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).

1 hour ago, GWR-fan said:

Does the statement absolve him personally from any legal claim for a refund if a crowd funded project does not proceed? 

DJ Models is a limited company.

Just now, 5944 said:

I'm not so sure. Dave is still active on another forum I frequent, not railway related, and his writing style on there is identical to how it used to be on here. He was also active on that forum this morning. 

Quite - it's more difficult to change your communication style than people think. Choice of words is key, and there are of course the text design cues

59 minutes ago, Tricky-CRS said:

 

I have thought for sometime that Letterspider is Dave Jones, I become more convinced with each post. The only issue is the grammar and obvious proof reading but perhaps that's intentional.

It's always possible to be wrong, but I don't think so - it would turn on its head the idea that all your professional official announcements should be very carefully checked for errors, in a way that your personal communications, e.g. on a forum, don't have to be. The two accounts have existed side by side far too long for it to be a clever ruse. There is another account, however ...

36 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Yes, of course, but that’s not what Dave claimed,  he said it was existing modellers targeted to legitimise the orders or something. 

 

Edit: from page 20 of the OO gauge APT thread:

 

I have only ordered DJM stuff through Kernow, so I have no experience of his early pre-order system, but had he set it up the usual way so you received a link to click to confirm the order? Or had he set up a system with a loophole that you could just type in an email and it woujld register interest there and then? I recall that for the yellow J94 some people made multiple orders as they didn't get a confirmation, so at some point the system didn't have a basic check built in.

25 minutes ago, David Stannard said:

The speculation, thin accusations and assumptions put out by many  [...] 

 

... or should we go back to the "good olde days" where the market was dominated by a small number of players that would keep on pumping out the same tired old models.

Probably should add "wild over-exaggeration" to your list? 

5 hours ago, David Stannard said:

So after 44 pages of angst, speculation and vague accusations what has been achieved in this thread  . 

Scales falling from eyes? Maybe with any luck an end to blanket supporting of new projects on the basis of their promoter "being matey" and replaced instead with a careful appraisal of a scheme's, and promoter's, merits*?

* Or at least as far as can be concluded from information in the public domain ...

You must have a different definition of "vitriol" to the rest of us

36 minutes ago, raymw said:

If a crowd funded project is not fully subscribed, then I would expect the project not be started, and the deposits to be returned, since there has been little expenditure. However, if one uses the money from Peter to pay for Paul's work, then that is a serious problem. I'm guessing there is little written agreements - you're not mates when doing business.

Interesting speculation - I've never seen any indication that each crowdfunder has had separate accounts set up. Was the APT money refunded from Dave's PayPal account, rather than e.g. DJM_APT@P..P..? There must be separate books though - I know I'd find it difficult to keep track otherwise.

6 minutes ago, PaulCheffus said:

 

Hi

 

CAD has been posted on here for the Shark and also at least one EP.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

Somewhere on here there is a comment from Dave about being disappointed with pre-orders for the N Shark (doo doo doo do do do dooo), hence it not going into production. Did he promote it further at that point, to get more orders?
 

19 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

Any update should about real progress of a project when it is made. There is utterly no point in him making references to anything else in any public announcement as it either serves no purpose or can have a negative impact.

Someone with a solid business plan would have come out fighting at the start of the week - and issued a breakdown of the live projects with an honest estimate of schedules and some idea of funding in place. And they would have done it without recourse to hyperbole or finger-pointing, or blame-shifting ...

Or you could just go on holiday

1 hour ago, Great Western said:

It appears DJM isn’t going to retire gracefully then, but drag out the bloody painful death as long as there is breath in his body.

Im sure he’s not foolish enough to have any personal financial exposure, hence why he’s dragging it on and on.

 

Someone mentioned that DJ Models is only owned 50%  by DJ himself, any idea who this other investors is ? 

Trying to stick to hard facts, Companies House says "Ownership of shares – 75% or more".

24 minutes ago, Lord_Woody said:

Because it's a model I'd like and there's nothing to lose?

Well, that's true - I would like one too! But history and experience with DJM mechanisms tells me to not risk any money until the model can be seen and tested.

35 minutes ago, Lord_Woody said:

Well I've just ordered a Hudswell Clarke loco, [...]

Why?

7 hours ago, Chamby said:

Having just come to this thread from cold, and scanned most of its 33 pages, it sounds to me like:

 

* DJ possibly took on too much and fell behind on their commitments and expectations.

Looking at that, I recall Dave's own words back at the start:
 

Quote

DJMusings

...I am currently running at about 30% personal capacity ( work I can actually do myself) and about 25% factory capacity . This latter should alter soon as I'm not about to 'miss an opportunity', to take more business onboard, ( see what I did there?) as to refuse it in the current announcement fren...

December 6, 2014

That was pretty much at the start of the business, after his slew of new model announcements, and we all took his word for it. And then there was this later comment:

Quote

N gauge Crowdfunded APT-P (Warley announcement)

...I have ample capacity to do another 6-8 projects at this time without breaking into anything like a hot sweat, and when anyone asks if i want to be asociated with anything so iconic and desired as the Ultimate UK tilting train, and the zenith, quite possibly, of UK design and build trains, then...

November 25, 2017

In his own words, capacity wasn't his problem. He stated his problem slightly earlier:

Quote

N gauge GWR / BR King class 4-6-0 locomotive

...although i have ample capacity to do so, both in design (it will need a new chassis and some minor alterations, as you don't just shrink down a OO one to N gauge), and tool room / production what i don't have is the cash to do so. So, although i said in my New Years message that i probably would...

February 2, 2017  [emphasis added]

I conclude that the problem, as Dave said back in February 2017, seems to be simply money.

I can't give you the definitive dates - not without more research - but if you haven't got it, I'd recommend Michael Welch, A Southern Electric Album (Capital, 2003). What follows is from that book, so apologies if you know all this ...

On p31 there is a photo of a blue 4-SUB on a Waterloo to Shepperton train, it's in blue with small yellow end. The caption says that full yellow ends become the rule in 1966 and it is thought that Eastleigh was painting units blue from July 1966. That's your earliest date.

The Southern Region was a bit tardy with yellow ends but you would also have green/full yellow as well in your time period.

There's a fascinating photo on p49 of that book, looking down on Lovers Walk, Brighton in 1968, with a great mixed bag of liveries: Mk1 units in blue/grey [7033], all-blue [7724], green/small yellow [73xx]; 2-Bils in green/small yellow, blue; 4-Cor in blue; 5-Bel; and various utility/parcels/brakes in maroon, blue, blue/grey (including a GWR siphon in blue).

2 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

I think Kernow may disagree,  having had to refund 'crowdfunders' they took quite a hit on fees to refund.

My apologies! I was thinking only about the current crowdfunding, and had forgotten that earlier incident.

22 minutes ago, Torper said:

I really don't understand why everyone got so hot under the collar about that original announcement.  It seems to me that Dave has been shafted somewhere along the line (probably more than once), [...].

 

Where people are justified in feeling aggrieved is the crowdfunding fiasco which has apparenty left so many out of pocket.  [...]

I think you've got the emphasis back to front.

There is no crowdfunding fiasco that has left people out of pocket (that I can see) - or at least, suggestion of such is jumping the gun immensely, as without an official announcement (oh dear) from DJM, these projects are still ongoing. Whether or not people refuse to pay any subsequent installments has not yet been tested.

The original announcement, however, just follows a series of unfortunately worded communications, many of which finger point at other people being to blame for DJM's problems. It also suggested a potentially aggressive approach to his competitors (since retracted?) which surprised many people. I shouldn't need to say more, it's been said many times here.

No leeway built in (to the King project)! And no one commented on this at the time? I recall Dave said he was hit quite hard by Chinese price increases - was it on the J94? (as were many others), but to not build in any contingency on other projects seems remiss.

It's a shame, then, that the announcement wasn't the first pre-production sample of the King. The public mood would have been diametrically opposite to what it is now.

54 minutes ago, Markwj said:

While the APT was not for profit that does not mean Dave didn't factor in a percentage to cover his 'salary' while making the model. Just how much he valued his time and what that figure was/ is we will never know.

I took this posting at face value but couldn't work out how he was going to afford to work on the model:
 

Quote

 

DJM Dave, July 30, 2018 (

As for me making any money on the project, yup, its nil! what it is, is a kudos thing, one to set a standard, a bar, a line in the sand that says....'there, thats what i can do, now just let me get on and do my work instead of analising it down to the nth degree'

i will however, have a tooling that i can use as a company asset in write downs for 3 years from tooling payment.

 

So why wont the APT make profit i hear you say? well thats tooling and product against returns. As you all know the APT did make it across the line, and did until recent posts here, continue to receive orders for the full price version pushing the project into an area that could be profitable for both myself and DToS

 

But actually, the second paragraph suggests it might be profitable, depending on orders.

17 hours ago, GWRtrainman said:

That's an interesting thought - Profit.

 

Even if an individual acting as Managing Director of a company decided to design, tool and manufacture an APT and make no profit.

They still need to earn a living - this is Dave's pronounced full time job.

 

How much would an MD of a firm earn - maybe £40k a year? Dave's be at this for 6 years. That's a figure getting on for the £250k he mentions as having lost in tooling. Maybe we need to consider that the crowdfunding money will have been increasingly eroded. The delay's don't avoid the running costs of a business occurring (salaries in this case). The longer the models are delayed the less cash is left to actually make them.
As Dave quoted in a reply to someone - all the money is spent.

You are the first person here, or at least that I've read, to raise the issue of Dave's salary. But the APT was not-for-profit ...

7 minutes ago, chris p bacon said:

IIRC the reason given was that Paypal would not give partial refunds, so only some full refunds were given.

A friend, running a small market stall, taking PayPal, recently had someone send her funds in error. I don't pretend to understand the system perfectly, but apparently you can just refuse a payment made in certain way (or, simply let it lapse and it goes back), at no cost to the business or the person making the original payment (as far as we can see ...).

So what I conclude from that is that you send whole amounts back if you can, as formally refunding an amount other than the original payment could incur a PayPal fee, as PayPal might consider that a new payment. See "how to refuse a paypal payment" via a popular online search engine ...

6 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Kernow have specifically told me that all computer design work in the CAD software was carried out in China by the manufacturer. DJModels doesn't actually create the CAD. It's notable that other new entrants Accurascale and Cavalex do originate the designs themselves.

It's one of the things that has always bothered me - he isn't a designer in the way I think of one, he's doing a complex and skilled job certainly, but it seems to be more akin to project management than design.

7 minutes ago, royaloak said:

Nope, completely wrong, all DJM can put an IP on is their own design drawings and CADs, if another manufacturer makes their own drawings and CADs they can make their own models, I dont understand why people are confusing the issues!

Because Dave seemed to present it as such, and people were discussing his claim. The limitations that you highlight have also been raised many times.