Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sentai no longer in business
@All, Sentai Distributors in California is no longer in business. Anyone in California who has trouble buying our figures can contact us and we'll see what we can do.
Different Era
What are your views on HaT venturing into a different era for they 1/32nd figures?
Without going into what other manufacturers make or have made I would like to start the ball rolling by suggesting something Colonial.
Prehaps on the lines of the forthcoming Zulu War British.
Without going into what other manufacturers make or have made I would like to start the ball rolling by suggesting something Colonial.
Prehaps on the lines of the forthcoming Zulu War British.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The State of the 1/32 Plastic Figures Industry
The outlook for 1/32 scale plastics (and I’m talking about across the board – not necessarily HaT products) is dimming. Gone are the days of large toy companies like Marx, Airfix, or even MPC, most 1/32 scale plastic producers are what we call “Mom and Pop” organizations owned by individuals who are making the toy soldiers they wanted when they were kids. This means that their operations are limited by their capital to small scale output. The norm for guys in the field has been a set of figures every six months or so and often they have a hard time keeping up with that due to the various problems involved with production.
Think about it, aside from getting a single figure from the planning stage (a gleam in the eye of the producer) to a finished figure one has to deal with a number of problems – not the least of which is the fact that most high pressure injection molding in plastic is done in China. A complaint I hear from many figure producers is the fact that even though it usually requires a minimum order of 200,000 or so pieces to justify setting a mold to be cast, this number is “small potatoes” to the companies who do the molding; therefore our toys soldiers usually take a back seat in line to other, larger orders.
Now there is the increase in the price of plastic due partially to the increase in the price of oil – a prime ingredient in plastic. There is also the added cost of inspection of ALL plastic toy products from China in the USA (including each toy soldier) due to some problems in the past.
Of course, we also have the problem of a worsening world economy.
As a result of this several producers are looking for alternatives to injection molded plastic, moving into various resins and one is even experimenting with metal figures.
Up to now, the average for the typical toy soldier producer has been one or two sets of figures a year – averaging one every six months. Or one set a year.
Those who do playsets usually produce around the time of OTSN at the end of September, early October so they can unleash their new product at the big show and in time for Christmas. At the same time the San Antonio Show at the end of May has become a place to showcase new figure sets, though several companies were unable to get their stuff in time for the show this year due to problems inherent with international production and shipping.
Here is hoping HaT can continue with its impressive output in light of these facts.
Think about it, aside from getting a single figure from the planning stage (a gleam in the eye of the producer) to a finished figure one has to deal with a number of problems – not the least of which is the fact that most high pressure injection molding in plastic is done in China. A complaint I hear from many figure producers is the fact that even though it usually requires a minimum order of 200,000 or so pieces to justify setting a mold to be cast, this number is “small potatoes” to the companies who do the molding; therefore our toys soldiers usually take a back seat in line to other, larger orders.
Now there is the increase in the price of plastic due partially to the increase in the price of oil – a prime ingredient in plastic. There is also the added cost of inspection of ALL plastic toy products from China in the USA (including each toy soldier) due to some problems in the past.
Of course, we also have the problem of a worsening world economy.
As a result of this several producers are looking for alternatives to injection molded plastic, moving into various resins and one is even experimenting with metal figures.
Up to now, the average for the typical toy soldier producer has been one or two sets of figures a year – averaging one every six months. Or one set a year.
Those who do playsets usually produce around the time of OTSN at the end of September, early October so they can unleash their new product at the big show and in time for Christmas. At the same time the San Antonio Show at the end of May has become a place to showcase new figure sets, though several companies were unable to get their stuff in time for the show this year due to problems inherent with international production and shipping.
Here is hoping HaT can continue with its impressive output in light of these facts.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
1/32 Authors needed
@All, anyone wanting to be a co-author on this blog to post news, events and interesting matters, please e-mail me. I think we need more new threads on this blog than I'm able to provide myself.
1/32 test shots for sale
We have Prussian Landwehr Command and Russian Infantry Command test shots for sale plus a few older ones. E-mail us for details..
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Problems posting on this blog?
@All, I've now changed the settings for posting. If you still have trouble posting, please e-mail me at the HaT address and I'll try something else,
@Hatblogger
@Hatblogger
1/32 Austrian Infantry hiccups
@All,
We've been spending a lot of time working on the design stage of that one and it might not happen. Despite the fact that there are only 6 figures in that set, each figure has one backpack and more than one head. So we're not just looking at 6 figures, but 21 separate pieces to be cut per sprue, and due to the complexity of the parts, there are to be 5 sliding pieces in the mold. Each sliding piece increases the price.
A 6 piece sprue vs. a 21 piece sprue with 5 sliding parts, that's a huge difference in cost. At this time, this huge difference in cost is insurmountable so it cannot be done, unless the the number of parts is cut down, that's the direct quote from the factory.
So right now, the Austrian Infantry set is in limbo unless some decision can be made to cut down the number of figures and heads. We have already considered attaching the backpack to the figure, but that cannot be done. We can attach one head/hat to the figure and that will cut the number of pieces down by 6, so that's something that can be looked into as well.
Your thoughts?
We've been spending a lot of time working on the design stage of that one and it might not happen. Despite the fact that there are only 6 figures in that set, each figure has one backpack and more than one head. So we're not just looking at 6 figures, but 21 separate pieces to be cut per sprue, and due to the complexity of the parts, there are to be 5 sliding pieces in the mold. Each sliding piece increases the price.
A 6 piece sprue vs. a 21 piece sprue with 5 sliding parts, that's a huge difference in cost. At this time, this huge difference in cost is insurmountable so it cannot be done, unless the the number of parts is cut down, that's the direct quote from the factory.
So right now, the Austrian Infantry set is in limbo unless some decision can be made to cut down the number of figures and heads. We have already considered attaching the backpack to the figure, but that cannot be done. We can attach one head/hat to the figure and that will cut the number of pieces down by 6, so that's something that can be looked into as well.
Your thoughts?
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