Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, though I have looked around on various other sites with the occasional question, but little in the way of an answer.
Is Nigel Lawton still trading? Most of his kits have been out of stock for some time now, and the website doesn't look to have been updated in well over a year either. I fear I know the answer, but I thought I would enquire just in case.
Thanks
Andy
As far as I know he is. Although some of the items have been out of stock for a while, I bought some of his motors, gearsets and belt drive system components in the Autumn and they arrived quickly enough.
Frank
Thanks Frank, I'll drop him and email and make an enquiry.
Andy
As far as i know, if it is a kit you are after, sadly you are going to be out of luck and it is unlikley that they will be in production again.
However, regarding the components that are listed in his on-line shop then yes, these are still available. (See the link below.)
Some items like the North West Short lines brass worm and gear sets are no longer made, so obvioulsy they are no longer available and other items now require way to many as a minimum order to re-stock. 10,000 items is not unknown!!
http://www.nigellawton009.com/PayPal.html
Unfortunately it was a kit I would be enquiring about, no worries. Back to the drawing board!
I understand production of a part has to be profitable or worthwhile, but minimum orders in the thousands seems a bit daft! Then again, wouldn't know the ins and outs behind kit production.
Andy
To be honest Andy I've always worked on the principle "doesn't ask will not get".
Drop Nigel a line and ask then at least you will know that he doesn't have any in stock, and you never know you may be lucky and he might have the parts to box up a kit for you.
If not then you haven't lost anything (other than the few minutes to write the e-mail), and least you can continue your search elsewhere...
I agree with Juilen, please do contact Nigel and ask.
In terms of components, including motors, many come from suppliers outside the model industry. In some cases the components were already in manufacture in very large numbers for other customers, the motor vehicle or electrical good industries for example. This meant it was easy to just add a relatively small number to the existing production run. However, if the major customer no longer needs them then it would require a special production run, hence the large numbers required.
It is also worth knowing that one of the etching companies that many of the brass kit manufactures used sadly stopped trading without much warning. This would require the kit manufacture to fall back to the original art work for the kit that may not be in the correct format for another etching company to use. Even if it was additional test etches may well be needed to ensure all the etching depths etc are the same as the original etching company, because they may not be identical. This would then need changes to the artwork.
One final thing to note is that almost all the 009 kit manufactures and suppliers run their business as an extension to their hobby, not as a main business. Quite often a kit manufacture will produce a kit for an item that they want themselves, once that need has been filled there is little motivation to re-produce the kit, especially if it needs modifications to use different components due to a lack of availability of the original items.
Just a quick update on this.
A received a reply back from Nigel last night. He's not currently producing kits, but if time allows he may start again in the future.
Thanks
Andy
Quote from: Andy Robinson on January 22, 2023, 20:52
Just a quick update on this.
A received a reply back from Nigel last night. He's not currently producing kits, but if time allows he may start again in the future.
It would be excellent if he did. His kits are delightful. Somewhere I think I still have one the very earliest invoices from him. I hope I did not throw it out!