The latest example of this is Lou’s Drive In by GCLaser which I recently purchased. This is not a cheap kit. I shelled out $60 for it. Nevermind that the “instruction” sheet was little more than a parts list and diagrams of how the various parts fit together with almost no narrative instructions. Nevermind that when the slots in the roof halves were fitted over the tabs in the gables, there was an 1/8" gap between the roof halves at one end, a glaring error for something that is supposedly laser cut. The final insult came when I went to attach the paper shingles to the roof. The roof is 11 13/16" long but the shingle strips are only 11 9/16" long. This means that for every course of shingles and there are 29 per side, I have to cut an additional 1/4" strip and an allign it properly, effectively doubling the amount of time I have to spend on this task. Like it would have killed them to make the paper shingle strips 1/4" longer.
Companies that make products this bad deserve to go broke, and I can promise you they will never see another dime of my money.
Did you contact them by phone or e-mail, maybe they would have offered help and replaced defective parts or just start a rant? Most craftsmen kit makers rely on customer responses to avoid dissatisfaction with products they’re trying to sell. Just an idea. mh
Why is everyone always so quick to make excuses for companies like this? So in addition to shelling our $60 for a poorly made product, I’m expected to go through the hassle of trying to get them to change the way the product is made, like that is going to do any good. The defects are in the the product design. Do you really think they are going to retool this kit for me? And if by some miracle they actual were to correct these design flaws and send me a new kit, then I would have to spend the time building it all over again. It amazes me so many in this hobby are willing to accept such poorly made products as the norm. If this is a rant, so be it. This company deserves to be hammered for what they produced and the buying public deserves to be notified about their lack of QC.
I agree 100% with you. I have personally either called via phone or emailed different kit mfrs in the past as to their clumsy ways of producing the kit parts.
On the other hand I’ve had some extremely good craftsmanship of HO building kits.
And yes I am a nitpicker when it comes to HO building kits as they better be VERY good for some of their ridiculous prices.
Hmmmmm…well, here’s a thought, I always worked on the idea of contacting the offending party “first”, then if they blew me off or didn’t offer a satisfactory solution I would start my “bad publicity” campaign against them.
Granted, sometimes you know it’s going to be a total waste of time going in but then you can also add that to the rant by saying “I contacted them and they ignored me or didn’t offer to resolve the problem first”.
I have no doubt that you have a very “valid” complaint against them but your “shoot first and then ask questions later” attitude probably won’t get you far with the manufacturer or the people you are trying to warn about the problem.
If you buy a new car and have problems with it do you write a letter to the editor of the local paper complaining about the car or do you take it to the dealer first to try to get it corrected? It’s basically the same thing, and beleive me, I understand your frustration, but “diplomacy” is always the best course, if that fails you can always reach for the “shootin irons”!!!
I’m sorry you had some problems, but you really don’t get much sympathy from me since you didn’t give the manufacturer a chance to rectify the situation. How do you expect them to improve their product if you don’t let them know what’s wrong with it, That’s why products come with a warranty, if you don’t want to make use of it and would rather just rant, then that’s just tough on you.
My other half will rant to me about work, mostly of which I do not care, nor can I do anything to resolve the issue as I do not work there. The explanation is that by ranting to me it gets out of the system and perhaps saves face when confroted by the same/similar situation or a person again.
So I can see some possible value to a rant here, but you should at least give the company a chance to rectify the situation first before going off on a public tangent.
Had you contacted them, they could have A} sent you a new kit; B} sent you corrected parts C} given you a credit towards another kit D} given you a refund of your $60.00. Perhaps they became aware of some of these faults AFTER Some kits were mass produced and corrected the problem, but did not scrap the ones already made not knowing where the errors started or ended in a run. Perhaps they are totally unaware of the problems.
Then your rant here would have changed into perhaps praise for their great customer service rather than a discredit to their name.
Perhaps you are right and they just want your money and don’t care, but until you find out by contacting them and maybe even sending pictures of the faults, you won’t know.
We are quick to judge and rant before we try to solve a problem and slow to recant or praise.
I’ll turn the question around. Why are you so quick to trash a company, when you never even gave them a chance to fix the situation?
You said the defects are in the product design. I’m not so sure. I doubt very much the design of the kit is the problem. From your description, it’s far more likely that the measurements were not translated accurately from the master (or master plans) to the cutting of the stock supplied in the kit. Whether that’s true of the entire run, or just your sample of one, would be interesting to know.
Yes, it would be nice for the designer/builder/manufacturer to have a “beta tester” attempt to assemble a production version of their kit before selling - and some kit manufacturers do. But the profit margins and capital shortages of small hobby manufacturers don’t lend themselves to prolonged testing. Just like many other industries, retail customers have become beta testers of new products. What slows down the process of customer feedback for mr kits is that most kits don’t get assembled right away. In fact, most don’t g
I agree that there are kit makers who offer outstanding products and it wasn’t my intent to disparage all of them. As and example, I purcashed two house kits from Laser Art last year and those used the same types of materials as the above named kit and I had none of the issues I had with this company. It should not be up to the customer to identify flaws in a company’s products. They should do that before the first kit goes out the door. If they had bothered to actually try to assemble one of their kits before mass producing it, these flaws would have been obvious. Whether they did or didn’t take this step, shame on them.
It’s really very simple. If I get a good product the first time I do business with a company, I will be a repeat customer. If they fail to give me my money’s worth the first time, they won’t get a second chance, and this company certainly won’t.
That would depend on the nature of the problem. If it were a design flaw, in other words the product was built as intended and there was an inherent flaw in it, then no, I wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt. If it were a problem which occurred during the manufacturing process, that can happen with the best of companies and I would give them the opportunity to correct it. If I had received sheets of shingles that obviously had been mangled during production or shipping, I would have taken the steps you recommended. But these sheets were in perfect condition when I received them. They were designed a 1/4" too short for their intended purp
How can a company make an error like that??? Simple, they’re “people”, people make mistakes, if you have zero tolarance for that then there is no point in trying to explain it to you, some people just don’t get it…
As with so many other manufacturers, the ones designing, producing, advertising, and selling the item may or may not even know what they just made or what it was even used for, how it fits together, or how to even assemble it. They’re in it for the job. When I see great kits, I see the people responsible for it as modelers themselves. It reminds me of a “Trains and Locomotives” episode in which the narrator was comparing two engines (N&W and SP IIRC), I cannot recall which two but only that they were big articulateds. He compared the fireboxes of them, one being 121 sq INCHES, and the other 110 sq INCHES. How many people involved in writing, production, and editing could understand the firebox is bigger than a BBQ grill?
I would contact the company or even check out their website to see if they have a forum or FAQ section. Sometimes they offer additional instructions on-line. As for the wrong size sheets it could be a couple of things. You could have gotten an end sheet that was a little short or maybe something was put together wrong making the sheet short.
Well there are valid arguments on both sides, first off, Do you have the reasonable right and expectation that every part in that kit should fit exactly perfect and that they should all be up to standards and that the only missing factor to a outstanding finished product is your ability as a modeler, yes of course you do and you should receive nothing less, as all of us should every single time we purchase anything for that matter, but as they say [:D] (censored for pg rating) [:D] happens. So we have to deal with it. that being said
I to have to fault you for not contacting the company and allowing them to make good on their mistake. They are only human and are allowed to make mistakes and should be afforded the opportunity to make good on those mistakes before being thrown under the bus.
I have to ask myself how experienced a craftsman kit builder you are to have gone so far in construction before finding these obvious mistakes. Not claiming to be the be all to end all when it comes to craftsman kit building but I learned and by the way the hard way to dry fit all my components before I do anything. Same is to be said when building a resin kit. It doesn’t take all that long to dry fit or trail fit wall sections together or fit windows to walls etc.to make sure everything is just as it should be.When I got to the point where you found the walls had 1/8" gaps I would have stopped right then and there. I am reading this correct that you got as far as putting on the shingles to find yet another mistake. When I found a one foot scale gap in the gables that would have been enough for me to throw it back in the box and fire off an email or a phone call.
I have learned to take nothing for granted and figure if there is one kit that has been goofed up I am the guy who has purchased it.
I had this happen on a rather simple DPM kit. nothing so complicated about 4 walls and some window glazing right. So after a couple of nights spent looking through th