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Well remembered Hub, I had forgotten that.
I don't know why Lawrence stopped production, he was very good and very professional. The figures were expensive but worth it. Don't tend to see many on layouts so perhaps the time was wrong and sales were low.
Leo
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It was a combination of factors which led to Lawrence stopping production but primarily a couple of redundancies which meant he had to spend most of his time looking for a new job. He was out of work for some time and although the figures sold reasonably well they were not viable as a long term income source. He also lost interest in the hobby in general and stopped racing at his local club.
Extract from some communication I had with him:
"First 5 or so figures were mastered and moulded for metal casting. The moulds lasted well, but people at the swapmeets did say that they didn't want to have £50+ cars flying off the track into lumps of metal!
Remoulded for resin, and the rest of the range likewise in resin. Metal bases were retained, as this weighted the resin figures nicely, and small parts, like fire extinguishers were also cast in metal.
Resin kills the complex mould very quickly - I was using T28 rubber from Tiranti, and for the plain figures I got perhaps 35+ figures, for the more complex perhaps only 15... and I wasn't using a vacuum machine, so the bubble rejects accounted for 20% of production most times."
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Cheers Brian.
I have a few of the metal models.
Leo
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Mentioning his truly amazing figures as lumps of metal is an insult to the quality he produced.
You would not expect this if someone launches a very good product, which is in high demand for years.
Presumably those people cannot put their figures out of reach of their cars, or they cannot race and that would be very sad for them.
Even sadder to read is that Lawrence lost interest in the hobby in general, but that is quite understandable after he got such a comment while he had to quickly find a new job.
What I really liked were the three figures one-piece sets Lawrence made. They were hollow from behind, but easy to fill up:
rallyhub
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Jim @ [url=https://www.facebook.com/HWPSlotCars/]HWP Slot Cars[/url]
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Well done.
But for my rally tracks, your figures have too many extreme poses that don't match those of action watching rally spectators,
I think your figures are more suited to scaled car exhibitions and race tracks.
rallyhub
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(4th-Feb-21, 11:53 AM)rallyhub Wrote: Well done.
But for my rally tracks, your figures have too many extreme poses that don't match those of action watching rally spectators,
I think your figures are more suited to scaled car exhibitions and race tracks.
rallyhub
I have rigged my figures (like a digital posable action figure) so that I can put them into virtually any pose needed then printed. I am working on seated and standing spectators as well as track officials, course marshals, etc.
Jim @ [url=https://www.facebook.com/HWPSlotCars/]HWP Slot Cars[/url]
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That sounds promising.
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Jim - looked at your ebay auctions - 2 things stuck out for me - do you post outside of USA and will you be selling in 1/32nd?
You have mentioned 1/32nd but did not see any for sale ;)
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(4th-Feb-21, 06:13 PM)Anthony B Wrote: Jim - looked at your ebay auctions - 2 things stuck out for me - do you post outside of USA and will you be selling in 1/32nd?
You have mentioned 1/32nd but did not see any for sale ;)
Yes, I'll be releasing figures in 1/32. And will also be shipping outside of the US. I haven't done international selling on eBay yet, but just shipped off a pair of Chaparral 2H bodies to Austria this week. As soon as the new figures are available, I'll post pics to this forum as well as my Facebook and MeWe pages.
Question for you... Do you have a strong perference for stands or without? Some modelers prefer to have figures without stands. While most seem to like them with stands so they can be moved about their layout. They are easier to make with stands, which will help me keep prices as low as possible. But they can be made either way.
Jim @ [url=https://www.facebook.com/HWPSlotCars/]HWP Slot Cars[/url]
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