Monday, December 18, 2006, 11:23 AM
OK, I am not complaining, really. Fact is I'm having a great time.
For now. WE are swamped. You orders are running late and that makes me feel bad because you don't know why and no - we haven't forgotten you and your order is not lost in the mail.
A few weeks ago we started selling through distributors so we can get more product into stores. Ultimately thats a cool thing. You can go down to the local hobby shop and get instant gratification. Thats good news. The bad is, for right now, we have to service the distributors and stores first. (good or bad??)
The good news is we are expanding our production capability by installing our own digital printing press ( a misnomer since thers no "pressing" involved) but it will speed production by 30 times. Maby this is a good start on an "end of year" sum up.
When we started the year we were buying card stock and sticky paper by the 100 sheet reem every couple of weeks. Now I bitch at my paper supplier because he only has one case in stock and I'm doing this every two weeks or so.
I'm looking forward to the arrival of the new printing machine but till then the trusty Epsons are grinding away as I type this. Gotta hand it to EPSON, they make a heck of a printer.
The thing is that we are at a crossroads; I'm spending my time printing and packaging and designing in between loading paper and changing ink carts. With the new press I'm hoping that I'll get the time back to finish the designs I'm working on.
Last night I spent some time putting together the rough prototype of our new steeplecab. The basic structure is there. I still need to rework the undercarraige, add some small details and such, but I got to say this is a cool model. I'll post some pix soon as the prototype is done. Feels good to build somthing. So it goes full circle (spiral). I started this to get some hands on model time and soon I can get back to it again. Who knew people would like paper so much. Oops, gotta go, time to load the paper.
Thom
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Thursday, December 7, 2006, 10:55 PM
I know, I know. The web page hasn't been updated in ages and I've been promissing for a long time. time flyes folks. I can either fill orders, design new kits,find printers who can handle our line (no luck yet)or do any of the other hundred things that need doing.
Well, web mistress and I have got a working redesign but its a ton of coding. Eventually there will be seperate pages dedicated to each scale and a special section just for our retail oulets. Thats one big plus. You should start seeing our kits appearing in stores. We are working with some large distributors who will be making our kits and textures available to hundreds of hobby stores.
As we start supporting N scale we will have to switch around how we packedge kits. The warehouse is a good example. I've never been happy with the O scale warehouse. It's a cool kit but it's too hard to build and too expensive to make. It's fine in the other scales and awsome in N (I added a floor). In O it's loosing a floor and I have to tell you, it looks better as a smaller building.
N scale will allow us to make some very large structures that would be impracticle in O scale so from here on out the product lines will diverge. Most kits will be available in all scales but some will not and most N scale kits will be sold as multiple kits. 4 qounset huts, 3 houses etc.
Ok this is getting long. Let mesum up. Sorry for being so slow to update but its for good reasons. Clever models is growing and we can hardly keep up. Thanks for all your support as always.
Thom
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Thursday, December 7, 2006, 10:49 PM
Heres a pix of our steeple cab. I'm usig it as a template for a paper version.
Almost done. I plan to show it at Mad city (madison wi.) I'm also almost finished with a narroe guage 20' wood boxcar.Who knows why. I just wanted too.
Anyway, we will be running switching puzzels at Mad city with kits as prizes. Hope to see you there.
Thom
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 02:01 AM - General
I think this would make a great model. I was actually aboard her when i was about 8 years old. they gave away tiny loaves of bread. silver cup bakery was the sponsor of the rocky jones scifi tv show.
What fun
Thom
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Saturday, November 25, 2006, 05:46 PM - General
I know I haven't written lately, but we are just swamped. we have never had to buy materials by the case loads before but that's what we're doing now. We are also beginning to design for a couple of toy companies. Getting the N scale ready and trying to get the web page revamped. I think there might be too much on the plate but we'll get it cleaned up real nice.
Oh yeah... happy birthday to me !!!! I'm working.
Thom
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