2020 Is Off to an Amazing Start with Big Changes in the Works!
Hello everyone!
It's been awhile, and I wanted to make a point of giving you all an update on things that have been happening, and letting you know about some upcoming changes that I'm very excited about.
Ultimate Scale Truck Expo 2020
First lets start with the Ultimate Scale Truck Expo which was held late last month in Williston Florida. I was in attendance at this event and had a booth set up with various products and projects. What an amazing event! Great builds, great people, and an all around great time. A huge thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth and got out on the trails with me. It was a great time and I'm looking forward to returning again in 2021. Check out the video we put together with full coverage of this event:
A couple shots from some of the Amazing trails.
Coronavirus and Supply Issues
USTE was a lot of fun, but now let's talk about something not so fun; coronavirus. Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you're all aware of the coronavirus outbreak. Unfortunately as a result of this outbreak, shipping between Asia and the USA has slowed and may soon get worse. Although most or our parts and products we sell are sourced from local suppliers or are made in house, many parts and hardware come direct from manufacturers in Asia. The result is shipping delays from some of our suppliers causing many of our most popular products to currently be out of stock.
We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone's patience. Of course the shipping delays are beyond our control and we don't know when things will be back to normal. We hope we'll have these products back in stock soon.
Stay healthy everyone!
2010 Ford Shelby GT500 Project Nearing Completion
For those of you following along on social media, you've probably been seeing the progression of this 1/25 scale 2010 Shelby GT500. A full build series will be made upon the completion of this project. Be sure to be on the lookout for these videos on YouTube!
Product Improvements and New Kits Coming Soon
In addition to the coronavirus causing supply issues, we are also reworking some of our kits to simplify our product lines including our MA10 Axle assemblies. We have taken customer feedback into consideration as we work to improve our products and kits. This month we were planning on introducing our new MA10 axle kit which includes all necessary hardware, bearings, grease, axle shaft, gears, and driveshaft socket at an even lower cost than our current kits. With that one kit, our customers can choose from a variety of compatible axle housings that will best suite their project. Also a variety of STL files for different MA10 axle housings will be available, allowing you to 3D print your own axle housing parts, just like with our FFR SC1 chassis. A video with more information will be released in conjunction with these new kits.
With these supply issues however, we have decided to delay the release or our new MA10 kits and STL files until we have all the parts and hardware needed for the kits.
Fully FDM 3D Printable FFR SC1 Chassis
The fully FDM 3D printable variant of the FFR SC1 chassis for Revell 2010 Ford Mustang model kits has been a big success! If you'd like to learn more, please check out this video:
As has been mentioned, this version of the FFR SC1 chassis will be offered on Patreon to fit other model kits bodies soon. Be on the lookout for these new variants! If there's a specific car or model kit you'd like to use, let us know. We may consider it for a future release, or be able to assist you with selecting the correct size chassis parts for your body.
Along with new FFR SC1 chassis variants, expect to see some other new 3D models and other surprises showing up on Patreon.
Make It RC Products Coming to Shapeways
Some of you may be familiar with Shapways 3D printing services. Some of you may even have experience ordering parts from Shapeways as they have been a popular company for both designers who want to turn their 3D models into physical parts, and from hobbyists wanting to order specialty parts for their vehicle.
If you'd like to lean more about Shapeways, click the image above to see their website. We'll soon be posting some 3D models there for any of you to be able to have printed and sent to you via Shapeways.
Why use Shapeways? Shapeways has the ability to print models in a variety of different materials. Although the fine detail resins and PLA plastic we use for many of our products offer a nice part at a great value, some customers want better strength and flexibility and a better finish from some of our parts. Shapeways will allow these customers to choose from a wider selection of materials to have these parts printed in.
Additionally with Shapeways handling the printing, customer service, and shipping of all items sold on their site, this takes some burden off of our small mostly part time team. This allows us to spend more time designing, testing, making videos, interacting with customers, and producing more documentation and tutorials.
We're excited to start uploading models to Shapways and having parts printed in a variety of materials. We'll soon have a public shop which we'll be adding specific parts to. Be sure to follow us on our social media pages for updates.
That's going to wrap up this post. Be sure to follow our social media pages and YouTube channel for future updates.