Norsican wrote:I purchased both VF-84 and VF-154 pilots from Skyworks, along with two sets of F-14 metal main landing gear legs and replacement cans. I thought the work was impeccable. The owner seemed to be one of those grouchy, quirky, creative genius types when I spoke to him on several occasions but he was always good to me. I can't say he was a friend, but I got to know him pretty well. What can't be denied is that Skyworks was a major business in 1:18 scale because most of the bigger players went broke years ago. I never bought his resin kits or customs but some were apparently happy, some not from what I've read.
Like him personally or not, Jack contributed a great deal to those who wanted something unique and could afford the prices he commanded. I'm sorry that he closed his business abruptly and has evidently left with some good customers money that never received their order. I hope that he'll continue to work on their projects during his off hours from Chrysler or issue refunds to those affected. Either way, the stand-up thing to do would be to contact these guys and let them know what's happening. While I'm largely in Jack's corner overall, I cannot condone leaving customer's in the lurch. Be a man and issue a refund or make the product; one or the other.
MY THEORY in all of this may not be politically correct. I think this man was pushed over the edge primarily by this board and maybe a little from one or two others. The endless and largely undeserved amount of pure meaness, jealousy, ridicule, character assasination, threats, and cyber-bullying he received became unbearable and he closed shop after searching for, then finding more appealing work elsewhere. I feel sorry for him and even more sorry for our hobby. Not satisfied with metaphorically beating and bloodying him on their playground, the Internet bullies are encouraging others to pick on him at his home and his place of employment. Many of those still poking him admit that they never did business with Skyworks or had any contact with Jack, yet still pile on namelessly from the comfort of their mother's basement.
Not everyone is thick-skinned. Not everyone speaks English well or writes diplomatically. Customer service and communication skills are arts both inborn and honed over many years. Creative geniuses like Jack are almost never socially refined. Most are testy, tempermental, proud and passionate in what they do. (Insert Michaelangelo, Burt Rutan, Paul Simon, and the mythological Soup Nazi, here.) These types of rare and gifted individuals are best left in their workshops with zero access to message boards. The comedian Dennis Miller has stated that message boards are like kids having a sleep-over in the basement, just shut the door and let them do their thing. This would have been great advice to Jack, and maybe some others in the business, too. The Internet message board community represents a small fraction of the 1:18 market, yet in forcing the closure of Skyworks has spoken for everyone. Now there is one less place to buy stuff. The words written here over the past couple of years have been clearly self-destructive.
Well.
You do not know him like I know him.
I had business dealings with him.
That ended with me calling the cops on him. To no avail.
We are on opposite sides on this situation.
I will say again I had to call the cops on him.
You bought a couple of figures off of him.
He got me for a few hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise.
Those are the facts and were is he now ? If he were a man he would come forward and try to solve these issues.
But he does not. It is OK to like him but if you know him like I do your opinion would change in a millisecond.
I have never hid my opinion of him. At one time I did consider him as a friend . Slowly but surely' after he did not do what he said he would. My opinion of him changed . It did take about 6 months. So from friend to calling the cops on him. You can fill in what happened in that time.
If not I would be happy to enlighten you.
Just PM me.
Cyber bulling . Are you kidding me ?
Rare and gifted are you kidding me ? His last products were made by a 3D printer. He did not make them he had them subbed out.
Please God, know what you are talking about before you say such things.
You can still think he is of good character after ripping all of these other guys off ?
Are you for real ?