I shall attempt to address the salient points raised thus far -
“So, you say you ignored Rob’s offer of a kit, and then you try and suggest surprise that your review kit never came. What address is he supposed to ship this to if you don’t respond and give him one?”
I did not ignore Rob’s PM - I replied and heard nothing more. What I said was that I ignored his request for silence.
“Rob offered you a kit not because he was trying to buy your silence…”
Although the evidence is not conclusive, I think a jury might convict….
“My Trumpeter Hood sits with it’s hull mostly but not quite sanded because I got tired of essentially a FIVE FOOT SEAM that fit like crap.”
Then you should have taken it back for exchange - mine is fine*.*
“Woes of the fit between Trumpeter upper and lower hull pieces are legion.”
Care to highlight some reviews which say as much? I have only found one from the subject range in which I am interested.
“Let’s also not forget that Dave is projecting a lot of his anger towards distributors on to Dragon:”
My ‘anger’ as you put it, is principally directed at those distort the final rrp wherever the kit is sold. They know who they are.
“Distributor mark-ups are a fact of life unless you go to the source and pay the higher shipping yourself. Why, just last week I spent $50 on shipping for a kit from Hong Kong because it saved me $120 off of the retail price!”
What you fail to mention is that any initial price advantage can be compromised by import duty at the destination end.
Also, his seems at odds with the statement you made about expecting people to live on poor wages and to work for next to nothing…
“People should not be able to get a good wage, but should be happy with fast-food worker wages because it keeps the product cheaper for him. People should not be allowed to charge for services above the bar; they should do top-notch work and sell at cut-rate prices that make their company untenable.”
Tracy, that is exactly what the free market is all about. What distorts this is the Govts and the Distributors/Importers.
And I wouldn’t say that Trumpeter’s current company position is “untenable” - would you?
“…you are not likely to see a retrenchment in fidelity of detail. If it’s more than you can handle, I’m sorry.”
Then I suspect that we will see more comments like these across the web.
In reference to the Scharnhorst kit -
“I think Dragon have gone over the top by making the smaller parts more complicated than need be, and of course, the weird layout of the instructions complicate matters even more.”
“All the 20mm/37mm/105mm AA guns have been added, I didn’t use all the parts included in the kit for these, as some of them were so tiny I just can`t see them! I didn’t like the way Dragon have done the 105 mm guns, I think they should have been moulded in pairs rather than singles, it was a devil of a job to line up the barrels in parallel.”
“Spent a whole day going cross-eyed building the light AA armament and adding PE details to the mains and secondaries. Still more PE to add. Each AA weapon comes in at least 4 parts with another 4 or 5 of PE,”
“I will admit I’m now finding it more of a chore than fun. A lot of the kits plastic parts are incredibly small too, and I’m sure could have easily been moulded on to their relevant positions. Hell, the sprue gates are bigger than some of the parts.”
I just wonder if Dragon are being well advised, because if they continue with this level of often-needless complexity, then those of us who are ‘behind the curve’ as you put it elsewhere, and are I suspect a significant majority of model kit buyers, will not be parting with money for something which you say we are incapable of building, and there’s no profit in that avenue for anybody.
As has been said elsewhere - “I wonder how many of these kits will actually be completed, rather than end up as $200 doorstops”?
Not everyone wants a Ferrari, and contrary to your opinion I have no problem with those who do.
What I would like to see, is a kit whose build provides for a relaxing and enjoyable experience rather than a very expensive and frustrating one.