Some good news at last – Chris the Blacksmith has finished the replacement parts for our pressure pot, so we’re back in resin-casting action again 😊
Fortunately there isn’t much of a backlog so most of it will be cleared today, there’s just one order I won’t be able to finish.
This is a good chance for a reminder about Crisis orders, there’s still time to get those in – I’ll be at the workshop on Thursday so any orders need to be in by that morning.
I’ve finally got the order queue is now down to manageable proportions, and I should clear pretty much all of it today (with a couple of exceptions – read on…).
Unfortunately, we’ve had a minor hiccup with one of our bits of equipment. The pressure pot, in which we cast the complicated and fiddly resin models, stripped a thread on one of the bolts that locks it shut, putting it out of action. Fortunately, we have a friendly blacksmith just along from us in the farmyard, and he reckons he can make a new set of bolts for it. This will take a week or so, which means the pot will be out of commission until then. I had finished most of the resin casting before the bolt failed, so there are only a couple of orders that will have to be delayed, and by a stroke of luck the last half-a-dozen orders to arrive had no resin items in them at all, and they will all be cleared today.
But this does mean that the release of the CDSU spaceships will be further delayed – there’s no point releasing them if I can’t cast the dreadnought hulls. Stay tuned for further updates…
So, I’m back from Corfu with a hint of a suntan and a couple of guidebooks full of potential new models for the Small Scale Scenery range. Corfu Town has a fine example of a Vauban fort, so take what you will from that 🙂
I have come back to quite a backlog of orders – I’ve already done two solid days at the workshop and there are still many orders to clear.
Because of this, we’ve decided to hold back this week’s release temporarily, until the queue is cleared. We were supposed to be launching the new Chinese spaceships this morning, but we’ll hang on for a few days until we’re on top of things. However, before my holiday we managed to produce enough stock for SELWG, so if you’re coming to the show then you’ll be able to get your hands on some pre-release examples.
We’ll leave you with a preview of the Longzi and Jiangxi dreadnoughts before heading back to the centrifuge.
So, it’s holiday time at Brigade Towers again. Only just, as we were a victim of the collapse of Thomas Cook, but fortunately managed to salvage things. This year we’re off to one of the Greek Islands, Corfu, staying on the south-west corner of the island.
As always, the website will remain open for orders but nothing will get processed until I get back to the workshop on October 15th. All orders that arrived by lunchtime on Friday 4th have been processed and have been sent out, but any that arrived after that will now have to wait. I may be able to answer some queries during the week, but the wifi at the villa is apparently not great and anyway, I’d rather be reading a book by the pool than checking my emails!
I’ve left a new release for Friday as usual – although since that’s already been uploaded to the website you might be able to find it before then if you dig around.
I’m rather grumpy this morning – in another (less rainy) world I would be sitting enjoying the September sunshine at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, having a few drinks with my mates from my former cricket club, watching the last game of the county season. Instead, it’s pitch dark and hammering down with rain and I’m catching up with stuff in my windowless office (sigh). Oh well.
Our penultimate (possibly … see further down) show of the year is SELWG 2019, run by the South East London Wargames Group at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. We will be back in our usual spot in the main hall on October 20th, in the corner by the entrance/exit tunnel. As always, we’re more than happy to take orders for collection at either event – simply send us an email with what you require and pay on the day, or you can order and pay in advance via the website using the ‘Collect in Person’ shipping option. The sooner the better, but we should be able to take orders until the week before the show.
Now, onto what should be our last show of the year – Crisis in Antwerp. This is on November 9th this year, which is just over a week after the UK is supposed to be leaving the EU. This is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of Brexit, so we’re not going to, except where it affects Brigade. We’re booked into Crisis, and we really would like to go, it’s a great show and we enjoy meeting many of our European customers. If Brexit is delayed, or there’s a deal with a transition period during which everything is pretty much as it is now, we should be OK. But if the UK does indeed leave the EU on the 31st as planned (which is not certain), especially in the case of a ‘hard Brexit’ no-deal scenario, we’re probably not going to want to risk the disruption and chaos that is bound to occur at the Channel Tunnel crossing point. So we’re playing a watching brief at the moment.
If we don’t go, then we’ll probably try to run some sort of reduced or free postage offer for EU customers around the time of the show to compensate for our absence.
We return to the show circuit soon, starting at the Hereward convention at the Cresset Centre in Peterborough on Sunday September 1st, followed by Colours at Newbury Racecourse less than a week later (Saturday 7th). As always, we’re more than happy to take orders for collection at either event – simply send us an email with what you require and pay on the day, or you can order and pay in advance via the website using the ‘Collect in Person’ shipping option.
As our ranges have grown we’re no longer able to bring everything with us, so to help you plan here’s a list of what we’re intending to cram onto the stand at both events – if we aren’t bringing what you’re after, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.
We’ve been sent a number of photos of some excellently painted examples of our 28mm Great War Belgians by Sven de Braekeleir. He’s very kindly allowed us to use them on the website, so we’ve updated a number of the photos of various codes including infantry in shakos and the mounted lancers. Please go and have a look at Sven’s Facebook page where you can find more samples of his work, both on our figures and many others.
Having been out of stock for a while, we’ve just received a big consignment of flying stands including several thousand black ones, so those are now back on sale on the website again (woo-hoo!). This means that spaceship squadron packs will also ship with black bases again instead of the clear ones we’ve had to use lately.
We’re often asked about the exact dimensions of the bases so while I was updating the website I added a couple of photos to make the sizes clearer (these show clear bases, the black ones are exactly the same size).
We’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and we’ve finally got around to adding an option on the website for tracked/signed-for deliveries. Our current shipping rates don’t normally allow for this, but for customers that would prefer the peace of mind of tracking and a signature, for an additional cost (£1.25 UK/£5.00 overseas plus VAT if applicable) you can select a Signed For service (either First Class Signed For in the UK or International Tracked & Signed overseas).
Right, now back to some proper work…
It’s almost time for our local club, Maidstone Wargames Society, to hold its annual Open Day. This year it’s on Saturday June 22nd between 11am and 4pm, at the club’s usual meeting place in Linton, Kent. It’s not a conventional wargames show, there are no traders or bring-and-buy, and no entrance fee. Instead, the club puts on a selection of games across a variety of periods and scales to showcase our activities and hopefully attract one or two new members. All of the games are open for people to join in and try out a new period or set of rules.
Periods include Vietnam, Dark Ages, English Civil War and even a James Bond-inspired spy-fi game. I’ll be there, running a 1/600th Suez Crisis aircraft game featuring dogfights between MiGs, Meteors, Mysteres, Mustangs, Mosquitoes and some other planes not starting with M!
I’m not officially there in a Brigade capacity – there’s no Brigade stand and I won’t have any stock. However, if anyone is planning to come along to the Open Day and would like me to bring anything along to save on postage, don’t let me stop you – just drop us a line and we’ll sort something out.