of better-quality play-sets. Older kids and teens enjoy simple glue kits, and they tend to buy a lot of cars. We don't handle a lot of aftermarket product (owner's prefernce, a combination of space limitations and cost,) but if we can get it, we'll order it for you. Our problem, though, is drawing new people in. The owner does the "everyone knows where we are" bit. Fact is, I have at least two or three people a week who have been in the area long-term that don't know where we are, or even knew we existed. If it's going to work, we need to make our presence known. Charlie Larkin

In Testors' lacquer line, there's a dark brown metallic that is VERY close to the brown there; might need a drop of white to lighten it. The Autumn Rust is much too orange. The dark brown is airbrush-only, but I believe the equivalent color is in the enamel sprays, along with Classic White, which will be a decent match to the white. Very nice work. Charlie Larkin

Very true, and Tamiya is doing an across-the-board price increase in armour. Charlie Larkin

Working in a hobby shop right now, I can honestly say that a lot of the retailers are getting absolutely torqued, and unfortunately, we have to pass that on to the customers. My shop offers discounts to club members and certain long-time and high-volume customers, so that helps. We also have a couple of large sales during the year that allow you to save a pretty substantial amount. If you pre-pay a special order in cash, we give you 30% off the top. The amount of product being sold has something to do with it, to be sure, but I keep arguing we'll never re-expand the market if no effort is made. That means everything from community outreach by clubs to yes- the dirty "a" word. ADVERTISING, and beyond your "core market." A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion at my club. Why aren't your advertising to your core market? Simple, they're our core, and while advertising to them for new product and so forth is necessary, we need to re-grow the market, and that means expanding the message. But, nobody wants to do that. Don't advertise- not only is it a good way to kill your business, it might kill your industry. Charlie Larkin

This is going to be very interesting. Charlie Larkin

Mayo on anything besides tuna is almost universally awful. The above examples demand a good horseradish and/or brown mustard or, in some cases a good BBQ or steak sauce. Between the lack of good Greek (close sub to Armenian) dining places and no good pretzels, your part of Georgia is losing appeal very quickly. Well, didn't have much with the humidity and heat, anyway. Charlie Larkin

If you decide to head to Massachusetts, be sure to let me know. I hold my real estate license, and while I don't really sell much, I still make referrals (and a few bucks if a sale results) and I know at least one agent in most parts of the state I can set you up with. Plenty of computer work around here. Charlie Larkin

Very nice work. Charlie Larkin

I decided to grab a Tamiya Toyoda AA, and part of it is ABS. What do you folks who are Tamiya builders like to use for glue on ABS Charlie Larkin

Pacer, please. Charlie Larkin

I wonder if the stupid things could fire while the car is parked, as a result of heat/humidity/general crummy QA? By the way, I place #s 3 and 4 on Bill's list above as the main problems. Accidents will still happen, regardless of the cause, but creating a safety hazard...only insurance companies and/or governments could do that. Charlie Larkin

The Poly-Head is also called the "Wide-Block." And with good reason. The Poly V8 is a good two or three inches wider, in addition to being bigger and heavier. The LA engines were designed to fit the A-bodies, hence the much more compact dimensions. LA= Lightweight A block. Charlie Larkin

To answer this indirectly.... About three weeks ago, I had a couple walk into the Spare Time Shop where I'm managing at the moment, and they were from Quebec City. "You are the only good hobby shop even remotely close." Eesh....a 7-hour drive to get some paint and a couple of kits he had trouble finding up north. Charlie Larkin

This is making the Valiant I'm looking at look even more appealing... Charlie Larkin

Love it! And it's so true, especially for the A4s. Charlie Larkin

Safety, over-PC, and drowning us in over-sanitized, over-thought, over-done market research done in nowhere near enough places that come back with "people like bland." And we're seeing that in all kinds of products, not just cars. Charlie Larkin

If you ever venture up our way, Bill, I'll see your ribs and raise you...well, something. Hands-down the BEST I've ever had at any restaurant were at Sylvan St. Grille in Salisbury, wayyyy up the North Shore, just about into New Hampster. Found it last week when I went up for a concert/fireworks that was cancelled due to a massive thuder storm with hail just as I got off the highway...hour drive for not a whole lot. After slogging back in the traffic for nearly as long (you may have heard of the famous Salisbury Beach, and its nearby sister, Hampton in New Hampshire,) I stopped for dinner there and then headed back to the amusement area as the rain had stopped in case anything was going on. Long story short- everything from the house-made honey mustard dressing to dinner was spectacular- really 5-star quality at just above fast food prices. If you (or anyone else) thinks of the name of the place you went, I'll go try 'em if I'm ever down there, but I found my own gold standard. No- it isn't fast food, but it was very good and as I said, not really all that much more than McDonald's et al. Charlie Larkin

Gyros from any one of a number or local pizza parlors all owned by Greeks. My favorite is Family House of Pizza in Marlborough. Excellent pizza, too. I recommend the Greek Pizza. We finally got a Chick-Fil-A here. Tried it- and it is quite good. The couple of times I've been down south I've been to Waffle House, that wasn't bad. I liked their pecan waffle. I like the coffee from McDonald's (especially their iced coffee, and especially after this last week.) If I want lunch...whatever's handy. I prefer to go to local places generally- usually a little less expensive and much better food. Charlie Larkin