Hi, Folks,
I’ve had another week of mixed results: both business wise, as well as emotionally. There’s no sense trying to avoid it, so come on and I’ll fill you in on what went wrong — and right — this week.
BAD NEWS FIRST
I do not have anything new for you this week — again. In fact, I’m not quite sure when I’ll have new releases. I have many new masters on my bench, so it won’t be too much longer before the new stuff starts to roll out of here. I just don’t know when that will be. The best I can tell you is that it will be sometime in the near future.
The web store revision also continues to drag. I know what I want to do to the site and how to do it, but it will take several full days to accomplish. At the moment, I simply do not have the time to make these changes.
Finally, the last of our house repairs are starting to become a problem. I am three months from the one-year anniversary of hurricane Michael, and we have to have all repairs completed by that date. It’s an insurance thing. Unfortunately, I am suffering from burnout in this regard, and it is wearing on me a great deal. In fact, I suspect the stress it is causing has lead to a minor health issue I’ve been dealing with for the last two or three months now.
NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF
Karl Is Back!
I hope I am not speaking too much out of school by sharing this, but I can’t stand it. I have to share the great news. Karl van Sweden has informed me that his surgery went very well and he is pain free for the first time in years. This is awesome news, because Karl has had a tough time for a while now. This news would be good enough, but Karl says he feels so good now that he has returned to his master bench. He even has several masters nearing completion, including the driver’s compartment for the Tamiya M10/Achilles kits.
A New Pattern Maker???
As if the news about Karl was not enough, I was approached by a new pattern maker this month. We are working things out right now, but, judging from his pictures, his first master should be ready in the next few days. If his follow-on pieces proceed at the same pace as this first master, the new guy could be the most prolific pattern maker we’ve ever had. So far, things look good and I am excited about working with this guy. However, experience has also taught me to be cautious so, until the first master hits the shop, I’m not going to say anything more than this. Hopefully, I’ll be able to introduce him and his first releases in the very near future. Stay tuned.
COMING CHANGES
A few years back, I started to hold all new releases until the last Friday of the month. I never saw any reason to bother you with these problems because they are largely irrelevant to you. They’re all ‘behind-the-scenes’ administrative sort of stuff. Well, after some long consideration, I have decided to make some changes to this policy.
As soon as I can make the changes to the web store, I am going to stop releasing new items in monthly batches. Instead, as soon as I get a new product ready for production, I will just post it to the web store and make it available for purchase. In place of the new product announcements, I am going to create a ‘NEW RELEASES’ page on the web store. It will be a 90-day rolling list of all new products. New products will be posted to the top of this list as they are posted in the web store. This way, the newest items will always be at the top of the ‘NEW PRODUCTS’ list. After 90 days, new items will be dropped off the list.
This ‘should’ fix the problems I’ve been dealing with while still providing you with a way to see the newest products from TMD. At least, this is the goal.
MY WORLD
I have always made it a practice to try to keep you informed as to how TMD and I are doing. However, those of you who have known me for any length of time may have sensed there is a little more going on in my world than I have been telling you about these past few months. If so, you were right. Well, it’s time to let you in on a little more of what is going on with me. However, what I’m going through at the moment cannot be explained without talking about my faith. Now, I do not hide my personal beliefs from you, but neither do I try to push them onto you. I know many do not appreciate such things. So, if you are interested in what has me struggling these past few months, you’ll have to watch for my next ‘JOE’S CORNER’ post. I’ll have it up by tonight, Friday, June 28.
THAT IS ALL
OK, until my next update, you stay safe and try to build something (preferably something using TMD resin).
Joe