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Round 2 Models Kits: China Trip - Day 2 (ain’t that title creative?)
(The below has been written to the best of my understanding. I can only speak to what I have seen first hand and what I have been told through broken English.)
(and as you’ll see, my favorite punctuation mark is the parenthesis)
We had our first meeting today and it went really well. The meeting today was with one of our suppliers for our Forever Fun product line. To be painfully honest, they let us down with the quality of our Forever Fun product last year and this was the primary reason for me making the trip. They also work on our die cast products and do a very good job with that line. I’ll meet with our Round 2 Models kit manufacturer later tomorrow afternoon.
The meeting was very constructive. I’m here because I know the answers to the factory’s questions and I know what we can and can’t live without. We were able to walk through all of the new product that has been set so far for this year. I was informed about difficulties the factories have with workers. (I’d say they are good problems for them to have. More on that further on down.) I was able to find some solutions to a few problems they were having too. Thanks to the benefit of the internet, I was able to “discuss” our meeting with my compatriots Bob and Terri back at the office via aim once I returned to my hotel. (there is 12 hours difference in time zones) We were able to hammer out a few details I didn’t want to nail down without their input. I also went on a brief tour of the factory…
I think this is the one aspect everyone seems to be most curious about. What are the working conditions like? My impression is… not terrible. I’ll be upfront and honest; the idea of working in any factory day in and day out gives me heeby-jeebies. Many people, including some I know and love, do this every day. God bless them for it. There isn’t anything “wrong” with it. It just isn’t for me. With that said, as factories go it wasn’t much worse than any others I’ve been in during summer jobs during college, print shops or RV plants I’ve spent time in.
It was dirty, loud in some spots and smelly in others not unlike those I’ve been in at home. I did pick up on things like the lack of eye protection and such. I definitely saw no sign of children which we would all fear. The Chinese government has made worker rights a priority in the recent past. This is part of the reason why you might have noticed price increases in products in the last few years. They are paid for over time (though I honestly don’t know how many hours they are to work before considering it “overtime”) and they are to receive Sunday off.
Workers also hold an upper hand because even though the population of China is huge, it is aging and younger workers are pickier about where they work and what they do. There are jobs that no one wants to do even at higher rates of pay. Spray deco which our Forever Fun uses quite extensively is a job people don’t want because they don’t like the smell (it smelled no worse than an American screen printing shop to me). Younger workers would also rather work in a better environment like the booming service industry. Southern China’s manufacturing districts grew because people were willing to move there for work in addition to the large concentration of people already in the area. With other areas growing in population, people are staying closer to home. In the past, people would move away from home (along with their immediate families in many cases) for years at a time to work at a factory. Areas in Northern China can now attract workers with better wages. This is a flip flop from the past. These are all factors plus the fact that land owners share their wealth with their extended families so people of working age in the area don’t necessarily need to work to feed their families anyway. (Land in China is very valuable and increasing in value)
I asked where most of the factory workers lived. (as I recall, they employ 400 between two facilities) I had heard that most will live in a dorm at the factory but I had seen many apartments in the area as well. I was told that many workers are family and that they stay at the factory. (I didn’t see the dorms. If I did, I didn’t know it.) They work from 8-12, 1:30-6 and 7:30-9. If this artist’s math is right (fat chance) that comes to 10 hours a day. I work close to that 5 days a week. Add in my commute time and I would be spending the same amount of time away from home.
I don’t mean to put too much shine on a turd here. The area the factory was in is dirty. It was raining today but I was told that even if it wasn’t, we still wouldn’t see the sun for the smog. If you spend time out in it, I understand you end up pretty gritty. The office area was dingy compared to those at home. Again, I’d say the smog has something to do with that. We spent most of our time in an air conditioned conference room but the rest of the office was ventilated by open windows.
… At one quiet moment, I asked Eric, the gentleman I spent most of the day talking to (and young son of the owner), “what do you do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies?” and he said “No, not really. Just spend time at home”. I’m not sure if he fully understood my question or if he didn’t want to go into it. Sadly, the look on his face backed up his answer.
Is this the best place on Earth to make a living? No, not compared to options we have. Are we as Americans demanding about the product we buy? Yes. It has to be good quality, safe and inexpensive. That’s hard to achieve and some times when it is achieved, it is at the expense of another human being(s) somewhere else in the world. No one person (that I know of) is to blame. It is what we have grown into. By the same token, people are making money and getting rich in China too. Things aren’t terribly different a world away. I think this coin has more than two sides and they aren’t all as equally shiny. Take that as you may (or will… or whichever is grammatically correct.)
(See what I meant about the parenthesis?)
Round 2 Models: China Trip - Day 1
L to R- Eric Wong, Jamie Hood, Raymond Wong at Heap Shing/Signature Models factory, Dongguan, China
(Due to a lack of access to facebook from China, these blogs will be partly for friends and family and partly informational for fans of our Round 2 Models kit product. I hope everyone finds something worthwhile in them.)
I’m sitting in my underwear (there goes worthwhile out the window) at 11:30 in the morning and I’m getting ready to go to bed… Well, it’s 11:30 a.m. at home but it’s almost midnight here. I’m not real tired and I’d blame my internal clock for that. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane some I’m running on about 4 hours sleep out of the last oh… 28 or so. I have faith in myself that I’ll fall right to sleep.
The trip has gone fine so far. I was blessed to have no one sit next directly next to me on the plane. I had a window seat which was nice. I can confirm two things, the polar ice cap is still there and someone deliberately created this world of ours. Nothing leaves me in awe more than flying over the mountains of Eastern Asia or seeing Cumulus clouds… from above. Amazing sites. My only disappointment was not having my camera on hand at the time.
I withstood the plane ride fairly well. The movies sucked so I read Crisis On Infinite Earths, a twelve issue series that forever (until a couple years ago) changed the DC comics universe. It is held in high regard by many comic fans. I had always remembered it very fondly as I had read it when it came out… in 1985. It is still the greatest comics crossover ever, imo. It was so epic and complex story-wise that I doubt another crossover can come close to it though many have and will try.
After landing (in Hong Kong), we met up with a couple gentlemen from one of the factories we do business with in China. They brought us to our hotel. The ride was nice. Hong Kong was foggy today and it was nearing dusk so it seemed overly grey. The city of Hong Kong (what I’ve seen thus far) reminds me of the Smoky Mountains, very green with low mountain tops and foggy. Imagine the Smokies with a major city nestled among them and that’ll get you close to what I saw.
The Goodview Hotel is very luxurious with pretty much all the bells and whistles. It is located near the factory we will visit tomorrow. We had a nice Chinese meal. Here, the meal is served as dishes one at a time until the table is full. We eat a bit of each dish as it arrives. I used chop sticks and managed not to embarrass myself. We had orange shrimp, BBQ pork, a dish very much like steak fajitas but without the wraps, another pork (I think) dish and shrimp fried rice. It was very good. The flavors are a bit more subtle than the take out we get.
Well, those are the highlights for today, hopefully, more tomorrow. Have a good lunch. I’m hitting the hay.
Round 2 Model Kits: Leaving On A Jet Plane
Hi all. I know I’ve been pretty irregular with blog posts lately. The main reason has been we have started a system to really keep us on track with our release dates. This has caused us to have to do a whole lot of work up front to get a jump on everything. I hope to have some interesting stuff to write up real soon. It is just a matter of getting over this hump. I hope to be able to do the ten-day lead up to Wonderfest again this year.
One of the other reasons I have been so pressed for time is that besides getting everything on track with our deadlines, I’m also making a trip to China. I may even be on a plane by the time this blog gets posted. I’ll finally be able to see Round 2 model kits being made first hand. I’m wondering if there is anything you guys would like to see some pics of. I’ll definitely be hanging out in the factory for a few days. I hope to do a little blogging while I’m there. We’ll see how it goes.
Round 2 Models: Ever heard of this old show called Star Trek?
You know, it had been a long, long time since I had watched an episode of the Original Series of Star Trek. I’m not sure if I had seen one since my elementary school days before we signed up the license. I remembered it fondly but I fell into the “Star Wars guy” division of sci-fi fandom. I couldn’t help it, it was all the timing of the thing. Sure I had seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the big screen but it didn’t have the quick pace of Star Wars. What can I say? I was just a kid.
Fast forward to the last year or so. Once we lined up the license, I went back and watched a few old episodes over the net. I had to do a google search to find out which episodes were supposed to be the best. It was a novelty for a while. I watched a few episodes of the remastered show before it too was cancelled.(around here at least) Then I asked for and received the first season on Blu-ray. I watched a few episodes and marveled at the beauty of the cinematography, the lighting, etc. It is a beauty to watch.
As I was working on the K7 Space Station illustration, I played old episodes over the net again. I concentrated on the second and third seasons since I has season 1 waiting for me downstairs. There is a lot more good stuff than I remembered. Then this last weekend, I watched a couple disks worth of season 1 while assembling test shots. I’m just past half way through season 1 now. I have to admit, I feel like a fan now. I genuinely like the show whereas I had just respected it and remembering liking it as a kid. I can take it seriously now I guess.
What I’ve found is that my personal preference is that I like the episodes where they stay on the Enterprise more than the ones where they have an away mission. Stand out episodes…
Balance of Terror - My favorite single episode. The Romulan Bird of Prey is becoming one of my favorite ships. I can’t stand Yeoman Rand though. I’m interested to see what order the episodes were filmed in. This one seems pretty early even though it aired in the middle of the season.
Carbomite Maneuver - It was good until we got to Ronny Howard’s ugly little brother as the big bad. Couldn’t take it seriously after that.
The Menagerie- I liked everything that happened in the “present” much better than the stuff from the pilot.
Trouble With Tribbles - I LOVE Scotty. He’s by far my favorite character and the fight scene sealed that.
Mirror Mirror - Made me want to shave my beard into a goatee so I could become evil.
Whom Gods Destroy - Green Yvonne Craig… Yum. It dawned on me while watching this one that Star Trek has to be the show with the highest babe guest stars per capita. Virtually every episode had an outstanding guest-babe that put today’s starlets to shame… except for Yeoman Rand. I still don’t like her…
Let That Be You Last Battlefield - I’m not one for having to “think” about my sci-fi but even as heavy handed as their social message was in that one, it was done very well.
Shore Leave - started VERY weak but ended pretty strong.
Squire of Golthos - I’ll never get that 45 minutes back again. It seems like I either love an episode or hate it. There are only a few I would say fall between. This is the worst I’ve seen so far.
Other favs in no particular order… Tholian Web, Doomsday Machine, Galileo 7, Naked Time, Immunity Syndrome, Amok Time, The Enterprise Incident, Deadly Years and The Ultimate Computer.
With all that said, I can’t wait to put my hands to work on more Star Trek TOS projects for Round 2 models.
Round 2 Model Kits: On the Air
We were recently invited to be guests on a radio show out west. I know you are thinking “why us”? and that’s exactly what we thought too. It turns out that Steve Kates hosts a radio program out west called the Dr. Sky show. It is a show about all aspects of space from real science to science fiction and pretty much everything in between. He contacted us to see if we would be interested in coming on his show and discussing some of our Round 2 model kits. To be honest, we were a little weary, not of Dr. Sky but ourselves. Bob can talk at the drop of a hat (though he won’t admit it) and I usually clam up under pressure. We felt like it was an opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up.
Feel free to give it a listen. You can download our interview here.
Star Trek model kits: A New K-7 Box Illustration
I had the opportunity, so I had to make the time to do a new box illustration for the K-7 Space Station Star trek model kit. It was a fun change. I had to decide whether to do an image showing the “real” station as seen in “Trouble With Tribbles” or more likely “Trials and Tribblations”. I decided it would be best to just paint it as the kit since that’s what’s in the box. The kit is way off model (pun intended) from how the station looked in the shows.
I had hoped to achieve an old school look with this one. Since it is going on a retro style box I was hoping to emulate the look of the boxes of the other vintage Star Trek model kits. I overworked it so it got too tight for me to call it a success from that standpoint. (I need to loosen up) This is the raw scan so it will probably look quite a bit different once I tweak the colors and do a little retouching.
I’d estimate about 30 hours in it. b/g including ships was all done with acrylics. The station itself was rendered in 15 year old bullet point Design markers. (I chickened out of painting the whole thing or airbrushing it after the last illo.) I went back in with colored pencil here and there and a few touches of gouache.
Round 2 Model Kits: A Genuine Article
I may have noted here or elsewhere that we are open to posting articles written by modeling fans on our website. The subject could be about any Round 2 model kit. It sometimes takes a while to get them edited and posted up but it is a great way to share insights with others about our kits.
The article can basically be about anything. If you want to review a new kit, write about an advanced modeling or want to talk about the history behind any given kit, feel free to submit a pitch. We ask that you be able to write well, take nice photographs as needed to communicate your story and be willing to take a little bit of direction if we feel something could be tweaked about the article itself. What do you get in return? Why kits, of course.
Be sure to see our website for past articles by Bob, Jim Small, Mark Budniewski, Kurt Brown, and myself. They cover many aspects of modeling but there are an infinite number of topics to explore. Take a look in our ARTICLES or WORKBENCH sections of the website.
Round 2 reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to use or not use any submitted Material. Any parties submitting any idea or written or photographic material (”Material”) warrants that the Material is original with the submitter and does not infringe the copyright or other right of any third party. Further, the submitter agrees that, by submitting the Material, Round 2 or its affiliates and assignees have submitter’s consent to use the Material in any manner whatsoever without further consent or authorization or without compensation to the submitter. By submitting the Material, submitter releases Round 2 or any affiliated party from any liability to submitter or any third party, and in the case of any claim by a third party, submitter agrees to indemnify Round 2.U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 Refit: IT’S HERE!
In case you might not have heard, we’ve been developing a 1:1000 scale U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 Refit. It’s kind of been a big thing.
Well, they came in today. I bet they all fly back out today too. More are on the way. This batch should hit distributors next week and then they’ll go on to retailers soon after. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
Round 2 Model Kits, WeTube… see what I did there?
Round 2 model kits has a YouTube channel, Round2foryou a place where you’ll see links to some of our favorite videos related to model kits and the wide variety of products and brands that Round 2 has to offer. We love hearing and now seeing what people are doing with our products and just how they enjoy them on a regular basis.
Start your subscription today and let’s see where it all goes — we’re just getting started!
Star Trek Model Kits: To “B” or not to “B”…
Long story short (don’t worry it’ll get longer again in a minute) is that we ran into a snag in our plans to re-release the 1:1400 Enterprise 1701D. I’m not going into that right now. To be honest, the result of looking for a replacement kit is much more intriguing anyway.
We keep a handful of kit ideas in our back pocket in case our intended plans go awry (which happens all too often). On our backup list is the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701B and U.S.S. Reliant. Personally, I like the design of the Reliant but I’ve always seen an overwhelming amount of support for bringing back the B or the Excelsior. To be honest, I wasn’t very familiar with the B. I had seen ST: Generations when it came out years ago but I think we can all agree it was a pretty forgettable film. I barely remembered the Excelsior. In my mind it was the new ship that could live up to the A. It wasn’t until recently that I re-watched that one again to see that it was Scotty’s ingenuity that made the ship stall out.
We were scrambling to figure out which kit to do. So I put some feelers out. I asked Jim Small, our go-to buildup guru about the Reliant and the B and then I put a poll out on Starship Modeler. Between these two sources, I knew I’d quickly be educated on the state of the kits and get a better feeling about which way to go. It seemed like the majority of folks who liked the B actually would have preferred the Excelsior. This led to a lot of discussion on the board about what state the tool of the B would be in. Had the tool been permanently altered to transform the Excelsior kit into the Enterprise B? It became a case of model kit archeology- determining a hypothesis, investigating the clues, waiting for the vault to be opened to find out the truth…
I could see the differences between the ships but I had never cracked open a copy of the kit. In fact, at the time, all we had was the Excelsior. Jim had copies of the kits so I had him send down some pics of them. We found that many of the sprues looked the same and probably were identical but something stood out right away. The belly of secondary hull of the B had been split into two halves while the Excelsior had been one solid piece. I could see why. The flares added onto the hull would have caused a draft issue. If the original hull tool had just been modified, the injected part would never have come out of the tool.
I investigated our tool list, which is our only real documentation, and it is spotty and unclear at best. To boot, I have never gotten a clear explanation of the info included one the list. If the tool had been recorded, it shows the corresponding numbers. Most tools, which have been transferred from the US to China, have had the tool numbers documented. Most kits that have never been repopped and are still in storage in the US have no tool numbers and the tool would need to be physically searched for. The list showed two tools were required to make the Excelsior and three tools were required to make the Enterprise B. The two Excelsior tools were the same number as two tools need for the B.
The strange thing about the list is that many of the kits are listed more than once. I never noticed why until I really concentrated on this conundrum. There is one column labeled Cat # which showed a year in it like 1998. My determination is that this is the year a kit appeared in a catalog. Both the B and the Excelsior would have been shown in the catalog for several consecutive years. The Excelsior came out one year before the B but both kits looked to be available in every year the B was produced. With the volume of kits produced during that time, I doubt that the company at the time would have produced enough inventory to last for four years, then permanently alter the tool to create the B.
We landed a copy of the B and compared it to the Excelsior firsthand. There are definite shared parts as well as completely unique parts. The detail of the top saucer is much more crisp on the later Enterprise B than the Excelsior and although some injection points are close, they don’t match exactly. The troublesome part is that some sprues with many common parts have had one part switched out. That’s where it gets dicey. My theory is that the saucer top, the belly of the secondary hull, the base and the other sprue of parts for the B are all on one tool. This would leave the saucer top intact as the Excelsior but I think some of the other smaller parts may have been switched out. If these were done as tool inserts, we shouldn’t have a problem. In any case, if we find that the Excelsior parts have been lost, have a lot of existing tooling for the kit gets us a long way. Retooling the missing parts should be affordable to do at some point.
So where do we stand right now? We are having the Enterprise B/ Excelsior and Reliant tooling moved to our factory to have test shots done. This is really the only way to know what we really have.
Have we decided which kit to bring out? Right now, it looks to be the Reliant just because it is easier to move ahead with not knowing what the status of the other tool is. We do have some ideas for the Reliant which I think Star Trek model kit fans will like but we won’t be making a final announcement until we receive costs back and we are sure we can carry our plans through.
As for the Excelsior/ Enterprise B, I’ll keep you posted. One way or another, one kit or the other will be back out again some day.
