Moebius new stuff

[martinfan5]

Moebius ModelsLike Page
17 mins ·
Seems like it's been forever since I've posted on here. About a month is appears. I just want to let everyone know that sometime over the weekend there will be a press release at www.moebiusmodels.com detailing the sale of the company.

I am hoping everyone doesn't jump to conclusions and think that there's a problem, or that bad things will happen like you may be used to. Things will go on as scheduled. Nothing is being cancelled. All licensing is in the process of being transferred. Bob and Dave are still here. I (Frank) am still here for the time being.

I can honestly say that in some areas, there will be more than I would have done. I am honestly physically and emotionally burned out by it all. It's been a long 12 years, and my time is over. With family issues, and my own health issues that need work, I cannot commit to this full time anymore. As some of you know, the last few years have seen me go from tendon surgery, to foot surgery, to constant rehab on my shoulder trying to avoid surgery. It's time. Torn rotator cuff, herniated bicep, I just have to stop and get back to some sort of health.

The company is left in good hands, Tom and Larry from Pegasus are taking over the majority share. I'll have a fraction, no big deal. But as most all of you know they've been in this industry for a long time. They know what they're doing, and I'll be here to make sure it all goes smooth. Moebius will not be part of Pegasus, it will stand alone as it has.

Not sure what else to say besides look for announcements soon on new product. In this transition time, I hope that you will let us work on new projects instead of having to answer meaningless questions. No real changes as I said earlier! The office will not be taking or returning calls on this subject, nor will they respond to emails. Bob and Dave are staying, but they have no details either. There really are no details as nothing changes other than the address. No further news is available!

I have blocked comments here, not sure if it works. If it does let you comment there can be no answers, and anything nasty will of course be taken down and blocked.

Hope to see some of you at an upcoming show, I'm not disappearing! Yet...

[peter31a]

Yes, just read this as well. Was going to start a separate topic when I decided to check this one. Undoubtedly someone will start another thread. Hopefully things continue as planned. Hopefully maybe even Moebius will grow a little? We'll see.

[mk11]

5 hours ago, tim boyd said:

From time to time all the domestic kit manufacturers contact me on various subjects, and I've found that of them all, Dave is the most likely to ask for feedback, including sometimes providing very early test shots to subject matter experts for a given kit topic.   Much of this input is provided with no public knowledge, and it does result in better kits on the market, at least in my very limited experience with Moebius.  

No kits are perfect, and Moebius has had its share of quality/fit/finish issues, but given the realities of today's market (very low sales volume, pricing pressure [as mentioned in various posts above], product development and manufacturing sources located half way around the world and 12 hours ahead of us that speak an entirely different language, not to mention a comparatively tiny product development staffing model when compared to past decades), I think they do a very admirable job there.  

 

 

The Hudson, Chrysler, Lonestar, Pontiac and Comet kits are indeed examples that this is true for the most part.

21 hours ago, SteveG said:

I've got the same first round test shots of the 65-66 F-100 as well for review and have already discussed a number corrections with Dave.  I'm sure there will be some photos shared once he's more satisfied. Hopefully with the next round of test shots.  

 

Will it be seen as fair to express a hope that those possessing test shots might take the initiative to find a measuring tape and a digital caliper to confirm that nothing is being lost in the translation? It would seem early enough in the process to make a difference. With the inexplicably large amount of design inaccuracies found in the public offering of the last major product, it would appear this step may not have received the attention it deserved. I do realize the distractions are legion in a company of this type and that Ford licensing seems fairly laid back but hope on behalf of thousands of other modelers desiring fairly accurate subject matter that this project succeeds.

 

mike 

[tim boyd]

17 hours ago, mk11 said:

The Hudson, Chrysler, Lonestar, Pontiac and Comet kits are indeed examples that this is true for the most part.

Will it be seen as fair to express a hope that those possessing test shots might take the initiative to find a measuring tape and a digital caliper to confirm that nothing is being lost in the translation? It would seem early enough in the process to make a difference. With the inexplicably large amount of design inaccuracies found in the public offering of the last major product, it would appear this step may not have received the attention it deserved. I do realize the distractions are legion in a company of this type and that Ford licensing seems fairly laid back but hope on behalf of thousands of other modelers desiring fairly accurate subject matter that this project succeeds.

 

mike 

Mike....I can't speak for others who have reviewed test shots, but in my experience with one project in particular, Dave and I spent considerable time going over, initially the CAD drawings, and much later on the first round test shots.  Extensive refinements were made based on our discussions, and (presumably) input from others.  

My experience is a bit unique in that I spent the last 13 years of my career working alongside some of the top automotive design executives in the industry.  I thought I knew a lot about design before this time (I did), but there was even more I didn't know that I learned subsequently from this experience.  Bottom line, calipers and photos from measuring sessions are a help, but the actual observation of 3D properties from a learned perspective also becomes a crucial step in the development process, particularly with the intricacies of automotive designs.   It is from that perspective that I provided my own input. 

To be clear, in my input to Moebius, I was not asked to assemble test shots, and therefore I was not personally aware of fit issues like the issues that some have reported on the 1961 Pontiac Ventura kit.

While there are areas to legitimately criticize on individual kit projects, I have personally been really, really impressed by some of the 'extra effort' the Moebius team has put into their model kit projects.  Right now I am building an A-990 Super Stock from their 1965 Belvedere series, and so far I find it a very impressive effort, and have been a little surprised about how easy and simple the assembly process has gone - so far.  

Thanks for your comments and observations....TIM  

 

  

[tim boyd]

21 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Bingo.

And the logical extension of that thought...as far as developing new market goes...is that when a "casual" or "first time" modeler buys a kit and has issues with warpage (there was a relatively high percentage of bad windshield frames in the Foose Caddy kit, and one of the sporty 4X4s was seriously bad...and I KNOW they weren't Moebius kits, but the thought is valid) or appearance (there are actually some "normal" people who can see instantly that some kits have glaring proportion and line problems),  or assembly (there seemed to be rather a lot of experienced builders who didn't deal well with a Moebius Pontiac's front and back glass) he's going to be far less likely to buy ANOTHER kit than he would have been if his first one had been done right.

It's not entirely clear how to me how prevalent some of these issues are (relative to the entire production run of each kit), but I recall making the exact same argument as Bill notes here to the AMT staff when I was doing work for them in the mid 1970's.  Some of their kits back then were truly bad in these very areas.  And as AMT then declined in the late 1970's, I personally wondered how much of it was attributable to the quality problems in their kits at the time and the dissatisfaction and resulting lack of repeat purchases that Bill cites above.  TIM 

[unclescott58]

1 hour ago, tim boyd said:

It's not entirely clear how to me how prevalent some of these issues are (relative to the entire production run of each kit), but I recall making the exact same argument as Bill notes here to the AMT staff when I was doing work for them in the mid 1970's.  Some of their kits back then were truly bad in these very areas.  And as AMT then declined in the late 1970's, I personally wondered how much of it was attributable to the quality problems in their kits at the time and the dissatisfaction and resulting lack of repeat purchases that Bill cites above.  TIM 

I've wondered about AMT's decline in the late 70's too. I bought less and less of their stuff as the 1970's wore on. Because I felt it wasn't up to snuff with the stuff they were doing back in the 1960's. In fact it seemed like as MPC kits moved up, AMT went down. Especially with MPC basically taking over the Annual field. I always wondered if the guys who really understood the model market hadn't  move over to MPC when it was started by a former AMT employee. (I believe I'm correct on that? Am I not Tim?)

As far as Moebuis quality, I haven't really seen any major problems with their kits. I've found the kits of their's I have built, to go together with few issues. None that were not within my skills to easily fix. I've been very pleased with Moebuis' kits. 

[Art Anderson]

On 2/28/2018 at 8:26 PM, Ben said:

Is it me or has it been a good while since we’ve heard about anything new coming out from Moebius? They used to talk about and show stuff more often from what I remember?

Uh Ben!  I think I posted a few days ago, about having test shots of the next Moebius model vehicle kit--a series of 1965-66 Ford F-100 pickups?

 

Art

[Art Anderson]

7 hours ago, tim boyd said:

It's not entirely clear how to me how prevalent some of these issues are (relative to the entire production run of each kit), but I recall making the exact same argument as Bill notes here to the AMT staff when I was doing work for them in the mid 1970's.  Some of their kits back then were truly bad in these very areas.  And as AMT then declined in the late 1970's, I personally wondered how much of it was attributable to the quality problems in their kits at the time and the dissatisfaction and resulting lack of repeat purchases that Bill cites above.  TIM 

Such as a busted windshield frame is NOT  a freakin' tooling problem, but an assembly line (where kits are packaged) problem!

Art

[Art Anderson]

On 3/2/2018 at 4:21 PM, mk11 said:

The Hudson, Chrysler, Lonestar, Pontiac and Comet kits are indeed examples that this is true for the most part.

Will it be seen as fair to express a hope that those possessing test shots might take the initiative to find a measuring tape and a digital caliper to confirm that nothing is being lost in the translation? It would seem early enough in the process to make a difference. With the inexplicably large amount of design inaccuracies found in the public offering of the last major product, it would appear this step may not have received the attention it deserved. I do realize the distractions are legion in a company of this type and that Ford licensing seems fairly laid back but hope on behalf of thousands of other modelers desiring fairly accurate subject matter that this project succeeds.

 

mike 

Uh Mike, in most all of the hundreds of photographs of 65-66 Ford F100's that Dave Metzner shot, I (or at least my hands!) are in the pictures--holding a carpenter's rule or a measuring tape!  I assume you have sorta equal access to the real subject as well?  (1/25 scale is VERY minutely close to 1mm=1 inch. FWIW)

Art

[Art Anderson]

On 3/1/2018 at 11:03 AM, mikemodeler said:

What he said^^^^^^^^ !

I asked about this kit and heard nothing, surprising since they showed the 4x4 version last fall as a built box model.

Mike, WRONG!  The model you saw (either in person at Detroit, or in pics) was NOT even a test shot--Dave Metzner displayed (at a bit of a risk, BTW) the tooling mockups, which were still under review at the time.  Please be more careful in reading postings such as this, or if you see the actual display.

Art

[Art Anderson]

On 3/2/2018 at 12:24 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Bingo.

And the logical extension of that thought...as far as developing new market goes...is that when a "casual" or "first time" modeler buys a kit and has issues with warpage (there was a relatively high percentage of bad windshield frames in the Foose Caddy kit, and one of the sporty 4X4s was seriously bad...and I KNOW they weren't Moebius kits, but the thought is valid) or appearance (there are actually some "normal" people who can see instantly that some kits have glaring proportion and line problems),  or assembly (there seemed to be rather a lot of experienced builders who didn't deal well with a Moebius Pontiac's front and back glass) he's going to be far less likely to buy ANOTHER kit than he would have been if his first one had been done right.

Uh, I didn't catch the glass fit issue on the '61 Pontiac kit, but since then, I discovered that a quick, light filing or sanding of the edges cure that--the mold parting lines are in the middle of the edges, and that caused the problem.

Art

[SteveG]

58 minutes ago, Art Anderson said:

Mike, WRONG!  The model you saw (either in person at Detroit, or in pics) was NOT even a test shot--Dave Metzner displayed (at a bit of a risk, BTW) the tooling mockups, which were still under review at the time.  Please be more careful in reading postings such as this, or if you see the actual display.

Art

I think he's specifically asking about the built up 70 4x4 kit that was also on display, not the 3D mock ups of the 65-66.  The 70 4x4 should be going into production very soon. 

-Steve

[mikemodeler]

1 hour ago, SteveG said:

I think he's specifically asking about the built up 70 4x4 kit that was also on display, not the 3D mock ups of the 65-66.  The 70 4x4 should be going into production very soon. 

-Steve

Thanks Steve, that is EXACTLY what I was referring to.

[martinfan5]

9 minutes ago, Richard Bartrop said:

.

 

A well crafted model is a thing of beauty, but sometimes you want a model kit that doesn't fight you.

Its 2018, no model kit should be fighting the builder( that goes every single model company, not just Moebius) .

[1972coronet]

59 minutes ago, martinfan5 said:

Its 2018, no model kit should be fighting the builder( that goes every single model company, not just Moebius) .

... any kit with modern tooling shouldn't fight you like a Marlin on methedrine  . Old stuff ? Sure . Stuff from c.2000 and newer ? No .

[martinfan5]

3 minutes ago, 1972coronet said:

... any kit with modern tooling shouldn't fight you like a Marlin on methedrine  . Old stuff ? Sure . Stuff from c.2000 and newer ? No .

Right, I think it was a given that it was for new kits, cant do anything about the old kits.

[Dave Ambrose]

A reminder from your friendly neighborhood moderator. Please keep it civil. 

That is all.  

[Dave Ambrose]

I've noticed that the Sci-fi section (including Gundams) at my local hobby shop has been growing, mostly at the expense of armor, but also airplanes. Model cars have stayed about the same, but this is Southern California. We have a thriving car culture. 

Sci-fi and Gundam modelers tend to be a lot younger than your average IPMS meeting too. That's clearly where the market is heading, and seems to be where the development dollars are flowing. Moebius released a couple of super nice kits with the Proteus, and Discovery. 

Automotive subjects generally have very good coverage. Some are probably way overdone, but still popular. There's a robust secondary market, which eats into sales of new kits. I suspect your typical model car practitioner has a large kit stash and will only be selectively buying new kits. We're to a point where the things people really want are somewhat esoteric and are never going to be very popular. Moebius is a business first, and the development money follows the sales. 

[Richard Bartrop]

And there are kits of some of the more esoteric stuff out there, but you have to lay out some serious cash for them.

[Luc Janssens]

3 hours ago, Dave Ambrose said:

We're to a point where the things people really want are somewhat esoteric and are never going to be very popular. 

Interesting statement.

[Art Anderson]

9 hours ago, SteveG said:

I think he's specifically asking about the built up 70 4x4 kit that was also on display, not the 3D mock ups of the 65-66.  The 70 4x4 should be going into production very soon. 

-Steve

Steve, as surely you have as well, I have that 4x4 version here in my test shot stash.

 

[MrObsessive]

I've liked most of Moebius's offerings so far, but that '61 Pontiac glass was a sticking point with me....to the point that I made that tutorial on how to fix it. The wheels too were an issue with me.

About the glass.............1961 GM two door hardtop glass trim are 'bout flush with the bodywork. No sticking up whatsoever of that trim should be showing from all views. The term "bubbletop" was given to that roofline for a reason............from a shadowed profile, that shape forms nearly a true bubble shape.

Not to beat a dead horse, but when the time comes to build mine, I'd probably deepen the glass channels that much more. One has to take into account paint build up and such, and glass fitment to me is as important as paint/bodywork.

It's VERY visible!

[espo]

6 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

I've liked most of Moebius's offerings so far, but that '61 Pontiac glass was a sticking point with me....to the point that I made that tutorial on how to fix it. The wheels too were an issue with me.

About the glass.............1961 GM two door hardtop glass trim are 'bout flush with the bodywork. No sticking up whatsoever of that trim should be showing from all views. The term "bubbletop" was given to that roofline for a reason............from a shadowed profile, that shape forms nearly a true bubble shape.

Not to beat a dead horse, but when the time comes to build mine, I'd probably deepen the glass channels that much more. One has to take into account paint build up and such, and glass fitment to me is as important as paint/bodywork.

It's VERY visible!

I'm glad you brought this up and I personally want to thank you for your tutorial on the '61 Pontiac. I waited to build mine and watched your build as you made suggestions to correct some of the issues with that kit. You sure made it a lot easier for myself with my build. I personally am very fond of the '61 Pontiacs and now have several waiting to be built. The few problems with this and other kits can be overcome with a little extra effort on the builders part. I think if a kit goes together to easily then I haven't been challenged.

[Khils]

On 3/1/2018 at 3:32 PM, Art Anderson said:

 initial test shot stage (have a full set right here, in a carton next to this desk). 

Question Art

When a manufacturer releases a ( kit test shot) its it a "one & only"? or do other modelers get it also?

I've never seen one in front of me...( life in Iowa....cornfield modelers group as Dr. Kerry coined it)....what happens to said test shot after kit goes to production?    khils

[mk11]

23 hours ago, Art Anderson said:

I assume you have sorta equal access to the real subject as well? 

Well, the last '66 I owned went down the road a couple of years ago, Mr Anderson, but I do believe I know of another one in this locality I can get the measure of, and perhaps post as a public service somewhere  

Funny thing, but on my desk sits a styrene body that, when subjected to measurements (divided by 25, of course) taken from a 1:1 of similar design,  shows to be 'off' in a large portion of key dimensions; amounting to multiple inches (plural) in 1:1. Actually 'off' enough to make some of those 'normal' people referred to by Bill go 'hmmmm'. It would seem to follow from  this that sometimes even hundreds of pics containing measuring tapes and rules don't always translate to an accurate finished product. That is why I expressed things the way I did. A mid-run check against simple measurements that can be made by anyone clever enough to understand the non-dummy end of a tape could prove invaluable to the goal of achieving a laudable finished product 

 

mike