Production Update

Here's an update on our progress delivering pre-orders. The bottom line is that both Stately Caverns and Space Command should be shipped within the the next two weeks.

Stately Caverns is going very well. The walls are almost all done, that's installing 28 snaps in three walls (15 times) and building the sliding door walls for the library and the support wall for the batpole entrance. The sliding door is the most labor intensive. It involves cutting the plastic track, drilling holes in the exact right location using a template, and then hand cutting the wall parts away from the display box so they can be riveted onto the track. It's a time consuming operation, but it was great to finally get a rhythm going and crank out a bunch of these walls.

The biggest remaining job is to finish the batpole boxes but I just got my new 1/2 inch hole punch so that is underway. I need to assemble the consoles and the batsignal window, and then get everything boxed up for shipping. The whole playset weighs about 19 pounds and it will be packed well.
The Space Command Center is also well underway. The walls are 75% done and are moving smoothly. This thing has been a headache for sure. In pushing so hard to make the outside art interchangeable I really made a lot of extra work for myself. The issue is the snap-on consoles. In order for the art to be removable the snaps in the walls cannot go all the way through the layers of vinyl. These means the holes must be punched carefully by inserting a backing piece under the vinyl so the punch doesn't pierce the outside vinyl. Then the snaps have to be carefully slid into the pocket and hammered closed. It's a delicate operation and I kind of wish I could have just punched the holes all the way through and set the snaps and that would be that. So we'll have to make sure there is cool artwork to change in and out of these sets in order to make it worth the effort!

The sliding door on this is the same crazy operation with the tracks and the rivets and the cursing and grumbling. But it's worth it, they look really cool. Of course, the big issue with these is that the factory put the door on the wrong side and if you are a stickler for accuracy that's a big no-no. A few customers want it corrected and that is doable, it just means the walls won't be factory sealed anymore since I have to cut open the vinyl to remove the art and put it on the other side. I've done one though and it looks pretty good and didn't take that much extra time. Still, cutting that wall open was kind of sad.

The navigation console is now the major project and it's a real labor of love. When I made my original prototype the base of this console was a real funky affair. I wasn't actually sure how I would pull it off in reality.

It's made from scraps that come from making the tri-boxes. Follow me here. The tri-boxes are made from the tower tool modified to have 6 sections rather than two. The tower has three 1.5 inch tabs on each side to secure it to a stacked display. These have to be removed to make a tri-box so I have all of these really nice black vinyl rectangles I can use. They become the main face of the base of the helm.

The sides are then made from the scraps that result from making the triangle roof/floors for the triboxes. The triangles are made from a modification of the basic displaybox floor and there's this great angled scrap piece that gets cut off...the angle just so happens to work nicely as the base of the helm. How I stitch this all together is another story, but the result looks really good in my opinion. Obviously, Mego did theirs in plastic and if this was mass produced that would be the way to go. But I love the shiny vinyl consoles and this helm really finishes the piece off nicely.

My preorder customers are getting a heck of a deal on these Space Command sets. They are taking forever to make but they have a lot of time and love put into them. I'd charge a lot more for them if I could! Ha-ha.

So I think these will be shipping in about 2 weeks, I may ship them in batches as I get the helms finished. Keep an eye on your inbox, I will email you when it leave dry dock.

Space Command Production Update

Consoles, consoles, consoles! I put a big batch of these together this week. It involves first inserting the snaps that will hold it to the wall, then folding the console together and closing it with rivets. Took me a while to figure out the easiest way to do it, but once I found vise grip pliers it was easy. Spent an evening watching TV and putting a big box of these together.

Wait 'til you see the navigation console! Oh my!

What's left to do on these. Snaps are in half of the walls. They are tricky because if the outside artwork is removable then the snaps for the consoles have to sit UNDER the clear vinyl, so it's not just a metter of punching a hole and driving a snap. Then the sliding pocket door. I spent time making a template for cutting and drilling the track. I think I can bang them out. Wish me luck.

Bonus Image: Check out how great the Diamond Direct Captain's chair looks in the new Space Command Set!

Are Dida Displays Coming Back?

Will these nice ladies be making Dida Displays with this nice big machine anytime soon? I sure hope so!

It's been a very, very long slow process of restarting this project. Many phone calls and emails and lots of waiting for people to "get back to me". The tools that were made for me by my former supplier were shipped to a new vendor in Southern California in July. Since then I've been waiting for them to make a hole punch die so that the panels of the displaysets will be perfectly aligned. This was the part that derailed the project the first time--the vendor didn't think they could accurately punch the holes and that's a pretty important part of the process, as I learned with the sample parts I hand punched with frustrating difficulty.

Anyway, due to various issues it's taken awhile to get the die made and have a test done, but last weekend on a trip south to visit my wife's family I stopped by to check things out. I was really pleased that the hole punch worked great and even better they installed the snaps with their snap machine and the results were outstanding. It will be somewhat more expensive to set them by machine but the quality will be much better. That last thing I want is to have people complaining about bad snaps on their Displaysets.

So now that I know the job can be done I have placed the order for a limited run of displayset pieces. I am still getting the new website together and finalizing prices and other details, so I am not making a huge announcement just yet. I worry that there's still something that will come up to derail this project again and I don't want to have to refund any money again.

The trip was also great because I got to see first hand what the tools look like for heat sealing these vinyl panels. This is the tool for making the Phone Booth (which will likely be delayed until next year. I want to do the display boxes first and they are complicated enough...). The seals are made with brass ruled bars that are bolted to a big metal plate. The plate fits in the big machine in the first photo. The layers of chipboard and vinyl are laid out by hand on the turntable which turns and puts the piece under the brass tool. A radio frequency runs through the seal bars and heat seals all the layers of vinyl together.

A lot of the expense is in manpower. There's no other way to do it that to lay out the layers of vinyl and board by hand into these guides they set up. With something like my project that's a lot of material, given the various tabs and panels I have. The factory itself is a noisy place hat smells heavily of fresh vinyl and chemicals, but people seem fairly happy. All the work I have ever done has been in offices on a computer, which is very cushy compared to this, but it's still cool to see something real made by hand in America.

So, unless these nice folks come to their sense and tell me to take my overly complicated dolly-boxes and go home I think I'll be back in the Displayset business soon. Stay tuned....