Small Scale Military Headquarters

From Badcat's blog:

" JSI 1:18 Tooling Reported As Improved

The latest news from JSI, now the owner of many old 21st Century 1:18 toolings, is that they are making modifications to the existing molds in order to increase surface details. Some of the former 21st toolings were great in their day but lack the refinement of the newest toolings to hit the market. However, JSI apparently has the expertise necessary to upgrade existing injection moldings that will breathe new life into what may have been a tad ordinary, otherwise. Remembering that the "upstart" JSI did most, if not all, of 21st's production work, this could well be within their power to execute successfully."

This is graet news! I hope the P 38 wich was an older mold gets the upgrade treatment. I am really looking foward to their (JSI) products.

Hehehehe.... I'll believe it when I see it. They could of very well have ruined the molds by their "modifications". We'll see if we get PTE style rivets.....

-Ski

That is great news! Seems this company really wants to offer a good quality product. I am thankful for that.

Modifying the plates meens retooling. THAT IS VERY EXPENSIVE.

I doubt this is the case maybe they may modify the injecting machines but not the moulds.

This company was guided by 21st. THEY WERE TOLD WHAT TO DO.

This is also the company that made our beloved XD. With all of its perfection. Finger prints in the finish , pylons on upside down , glue smears on the cockpit , muzzel breaks on the wrong way and other wonderful quality issues.

So why would they modify thier molds if they do not even know how to put the models together correctly ?

I guess this sounds good for PR but ..............

great news! it makes me smile!

pickelhaube wrote:This is also the company that made our beloved XD. With all of its perfection. Finger prints in the finish , pylons on upside down , glue smears on the cockpit , muzzel breaks on the wrong way and other wonderful quality issues.

So why would they modify thier molds if they do not even know how to put the models together correctly ?

I guess this sounds good for PR but ..............

I had not thought about that. In all the excitement about the re-use of moulds, I forgot about the quality control issues. Wow, good news, then bad, then good, then.....

I kind of agree with Teamski's cynicism - we will have to wait and see. Should they do this right, JSI could add to the existing moulds and make them unique, but they could also just as easily screw the whole thing up.

If some of the promo pictures are indeed of the finished products, the Corsair looks to have somewhat new tooling with the centerline drop tank, but the P-38 looks pretty much the same. It would be cool if they would fix the cockpit on the P-38, but I'll have to wait until July to know for sure...

Greetings

With all due respect to PH because he is a good guy and valuable member of the forum, I've also been considering that question since it was announced that this company made 21st's products.

In reality, 21st was telling this company what to do. I'm sure 21st told them exactly how they wanted the models produced and how much they wanted to pay for the models to be manufactured. You have to wonder if to keep costs down, especially for Walmart, 21st was pushing them to make them quicker and cheaper. Faster products would mean less quality. Perhaps 21st was saying "We need so many of this NOW" and to do that, this company had to simply rush production.

Now that this company has the molds, maybe they want to employ the production their way and at their pace. This could produce a product much better in quality. The fact that this company already seems a little more organized than 21st and seems serious about the hobby is a positive sign.

Another interesting tidbit I noticed, this company announced these models quickly. The pictures posted appear to be at least a prototype of the production model, including the new jets. It makes me wonder how much this company knew behind the scenes and was already developing this stuff. Perhaps in their own business making 21st models, they said "We can do this to" and started working on their own molds. We'll find out in due time.

This puts incredible pressure on BBI and Admiral. If this company manages to get the Tomcat out, it will be a huge seller. This leaves no excuses for Admiral and BBI, they will have to get the ball rolling on their own stuff or risk falling behind. I greatly respect Jason, but that company needs to get something out. BBI, same thing. Rerelease the F-18 and the F-16 if you have to, get a product into the hobby again.

Lots of interesting questions to be answered in the summer.

Corey

modifying molds is pretty costly. I am dubious..

The old adage of "I'll believe it when I see it" holds true for me as well. No sense getting all excited and then have a great big letdown when things don't pan out as thought.

ok sounds good

This could turn out to be both a good and a bad thing. When retooling a mold things can be fixed or improved but sometimes the improvements are dubious at best. Several years ago Monogram purchased many of the kit molds from Aurora when Aurora went out of business. On some of those kits they made some impressive improvements like removing molded on insignia but on some they went overboard and added over scale details like huge wing ribs. Hopefully JSI will treat the molds with respect and do some research before they start modifying them.

Get that old Spitfire mold, fix it, and the Cobra, and Huey molds they held for ransom!

Dauntless wrote:Get that old Spitfire mold, fix it, and the Cobra, and Huey molds they held for ransom!

Sorry, those were among the moulds we were told were broken. Then destroyed in a fire. Then lost at sea. And I think I heard bigfoot came down from the mountains and took some, too.

We need the choppers!

I agree partly with Corey, I think the paint and QC will be better, hence the premiums we will be paying. I also feel the differences are important for any collector/buyer dealing with loose birds on ebay. Like most things, the originals will be more valuble if they are distinct.

Maybe they will improve it by making overly large rivets for the planes. Oh wait, BBi already did that. My bad!

with all the complaints about 21C's "QC" over the last few years, why is it not a hot topic concerning JSI if they built all the models?

digger wrote:with all the complaints about 21C's "QC" over the last few years, why is it not a hot topic concerning JSI if they built all the models?

Because everyones blind and stunned from the F-14. Something like a flash grenade I would say .

Also if this JSI company was tied to 21st C, how do we know we won't more show and no go? Everything so far has only been perorders. Odd thing about that is if they are offering repaints or now somewhat retooled repaints, why come out now with nothing in hand? I think it would have been smarter to wait until you had something to offer in the market. Then show some of the other work in progress. If I remember correctly 21st C would do mush of the same thing, and we all know how that worked. I'll have to wait and see, but with everything I have been hearing I'm not to jazzed.

The other thing that doesn't set with me is why only offer select pieces? If they were the ones behide 21st C in the production, then why don't they have all the other models? If I was JSI, I would be hitting up the models that are hitting high $$$ on ebay, like the Huey, Spitfire, etc first. The Corsair is not a bad plane, but really the market was flooded with them by 21st C. I don't know, it just seems odd choice to me. P-38 was a good choice, but a repaint really limits it.

Anyway, I guees we will see if anything comes of this in July, as that is the date set for the Corsair and P-38. If they can't meet that date then they are just another 21st C IMO. They should though with repaints.

momaw nadon

I'm just glad to see JSI isn't spinning out the same old thing - that we're seeing progressive enhancements to previous models - gives me hope for the degree of their commitment

Coreyeagle48 wrote:
This puts incredible pressure on BBI and Admiral. If this company manages to get the Tomcat out, it will be a huge seller. This leaves no excuses for Admiral and BBI, they will have to get the ball rolling on their own stuff or risk falling behind. I greatly respect Jason, but that company needs to get something out. BBI, same thing. Rerelease the F-18 and the F-16 if you have to, get a product into the hobby again.

Perhaps this sort of topic has been discussed many times before, but I don't share the above opinion.

As long as JSI, BBI, and Admiral are releasing relatively equivalent quality of products I think the market is big enough for all of them to exist in a relatively friendly environment.

First, how many of us own both a 21c and Admiral 262? Both were released around the same time, both were well received.

I'm *not* going to not buy the next Admiral F-86 repaint because it didn't come out soon enough ... my decision would be based on if I like the repaint or not (and the Hartmann or the other new idea are both interesting enough that I will happily pick them up).

That said, I can't afford to buy everything I might want, so your competition point does have merit ... if JSI releases something about the same time that BBI or Admiral does, and I want them all, something will just have to wait a season.

Ultimately, as a consumer, I'd prefer all of these companies focus on releasing nice looking aircraft that also are fairly easy to assemble and then store away again. If this means they need to take time, I'll be around next year and the year after.

I'd say JSI was guided by 21st only in what to make, not the processes involved. They are afterall a manufacturer that I'm sure makes alot more than XD items. The QC issues I'd say fall on the back of the company who commisssioned the particular model. If they are allowed to "skip" QC here and there for times sake imo they will. No different than an American company, if let someone take shortcuts, they will. If JSI is like the average Chinese company than in my opinion they've had their hand in more than just 21st stuff, Jason who is truly in the know could probably clarify whether they were involved in anything they've put out for example. JSI is the manufacturing expert, not the aircraft, armor, etc expert so they'll put the stuff together the way their instructions from the initiator say to. Also back in the 70's when Aurora sold off the vast majority of its injection molds all who bought them modified them. Removing the raised molded insignia for instance was a modification of the mold not the machines as their own machines were used not Aurora's. Time will tell but I'll save my critiques for when I actually see one of their products in the flesh.

vmf214 wrote:...Also back in the 70's when Aurora sold off the vast majority of its injection molds all who bought them modified them. Removing the raised molded insignia for instance was a modification of the mold not the machines as their own machines were used not Aurora's...

I understand that. I was just pointing out that in the past when injection molds have been modified it wasn't all positive. For the most part the various modifications that the new owners made were a good thing but occasionally those "improvements" also brought new innacuracies. I'm just hoping that won't happen with the 21C molds. If JSI is going for the collectible market the modifications should be an improvement. If they are going for more working features then the compromises inherent in that process may well add toylike features that didn't previously exist.

vmf214 wrote:... Jason who is truly in the know could probably clarify whether they were involved in anything they've put out for example.

This is true. As a matter of fact, those that won't to see Jason's input about JSI should head over to Collector's Access and see....

http://www.collectorsaccess.com/phpBB3/

I'm optimistic that JSI can produce quality stuff because DiD do so a few years ago with 1/6 models. The Chinese that made 1/6 gear for a defunct toymaker went on to form DiD which makes great figure sets. JSI surely wants to replicate the success of DiD.