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Dave Van

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Everything posted by Dave Van

  1. 3D printing a body will not work for mass production. A body can take 12 - 14 hours to print plus basic clean up. For R2 to make money they need like 3 bodies produced a minute minimum.
  2. Yellow flags at odd times is called 'Marcel Debris' and that comes from a long time NASCAR official.
  3. During the RC2 days when Model King was re-issuing every NASCAR stock car we could.........we asked about the Road Runner. RC2 said they'd pull a test shot for us. After a month or two we were told the tool was not usable any longer. Not sure if the NASCAR tool BODY and stock tool BODY shared the internals but they could. The cam action inside of tooling is REALLY expensive to fix....most time you just make new. Best bet is let R2 know you want the RR kit...in a polite way....maybe if enough folks do they will spend the $$$ to fix.
  4. Major road block is still cash. R2 holds licenses for all the above already....and while it would need approval for final product R2 has a good working relationship established. The Trans Am issue is the SCCA being aggressive with that trademark....not a group R2 works with.
  5. I do not SEE anything that is going to lead to much lower costs.....which is a major reason for the next Gen car. The composite body may be cheaper.....depends on how they do it and how much $$$$ each cost. Alloy wheels and low profile tires are NOT more cost effective than steel wheels and tires Goodyear has been making for many years. Sorry....no impressed.......glad I saw and was in the sport in it's heyday.
  6. Not sure about how much they read here......but there are not many folks at R2 and they tend to read and reply to e-mails. But if you make a offer to restore and you get a CORP answer it's there way of saying no in a polite way.....never know.
  7. That has been done in the past. Model King paid to repair a number of kits. He even cloned the complete chrome tree for the 59 Imperial kit. But when the group headed by Tom Lowe took over they ended all private involvement in the company. This was JUST A BUSINESS decision and not a slam on them. So I kinda figure your offer will not go far....but contact them with it ....I never say never when it comes to plastic!
  8. I did a lot of work, and continue to, for Model King. This meant we work with the old RC2, previous owner of the AMT tooling, and with the current R2. HOW I wish it was as easy as just getting buckets of cash from the back room and tooling a 71-72 Road Runner kit. We covered this in general about a week ago about how the market has changed so much that the fact we get anything is amazing. I used Charlotte NC as an example as we had a hobby shop there. Charlotte had 5 hobby shops that carried plastic model cars. At the time K Mart, WalMart and a number of other chains did so also. On a weekly basis we order model kits in CASE quantities. So in 1990 There were around TEN outlets in Charlotte that sold plastic. Today they have ZERO in Mecklenburg county....ZERO. The city with the forth fastest growing economy in the USA can not support a hobby shop! And this is happening in every state and all over the world. How can anyone expect the same output from a company who's market has changed so radically?? One way to prove them wrong. Get the cash and manufacture the kit!!! I have friends that can do the design work, molders and packaging guys!! I'll even give all graphics design work for FREE!!! Thanks
  9. Incorrect info from a hobby shop worker is SOP. When I visit a hobby shop out of my area I will often ask a question, I know the answer, of whoever is running the shop that day. I often get wild off the wall answers that are no where near correct. When Moebius merged with Pegasus I asked a shop in NC if they had the newest Moebius Ford pick up kit. I was told that Moebius went bankrupt and the tooling was scrapped. Nothing would be produced again. I said thanks and left. It's best to find the info yourself.
  10. My son checked Lexington KY store and picked up the Beetle Bus and Dodge Fever P/U kit. They had the normal stuff with LOTS of Johnny Lightning and Autoworld 1/64 die cast.
  11. I use Tamiya TS spray on vinyl tires and seats for years. These white walls were painted with Tamiya in 2008 and remain nice and white and never got tacky like enamel paint will. Will it work 100% of the time on every vinyl??? I can't say.....but works for me. thx
  12. Ever consider painting the tires with Tamiya TS spray??? White primer or the gray which is very light color.
  13. Looks like it shoulda been!
  14. Nice clean jellybean!!
  15. I like Tamiya clear spray lacquer. Thin and tough. Might fix your post title and get more answers......maybe better than mine!
  16. Looks like the same series as the 76 Thunderbird kit. The Bird electric motor chassis and while I have yet to get the ruler out and look it up...seems larger than 1/24....it's HUGE!
  17. ?For metal you really need a 3 or 4 jaw chuck. More speed adjustment too. I got a lathe at Harbor Freight with all I need to make parts for under $200.
  18. WV Hobby in Teays is my 'local' shop. The store in Nitro is owned by the same guy and is a smaller version of the main store. The Teay's store is worth a stop.
  19. I opened the GTO to see what the fuss was about. Kinda a mess.....not R2 top effort. Chassis is to long and chassis screw holes are in wrong place..... should have passed.
  20. Bingo!! There is more stuff coming in the aftermarket than I can afford. I just found Hobbitime for resin and been buying lots of Indycals......AND building too!!!! Indycals GTP Ford
  21. Not sure if truthful reply's are viewed as 'snarky' or not.....many people do not like the truth. But working in manufacturing side of the the hobby, running a large hobby retail biz and running a few aftermarket hobby companies......truth is all I can add. Let's get a little perspective.......25 years ago....not really that long.....Charlotte had FIVE hobby shops selling plastic models. Today there are ZERO hobby shops within 50 miles of Charlotte. The hobby shop I worked and managed every Monday morning did a quick inventory to see what we sold over the weekend and place a order to fill shelves. This meant a order for many CASES (12 kits back then...6 today) of kits that our local distributor delivered later that day. There are no hobby distributors in NC today....much less than the 3 we had just a few years ago. The hobby shop I visit today, one of two left in West Virginia, orders in 2 and 3 kits at a time....not cases. And they have to come from a out of state seller....none in WV any longer. Some of this change is just the changing landscape of retail. But if hobby sales in plastic kits and related items were NEAR what they were in the 1980's even, much less 1960's, we'd still have a fraction of the hobby shops we once had......not ZERO shops like Charlotte (BTW Charlotte was #4 in economic growth in USA this year and it can't support ONE hobby shop???) So just counting the outlets that sell plastic kits means a HUGE reduction in sales, less sales less cash to invest in new tools. Add some bankruptcies, mergers and buy outs and few retail out lets and it's the perfect storm. This is not a 'hobby is dead' message. The hobby will long live after I am gone. But the days of Revell having a $500,000 display at the Chicago RCHTA show and announcing 25 new or retooled kits are gone. And as fragile as the market is we are lucky someone bought Revell and didn't send all the tooling to the scrap pile for cash. (thank goodness metal prices are down!!) And as long as the business of plastic model kits remains a easy business we will get a few new items. Plastic kits are a cheap and easy manufacture when compared to model trains or even R/C cars and aircraft. So as long as a profit can be made someone will make kits. I wish the days of 3 big domestic model companies trying to outdo each other were back. But we are pretty lucky we have a few folks willing to accept a small profit in plastic kits. End of my soapbox....thanks
  22. All things considered Revell is doing OK in my book. The fact they survived the cluster the bankruptcy was.....we are lucky.
  23. Never had one...may get one.
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