AMK 1/48 F-14!!!

[Berkut]

As i said in my post - more details in the comments by Sio. But i agree with the majority of the above, this will be very hard to achieve in practice imho. AMK is a great company but they simply dont have the weight of lets say Tamiya and i am not sure that the information will travel fast enough between modelers to get 5000 orders in a month or so.

 

They had several iterations of the pinned post but at one point the pre-order price was 55 and the normal is 80USD.

[jgrease]

Wasn't this kit due out in December 2016? Now it will be released this year if enough people pre-order sight unseen? I've enjoyed my MiG-31 completely and I'm sure to buy more AMK kits, but sorry - this just doesn't pass the smell test for me. I get that it's a smaller manufacturer but none of this makes sense. They made enough -31s and obviously sold them, so why this sudden need for a pre-order? Maybe a clear explanation from management would help make sense out of this.

[Neo]

Nice . I hope luckymodel is in the list of preorders

[Andrea Bolla]

Got e-mail from Italian distributor 2 days ago and placed my preorder: 55 EUR shipping included.

[Brad-M]

Red Star also had a post on FB saying they will be on the list for Pre-Order.

 

Brad

[F-16]

Has anyone contacted Sprue Brothers yet? I may contact them on Monday to see if they are going to have Pre-Orders.

 

I thought I read somewhere that LM will not be stocking AMK kits in the future? (Someone please prove me wrong)

 

Scott

CNJC-IPMS

[phantomdriver]

apparently, that is perfectly true..

[Andrea Bolla]

1 minute ago, f-16 said:

I thought I read somewhere that LM will not be stocking AMK kits in the future? (Someone please prove me wrong)

 

 

 

 

It was said last year when the Mig-31 was released and something went wrong with the preorder distribution: they said they will not sell AMK anymore.

 

I had a preorder for the Mig with both LM and SincereHobby and got first the one from the latter.

[phantomdriver]

Sincere Hobby also got hold of all the upgrades for the MiG 31 before anyone else...

No dramas dealing with them either

[MoFo]

13 hours ago, Janissary said:

The first implies it is not a cash problem. But I just don't understand what the mean by what I bolded above. All I understand is if they hit 5000 preorders, they will prioritize this project. But, still all is oddly strange to me.

 

The simple explanation is, AMK is a side-project of an established injection molding business.  Companies hire them to tool and manufacture iPhone cases, electronics housings, toothbrush handles, cupholders, etc. etc.  Several years ago, "AMK" (actually, their parent company, since AMK didn't exist) were contacted by a fairly well known model company who was looking for someone to manufacture their products.  "AMK" tooled a couple of kits for that model manufacturer, then decided to launch their own model company - seemingly, to work on kits when the factory was otherwise idle.

 

So my take is, this preorder stuff is one of two things:  *IF* they make the pre-order number, either they plan free up a space in their own schedule (it would pay more than a contract for water bottles); or they plan to outsource production to someone else (quantity's big enough that they'll still make money).  If they *don't* make the pre-order number, production will wait until the factory is idle, whenever that may be.

 

To use an analogy, let's say someone you know is a big fan of Gundam, finds out you build model kits, and asks you to build them a Gundam model.  You're not really into the subject, but you agree to build it after you finish a few personal projects.  A couple of years after you make this agreement, your friend is getting antsy - you've told him about all the awesome features you'll add to your build, but you haven't found time to actually start it because you're busy building other things.  When he starts complaining, you tell him that, if he pays you $5000, you'll start building it right away and it will be finished by the end of the year; if he doesn't pay you $5000, then he'll just have to wait until you can fit it into your schedule as you had originally agreed.  It's not that you'll be homeless if you don't get the money; your priorities simply lie elsewhere.  You'd rather build stuff for yourself.  But getting that money would give you enough motivation to do the commission build.  Or pay someone else to do it for you.

 

Same with the F-14 kit.  It's not that they can't afford to tool it, it's just that their priorities are elsewhere.  But 5000 pre-orders would change those priorities.

 

12 hours ago, fulcrum1 said:

Am I missing something or did AMK say we have to pre-order without exactly telling us how. 

 

You're not missing anything.  You can kind of piece together the puzzle and find a couple of retailers who have put up pre-orders if you read through every post of FB, and a few discussion boards, but customers really shouldn't have to jump through those sorts of hoops just to figure out how the hell to buy your product... on a deadline.

 

59 minutes ago, Neo said:

Nice . I hope luckymodel is in the list of preorders

 

They won't be.  That relationship is... not good.  And given the fact that LM severed ties over AMK's inability to fulfill orders on schedule (among many other things), I can't really see them jumping back on board for a chaotic pre-order that's unlikely to succeed anyway.

[Sio]

11 minutes ago, MoFo said:

 

The simple explanation is, AMK is a side-project of an established injection molding business.  Companies hire them to tool and manufacture iPhone cases, electronics housings, toothbrush handles, cupholders, etc. etc.  Several years ago, "AMK" (actually, their parent company, since AMK didn't exist) were contacted by a fairly well known model company who was looking for someone to manufacture their products.  "AMK" tooled a couple of kits for that model manufacturer, then decided to launch their own model company - seemingly, to work on kits when the factory was otherwise idle.

 

So my take is, this preorder stuff is one of two things:  *IF* they make the pre-order number, either they plan free up a space in their own schedule (it would pay more than a contract for water bottles); or they plan to outsource production to someone else (quantity's big enough that they'll still make money).  If they *don't* make the pre-order number, production will wait until the factory is idle, whenever that may be.

 

To use an analogy, let's say someone you know is a big fan of Gundam, finds out you build model kits, and asks you to build them a Gundam model.  You're not really into the subject, but you agree to build it after you finish a few personal projects.  A couple of years after you make this agreement, your friend is getting antsy - you've told him about all the awesome features you'll add to your build, but you haven't found time to actually start it because you're busy building other things.  When he starts complaining, you tell him that, if he pays you $5000, you'll start building it right away and it will be finished by the end of the year; if he doesn't pay you $5000, then he'll just have to wait until you can fit it into your schedule as you had originally agreed.  It's not that you'll be homeless if you don't get the money; your priorities simply lie elsewhere.  You'd rather build stuff for yourself.  But getting that money would give you enough motivation to do the commission build.  Or pay someone else to do it for you.

 

Same with the F-14 kit.  It's not that they can't afford to tool it, it's just that their priorities are elsewhere.  But 5000 pre-orders would change those priorities.

 

 

You're not missing anything.  You can kind of piece together the puzzle and find a couple of retailers who have put up pre-orders if you read through every post of FB, and a few discussion boards, but customers really shouldn't have to jump through those sorts of hoops just to figure out how the hell to buy your product... on a deadline.

 

 

They won't be.  That relationship is... not good.  And given the fact that LM severed ties over AMK's inability to fulfill orders on schedule (among many other things), I can't really see them jumping back on board for a chaotic pre-order that's unlikely to succeed anyway.

 

Haha, MoFo,

 

You are telling my story, except the last one.

[Sio]

5 hours ago, Berkut said:

As i said in my post - more details in the comments by Sio. But i agree with the majority of the above, this will be very hard to achieve in practice imho. AMK is a great company but they simply dont have the weight of lets say Tamiya and i am not sure that the information will travel fast enough between modelers to get 5000 orders in a month or so.

 

They had several iterations of the pinned post but at one point the pre-order price was 55 and the normal is 80USD.

 

Anton,

 

With AMK quality, contents in the boxing, pricing and this topic of Tomcat, if we cannot take 5000 pcs preorder, should we revise our strategy of this model company? Or should we work hard for this kind of product? haha

[Sio]

14 hours ago, Janissary said:

I read Sio's posts yesterday and today several times, it still doesn't make sense to me. Can somebody explain? From their FB page:

 

"Pre Order Tomcats. Recommended Retail Price for the preorder will be FAR cheaper than the post release kit. This is to incentivise the sale of these kits. Remember, send no money now. We are not asking for money. The company is fine but we just want to bring this release forward in time and be sure of the date."

 

"....Second, as you guys know, the 1/72 Kfir moulds were completed a long time ago. The delay was due to the fact that our factory is very busy making some minor changes to make the kit as good as it could be. Therefore, we cannot release it until June. 

We don't want to repeat this glitch for our Tomcat. It is too important. So now, we are accepting preorders. If we can achieve a goal of 5000 pcs, we will run the production at full speed ahead...."

 

The bold emphasis is mine. 

 

The first implies it is not a cash problem. But I just don't understand what the mean by what I bolded above. All I understand is if they hit 5000 preorders, they will prioritize this project. But, still all is oddly strange to me.

 

Sio, can you perhaps clarify? I want to support AMK with the F-14 but I will certainly not place a preorder. 

 

Haha. Martin was having hard days when he was posting those messages. Some of them, I felt not quite sense too.

 

What you bolded, he is trying say, we don't want Tomcat project will be in the same situation as 1/72 Kfir.

 

If you follow our facebook, you should know, moulds of 1/72 Kfir were almost done half a year ago. Unfortumately, our factory was super full of orders. We had no way to make any move for minor changes of the moulds. Until now, we didn't release it yet.

 

As we need 5-6 months to finish the production with guaranteed quality, if we don't start production beginning of June, we cannot sell it before Christmas. Then, I think many of you guys will be mad at us. Haha. This is why we try to go this way.

 

Further explanation in next post.

[Sio]

3 hours ago, jgrease said:

Wasn't this kit due out in December 2016? Now it will be released this year if enough people pre-order sight unseen? I've enjoyed my MiG-31 completely and I'm sure to buy more AMK kits, but sorry - this just doesn't pass the smell test for me. I get that it's a smaller manufacturer but none of this makes sense. They made enough -31s and obviously sold them, so why this sudden need for a pre-order? Maybe a clear explanation from management would help make sense out of this.

 

OK! Story time..............

 

First question, actually, we never announced a release date of this project. The story was, about one year ago in 2016, Martin asked me when we are going to release it. I answered, we will try to release it in December, and he replied someone "Maybe in December". Haha. Then, everybody was thinking the release date is december 2016.

 

As MoFo said, we are originally a molding company, making molds and plastic injection. This is our main business. A few years ago, an ex-partner started AMK with us, but left AMK after the first kit.

 

Thanks to our molding knowledge and this Chief Designer (Haha. The one replying you.), we have the quality of AMK kits.

 

Since our own factory has customers, and their orders should have the priority to be produced in the factory. What we did before, is to use the spare time in the factory to produce kits. That is why we were slow.

 

"Unfortunately", our factory was quite full the last whole year, and it seems customers' orders are still coming in. We don't see any available time of the factory to start production in the coming future. And, we want to release it before december, that is why we are trying this way. To guarantee our quality, we need 5-6 months to finish our production. That is why we set the deadline for preordering by the end of May.

 

With this preorder funding, we may probably increase our production capacity or outsource some machining works to guarantee the release date. If you guys want to support us, we will be happy and we would like to have a 20% discount to you. If you think it is risky, you can wait until we release it with normal price which already set to be the same as MIG-31. Different market may have different prices, with comparison to MIG-31 price, you can know what should be the preordering price. Exceptional is US market, we suggest USD 55.20 for some other consideration.

 

Actually, sales of 5000 pcs is more or less our production cost. This is why the goal set. And, this can keep production non-stop, and therefore, a guaranteed release date. If we don't achieve this goal, then we won't take the risk that production may stop at some certain point causing delay of delivery. But we will still produce it, with same old slower way. This is why we may have a conclusion by the end of May. But from all the responses around the world these days, we are quite confident we can achieve this goal.

 

Is this making sense to you now? Haha. If no, just ask me any question!

 

Our own factory is our advantage but also our disadvantage. Advantage is, we can guarantee our quality. Disadvantage is, we are too slow to leave some chances for competitor to release the same kit before we release it. Haha. Hopefully, there is no other manufacturer produce a crap before we release this Tomcat (SuE hinted).

[Sio]

1 hour ago, Andrea Bolla said:

 

It was said last year when the Mig-31 was released and something went wrong with the preorder distribution: they said they will not sell AMK anymore.

 

I had a preorder for the Mig with both LM and SincereHobby and got first the one from the latter.

 

1 hour ago, MoFo said:

 

They won't be.  That relationship is... not good.  And given the fact that LM severed ties over AMK's inability to fulfill orders on schedule (among many other things), I can't really see them jumping back on board for a chaotic pre-order that's unlikely to succeed anyway.

 

The story I heard is ...................

 

After preordering of MIG-31, AMK sent all the kits to distributors with first production. It supposed, everyone should have enough kits for preorders. But some internet shop, they sent these kits to who also bought their own SU-33. Then, they didn't have enough kits to send to those preordered.

 

They had to place order again to AMK HK distributor. Unfortunately, AMK ran out of stock already. So, they cannot have enough kits for preorders. As a complain, they contacted AMK asking to buy directly from AMK. Certainly no! AMK signed agreement with HK distributor, AMK can sell to HK distributor only for HK market.

 

Therefore, a reason came out that, AMK HK distributor could fulfill their requirement, so that, they won't stock AMK kits any more.

 

There will be no more AMK kits in that internet shop!

[Andreas Beck]

Thank you very much for this comprehensive explanation!

 

Please, allow me to ask a question and to make a suggestion:

 

Could you please publish a list of shops/distributers where the F-14s can be pre-ordered from (in my case Europe/Germany) ?

 

During the 2016 SMW I had the chance to have a nice and rather long talk with Martin about this and that in and around our hobby. I suggest that the then actual way of promoting your products with weekly new teasing CAD pictures e.a and the openly discussed perspective of new projects might bring a not wanted effect. With ist already released products there is no necessity for this way of promotion. AMK IS STANDING FOR QUALITY. This IS the best promotion that can be done. (wish other "world market leaders" would go this track, too). Big T is just waiting for , excuse, premature announcements. They try o kick out any competitors. We have some experience with this (AccMin and the Mossie,&Beau). Though that still hoping for a Pucara and the Gina.

 

Sincerely

 

Andreas Beck, Berlin, Germany

[Sio]

15 minutes ago, Andreas Beck said:

Thank you very much for this comprehensive explanation!

 

Please, allow me to ask a question and to make a suggestion:

 

Could you please publish a list of shops/distributers where the F-14s can be pre-ordered from (in my case Europe/Germany) ?

 

During the 2016 SMW I had the chance to have a nice and rather long talk with Martin about this and that in and around our hobby. I suggest that the then actual way of promoting your products with weekly new teasing CAD pictures e.a and the openly discussed perspective of new projects might bring a not wanted effect. With ist already released products there is no necessity for this way of promotion. AMK IS STANDING FOR QUALITY. This IS the best promotion that can be done. (wish other "world market leaders" would go this track, too). Big T is just waiting for , excuse, premature announcements. They try o kick out any competitors. We have some experience with this (AccMin and the Mossie,&Beau). Though that still hoping for a Pucara and the Gina.

 

Sincerely

 

Andreas Beck, Berlin, Germany

Yes! We will post a list of shops/distributors taking preorders in our facebook. But we are still waiting for confirmation of all distributors. We will try to get it done on Monday.

 

For your case, MBK is our German distributor. We are not sure if they will take preorder or not yet. So, just wait.

 

For those countries without distributors/shops taking preorder, we will have other way for modeler to preorder. We will announce this in half a month.

 

Haha. OK now?

[Berkut]

2 hours ago, Sio said:

 

Anton,

 

With AMK quality, contents in the boxing, pricing and this topic of Tomcat, if we cannot take 5000 pcs preorder, should we revise our strategy of this model company? Or should we work hard for this kind of product? haha

 

Well, AMK can do whatever they want to, there is just a bunch of simple human factors to consider like the ones mentioned by MoFo for example. Those has nothing to do with AMK themselves really, just humans being unpredictable. :P I seriously hope to be proven wrong though.

 

Two questions;

 

1; Pre-order from local distributors will be open for one month, correct? So closing in early June?

 

2; For those without a local distributor/shop, you say this option will be announced in 2 weeks. Does this mean that this option will be open for a month, or will it be open for 2 weeks only? (ie closing at same time as local distributor pre-order, early june) I am thinking of this comment on FB "Preordering will last until the end of the month." 2 weeks is a very very short time to "get the word out" to as many modellers as possible and make the commitment to pre-order.

 

Either way, just personal IMHO, i think each of the options should be open for atleast 1 month. Maybe 2 months just to be sure.

 

Also, seems sincere hobby will be taking pre-orders; http://www.sincerehobby.com/product/amk_1_48_grumman_f-14d_tomcat_88007_sincerehobby

 

Extremely fair price for a kit of that size and options/quality.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Berkut

[Sio]

20 minutes ago, Berkut said:

 

Well, AMK can do whatever they want to, there is just a bunch of simple human factors to consider like the ones mentioned by MoFo for example. Those has nothing to do with AMK themselves really, just humans being unpredictable. :P I seriously hope to be proven wrong though.

 

Two questions;

 

1; Pre-order from local distributors will be open for one month, correct? So closing in early June?

 

2; For those without a local distributor/shop, you say this option will be announced in 2 weeks. Does this mean that this option will be open for a month, or will it be open for 2 weeks only? (ie closing at same time as local distributor pre-order, early june) I am thinking of this comment on FB "Preordering will last until the end of the month." 2 weeks is a very very short time to "get the word out" to as many modellers as possible and make the commitment to pre-order.

 

Either way, just personal IMHO, i think each of the options should be open for atleast 1 month. Maybe 2 months just to be sure.

 

Also, seems sincere hobby will be taking pre-orders; http://www.sincerehobby.com/product/amk_1_48_grumman_f-14d_tomcat_88007_sincerehobby

 

Extremely fair price for a kit of that size and options/quality.

 

Yes!

Question 1. Preordering will be closed by the end of May or early of June.

Question 2. Both options will be ending at the same time, end of May or early of June. Haha. So get prrepared of it. As we need 5-6 months for production to guarantee our quality, if this taking too long, we cannot catch up to release it by Christmas. If so, it is meaningless to run at full speed. Even we cannot achieve the goal, just leave it, we will make it with the same way.

 

Yes! Sincere is taking preorders now, but I think, plus shipping, should be higher than local distributor price, right?

[Sio]

18 hours ago, MoFo said:

Further to that:

 

They have to get 5000 pre-orders by the end of the month, or the kit won't be produced until 2018.

They want you to pre-order with your LHS.  If your LHS doesn't do pre-orders  (which, basically means every LHS), they hope to have a way for you to pre-order in a couple of weeks.

The pre-order price will be substantially lower than the regular retail price.  

They haven't actualy said what the pre-order price will be, though.  Or the regular retail price.

5000 kits is basically a regular, full production run for a mainstream manufacturer.  So basically, if they can't pre-sell every kit they produce, they'll put production on hold.

 

IMO, unless major distributors get behind it in a big, big way, I really don't see them pulling it off.  I also wonder about the nuts and bolts of how exactly it's supposed to work - do they plan to bump the factory's regular paying customers to tool the model kit (since AMK is an offshoot of a tooling shop), or do they plan to outsource it too someone else?  What will happen to all those pre-orders if they *don't* hit the magic number?  How much chaos will that cause for the on-line shops accepting pre-orders?  What's going to happen, if they don't hit 5000, to the probably substantial number of customers who don't really understand how this is going to work, and get really, really angry when the kit doesn't turn up, because "I pre-ordered for a December release and now it's not here and they won't even say when it'll be released!"  What will happen if they *do* hit 5000 because people go nuts with the pre-orders then, for a variety of reasons, cancel their pre-orders once the kit has been greenlit (ie.: "I'm definitely going to buy 50 kits... no wait, maybe I'll wait and if the reviews are good once it's released, I'll buy one, if I can find it on sale for half price at a model contest...").

 

Maybe I'm just Mr. Negativity, but I see a whole bunch of ways this could go south.

Ah.........

I missed this!

True! We have all kind of people in the world.

But can we satisfy the feeling of all others? Haha. I don't think so.

What we can do is, just doing what we should do, like keeping imrpoving our quality.

[ChesshireCat]

6 hours ago, jgrease said:

Wasn't this kit due out in December 2016? Now it will be released this year if enough people pre-order sight unseen? I've enjoyed my MiG-31 completely and I'm sure to buy more AMK kits, but sorry - this just doesn't pass the smell test for me. I get that it's a smaller manufacturer but none of this makes sense. They made enough -31s and obviously sold them, so why this sudden need for a pre-order? Maybe a clear explanation from management would help make sense out of this.

I don't think AMK ever gave anykind of a release date, but I think many of us here did (I'm probably guilty). Anyway I was good for one kit, but at $55, I'm good for at least two or three. I'm assuming the kit will be boxed like their MIG, so now where do I put them???? 

gary

[ChesshireCat]

4 hours ago, Sio said:

 

Haha, MoFo,

 

You are telling my story, except the last one.

when are you going to post a list of shops to pre-order the Tomcat from. Also; have you started the new F100d yet?

as always

gary

[Sio]

1 minute ago, ChesshireCat said:

when are you going to post a list of shops to pre-order the Tomcat from. Also; have you started the new F100d yet?

as always

gary

Still waiting for distibutors' confirmation. Will try to post it on Monday.

 

Haha. F100d?

[ChesshireCat]

4 hours ago, Sio said:

 

Anton,

 

With AMK quality, contents in the boxing, pricing and this topic of Tomcat, if we cannot take 5000 pcs preorder, should we revise our strategy of this model company? Or should we work hard for this kind of product? haha

Sio,

 

just a thought here. If you remember I went through all kinds of problems getting my hands on the upgraded MIG 31. The first one I order still hasn't shown up yet! A fellow modeler put me onto a guy that had them in stock, and I finally got one six months later! I like the kit so well, that I think I'll get a second one. Absolutely the best packing job I've ever seen without a second thought. Lets hope the Tomcat will also be done that well too. Now you have roughly six and a half months to get all your supply lines in order, so I'd get cracking right away!

gary

[Sio]

1 minute ago, ChesshireCat said:

Sio,

 

just a thought here. If you remember I went through all kinds of problems getting my hands on the upgraded MIG 31. The first one I order still hasn't shown up yet! A fellow modeler put me onto a guy that had them in stock, and I finally got one six months later! I like the kit so well, that I think I'll get a second one. Absolutely the best packing job I've ever seen without a second thought. Lets hope the Tomcat will also be done that well too. Now you have roughly six and a half months to get all your supply lines in order, so I'd get cracking right away!

gary

 

Haha. Yes! We care about packing very much.

 

We changed the packing design of our 1/72 Kfir missiles. You will see. But it lasted us half a year to change it. This is why Martin said, we don't want this situation happen again.