7.28.2023 UPDATE: A Quiet Return; A Soft Re-Opening

Friends,

After much soul-searching, I have decided I will re-open TMD on August 1, 2023.  I know I had previously set a date of Sept 1, but that will just drain the savings account without any chance to offset the loss with new sales.  So, on August 1, the web store and shopping cart will be live again.  I am not going to make a big deal out of this right now.  I’ll post it on the DG’s and for the rest of the modeling world on Sept 1 as previously planned.  But, for those of you who follow the blog and TMD Facebook page, you will have advanced notice.

CHANGES TO THE WAY I OPERATE

I have decided to make some changes to the way I operate TMD.  I am currently updating the ‘ABOUT’ and ‘POLICY’ pages on the web store to reflect these changes.  Once I finish with this, I’ll post them on the TMD Blog page, as well.

THE BIGGEST POLICY CHANGE

The most important change — for now — is that I am no longer going to kill myself trying to ship in 48 hours or less.  I do not keep ready stock or inventory in the way most people think of it.  I have always kept these things in the form of molds and liquid resin: meaning, I have always cast your order after you placed it.  When things get busy, or when people place big orders, this caused me trouble.  I will not do this anymore.  From now on, I am simply going to tell you that your order could take up to 10 business days to ship (normally 14 calendar days, or 2 weeks)!  10 business days does not count weekends or holidays.  This will take a great deal of self-induced pressure off of me.

THE BIGGEST CHANGE TO THE PRODUCT LINE

One of the changes I will be making to the product line is to tighten my focus.  When the store re-opens next week, it will be 1/35 WW II and Korea ONLY!  Furthermore, I will only focus on those items that constitute the primary fighting vehicles of the different combatants during these years.  I will be dropping all products from the eras after Korea and, if Korea hadn’t been fought with so much late-war equipment, I would have omitted it, too.  This is being done primarily to help me be more productive.  By focusing on major vehicle lines from this era and scale, it will help keep me from chasing as many squirrels.  If it works, this will mean more products with much more applicable use in your modeling.

THE IMMEDIATE ORDER OF BUSINESS

I will start making new masters by the end of August.  However, for the rest of 2023, you shouldn’t expect much more than a bunch of smaller detail items, as I will be focusing my efforts on cleaning up the current product line. This is because I feel duty-bound to clean up a lot of the ‘mess’ in the current TMD product line.  Think of it as de-fragging TMD’s hard drive.  I am going to — finally — post those instruction sheets.  Then I am going to get the listing pages edited.  I want to post better pictures and cross-sales suggestions to help you make sure you have everything you might need in your first order.  Then I’ll focus on making demo builds so I can make the new instruction sheets necessary to get the larger items back on the market.  Yes, children, the T-6, ‘Michael,’ M8 HMC, 9/2 and FLAK 88 Famo conversions are all coming back in 2023.

SUMMING IT UP — FOR NOW

In short, I am going to do what I should have done for 20+ years: run TMD as a business and not a profit-making hobby.  I’ll be posting more as I work it out.  If you have not already done so, please sign up to follow this blog page.  This way, you’ll never miss an update or announcement.  Just scroll down in the Left margin of this page, click “FOLLOW’ and put in your email address.  The system will do the rest.

Thank you and stay safe,

Joe