DJ Models Announcement 01/05/19

[d9002]

Was there also another project which was going to produce an N gauge Tamper vehicle, some years ago ?

 

[Markwj]

7 minutes ago, d9002 said:

Was there also another project which was going to produce an N gauge Tamper vehicle, some years ago ?

 

Wasn't that before Dave joined Dapol I seem to remember. No idea what became of it though. 

[highpeakman]

42 minutes ago, Great Western said:

 

So if/when time is called a certain person can walk away with their personal finances unblemished ?

Potentially to set up another limited company and start all over again, cowboy builder style ? 

 

While it is true that a limited company could close and so avoid some debts it is also usual that such companies are started with either the personal funds of the owner being invested or using a bank loan which would have to be guaranteed by the owner with personal equity (against property for example). If, and I stress, IF such an event occurred in this case then POSSIBLY some crowdfunder investors MIGHT lose their money but the company owner would stand to lose a great deal more.

 

I think comparison with cowboy builders is an over the top comparison. Workmanship of models seen to date is not exactly shoddy. There are obviously problems but we should be very careful at this stage of making accusations.

[Roy L S]

Mark WJ, his business pre-Dapol was called Nthusiast Resprays if I recall correctly, and the tamper was available RTR, and possibly kit form too. It looked very good indeed.

 

Roy

Edited May 12, 2019 by Roy L S

[blueeighties]

And didn't Nthusiast Resprays have a rather messy ending?

Edited May 12, 2019 by blueeighties

[chris p bacon]

21 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

Mark WJ, his business pre-Dapol was called Nthusiast Resprays if I recall correctly, and the tamper was available RTR, and possibly kit form too. It looked very good indeed.

 

Roy

 

I never realised they were one and the same. A quick search brought this  up

and this one

 

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=16191.60

 

As some people might say 'There's form there'

 

 

[DavidH]

9 minutes ago, chris p bacon said:

As some people might say 'There's form there'

 

I recall this being brought up several years back, early on in the life of DJM, and he denied that he'd left anyone out of pocket - he'd paid all his debts I think he said. The exact wording will be on RMWeb somewhere (and may prove me wrong, of course).

[grahame]

53 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

Mark WJ, his business pre-Dapol was called Nthusiast Resprays if I recall correctly, and the tamper was available RTR, and possibly kit form too. It looked very good indeed.

 

Roy

 

N'thusiast Resprays was owned/run by Dave and used to repaint commercial RTR N gauge loco mostly on commission.

 

The N gauge tamper was originally a kit, mainly etched brass, designed/produced by Bernie (as TPM). It needed assembly, motorising and painting. It was a pretty complex kit. Here's one that I purchased from TPM and had a bash as making. It was never fully completed - one day I'll have to revisit it:

 

 

 

Somehow N'thusasts Resprays ended up with owning/acquiring rights to sell it and offered it both as a kit and as a finished RTR model. As I understand it some people placed orders and paid deposits but never received a model and had quite a job in getting money back.  I don't know if anyone never got a refund for non-delivery of their order. 

 

G

[classy52]

13 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

I think you are generalising, and allowing a mild rant to take place when you mention "their same tired old models". Hornby and Bachmann have released award winning models in the last few years, the Hornby Peckett being a beautiful and smooth running loco, whilst the Bachmann LMS Ivatt diesel is also a cracker. 

 

 

 

Good job of mincing my words to suit your narrative and accusing me of ranting whether mild or not.

Seriously go back and read what I said in response to the post I had responded to and then give yourself an uppercut.

[bill_schmidt1]

25 minutes ago, classy52 said:

 

Good job of mincing my words to suit your narrative and accusing me of ranting whether mild or not.

Seriously go back and read what I said in response to the post I had responded to and then give yourself an uppercut.

Nicely put 

[David Stannard]

4 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

Can you just reign it in a bit, It's obvious to all and sundry that DJM has not covered himself in glory but it's starting to look like you keep going back to kick someone when they're down.

 

He may very well respect and appreciate that it's others peoples money, but as they took the risk to invest in the schemes he's used it for the intended purpose, although I think he jumped the gun on starting the processes before he'd actually secured the full financing.

 

I'd even venture to suggest that some were a bit too keen to hand their money over without considering the risks involved, to the point of shooting anyone that questioned the funding or accusing them of trolling DJM.  

 

 I have to agree with you on this one, only time will tell what the outcome is be it good or bad I suppose we just have to wait and see.

[njee20]

3 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

That just sounds like someone making a claim based on ignorance. Why would anyone go to the lengths of "hacking" multiple accounts when you can just spoof mail. I can send mails from whoever I want them to be, as long as the recipients mail system is not checking SPF or DKIM and doing anything about it, then they will be non the wiser (unless they don't think donald.trump@thewhitehouse.com is interested in buying an ATP)

Nothing like that high tech. It was a web form, so the inference was that someone had entered a load of email addresses of people who were modellers, so not really hacked (or indeed spoofed) per se. The owners of the email addresses were only alerted when invoices were sent out. None of those people to whom this happened are on the forum though.

[BernardTPM]

1 hour ago, grahame said:

 

N'thusiast Resprays was owned/run by Dave and used to repaint commercial RTR N gauge loco mostly on commission.

The N gauge tamper was originally a kit, mainly etched brass, designed/produced by Bernie (as TPM). It needed assembly, motorising and painting. It was a pretty complex kit. Here's one that I purchased from TPM and had a bash as making. It was never fully completed - one day I'll have to revisit it:

 

Somehow N'thusasts Resprays ended up with owning/acquiring rights to sell it and offered it both as a kit and as a finished RTR model. As I understand it some people placed orders and paid deposits but never received a model and had quite a job in getting money back.  I don't know if anyone never got a refund for non-delivery of their order. 

 

Dave had an agreement with me that he could have 6 months' exclusive sales of this in either kit or r-t-r form. I still have my copy of the agreement somewhere. In the end the kit never went on general release anyway as I never got round to writing the instructions.

[wombatofludham]

I wonder if one of Mr Jones' Chinese factories he allegedly is having problems with has given him the (apocryphal) Chinese curse of "May you live in interesting times".

[wombatofludham]

Coming back to the "crowdfunding" issue and indulging a bit of blue-sky thinking.

 

There is real potential for the problems those who have signed up for DJM crowdfunding projects, expressed clearly and understandably here, might kill off crowdfunding for all except those who have a proven confident track record.  In so doing, it might stifle a newcomer who would be able to manage such a scheme successfully but because of the fall out from this affair (and others) as a newbie would be viewed with suspicion and caution by modellers worried about the lack of proven delivery.  I wonder if there is any other, more robust model for financial pledges which could be adopted?  is their any mileage in exploring the co-operative and mutual financial models of the 19th and 20th century to explore creating almost some sort of "investment trust" which could be a source of funding for newcomers subject to a robust indication of the project viability with those putting money into a scheme doing so via the "trust" who could then require proper project progress reporting and communication and make sure the money is being used for the purpose intended.  In order to give the "trust" some working funds a "levy" could be added to the retail cost of any items funded this way to help build up some cash reserves, rather in the way levies are put on Airbus aircraft sold to repay the EIB loans and grants they receive to develop new aircraft.

Now I haven't really thought this through in detail but I would imagine the system would be used by newcomers to the market to get a track record of delivery to build confidence in the "crowdfunding" approach.  I can see some big hurdles - trust, mutual and co-operative legislation is complex and might even not permit this type of arrangement.  Private commissioners might also claim unfair competition as mutual and co-ops do have some legislative advantages over private companies.  It would require some benefactors to help set up the fund, and a team of people to administer it and keep track of any projects - although it might be possible to do that with volunteers who have successfully run businesses and financial affairs in the past.  There would still be risk, and of course there is the risk that as a mutual investment manager, the fund itself then takes on some legal liability.  Therefore, I might be talking out of my very large butt.

 

There again, building societies began on a similar basis, so those of you with more experience of these matters (retired Local Government Planner isn't necessarily the best position to be discussing this from), could there be some form of more formalised funding process for new models and entrants to the market that can deliver more confidence to the market whilst giving those who want to bring forward a new model the encouragement and personal investment (in the project aims and running, not just financial) to make it a success?

[njee20]

That is basically what is being done, it can’t be too grandiose, that just adds complexity beyond what the typical cottage industry can reasonably do.

 

Ultimately however you protect the funds, there comes a point where you’ll need to release them to the manufacturer to progress the project. Thereafter the funds are spent, and that’s it. All the protection in the world can’t refund money that’s been spent, even if it was done so in the utmost faith. 

[Oldddudders]

I can understand Mark's wish to put multiple-source funding on a legit footing in the wake of present uncertainties. As has been said, there are unfortunate overlays in DJM's failure to deliver on so so much, and the fact that some of his projects are crowdfunded. It is a financial model that has become distinctly Marmite. 

 

But I fear that the accusation of collusion over who-makes-what, which obsesses some people on here, would immediately be raised as a concern. "Join the background-funding club, pick your model and off you go", as it were. And would the big players like it? I doubt that. 

[PaulCheffus]

5 hours ago, Markwj said:

Wasn't that before Dave joined Dapol I seem to remember. No idea what became of it though. 

Hi

 

if you mean the N’thusiasts Tamper then it was produced as I have one. Some people it’s rumoured paid for RTR versions they didn’t receive.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[njee20]

Dave blamed that on a lost computer hard drive, meaning he lost the details of everyone he owed a model to. He went through refunding some folk a year or so back I believe. 

[melmoth]

4 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Dave blamed that on a lost computer hard drive, meaning he lost the details of everyone he owed a model to. He went through refunding some folk a year or so back I believe. 

 

Rhetorical question, but how unlucky do you have to be before it looks like basic incompetence?

[jjb1970]

On funding and the idea of a mutual society type approach, there are already peer to peer lending schemes to do this. And of course, there are always building societies and banks. I think the peer to peer route might ease access to funding for those trying to develop models but it would still entail that business actually borrowing money and entering into terms for the repayment of that money. I can't see how the system could work as a reward type scheme and if people want to take the return on their investment and repayment in the form of a model then the existing crowd fund model already provides a way of doing that.

 

I don't think the problem is crowd funding per se, crowd funding can work if well implemented. We have examples of businesses which have used crowd funding successfully, whilst there are examples of the concept being less well implemented. I commented on the thread on crowd funding that the issue isn't crowd funding but whether a business was capable of managing projects and delivering their product or service, what crowd funding does is shift the risk from banks or proprietors onto customers in the event of a project failing but I really don't think it alters fundamentals of managing a business. There is the issue that a business relying on crowd funding may lack the resources to address issues encountered, but there are plenty of conventionally funded businesses that get into serious difficulties because they lack the resources to respond to changing circumstances. Where a conventionally funded business may have a lower risk is that they would generally have had to demonstrate to a lending institution that they were a reasonable risk for that institution and the terms of the finance should impose a bit of discipline. It's easy to envisage the wrong sort of person seeing crowd funding as a soft source of funding and without the sort of discipline demanded by meeting conditions of conventional financing ending up as a bit of a financial basket case.

[njee20]

1 hour ago, melmoth said:

 

Rhetorical question, but how unlucky do you have to be before it looks like basic incompetence?

I couldn’t possibly comment...

[jcredfer]

It used to be said that...

 

One mistake was unfortunate...

Twice was careless...

Thrice was downright incompetence...

 

Admittedly that was some years ago, when the road to success and survival absolutely required folks to produce what they claimed to be able to do - regardless of profession, after all there had just been a World war.  In this modern soft cushioned age how can that possibly be the case, surely private business is protected from all those harsh  production realities??

 

Regards

 

Julian

[Not Jeremy]

Toto has been watching trains all day and is chilling out. Why don't we be more like Toto.....

 

Anyone got any close up views of favourite pets they'd like to share?

 

 

 

 

[Darius43]

As the cat pictures have now appeared is it not time to lock this thread until there is new information - or an announcement or announcement of an announcement from DJM.

 

Darius