Here we are 28 December 2006, another year nearly in the bag and barking at the dawn of a new year. The new year will bring some changes to HistoriFigs. Most will be for the better, and a few may make so of you a bit sad…

To start with we will be picking up the pace for production – the goal is to shorten order processing time which will result in faster delivery of figures. Starting in January, we will confirm each order as it is received (better feedback for you the customer). The confirmation, will include an estimated shipping date.

Now, for the sad parts, Several of the Scruby ranges will go on hiatus. A listing will be posted in January and we will give you all a couple of months to get orders in. These figures will still be orderable, but the processing times may be up to 12 weeks. The molds for many figures are just to old and require too much work to provide quality castings, and need to be replaced. As the molds are replaced, the ranges will return to production. However, it may take quite some time to make new molds for everything – thus ends the sad news…

We have started production in the new workshop, the space isn’t finished yet, but it is workable. Last night I picked up the ducting for the new ventilation system, and the work on that should be completed today (I may need to go back and supercharge the system, but it should be functional by tonight). After that I’ll need to move the remaining construction supplies to the old workshop and then I can construct the remaining workbenches and mold storage racks. Alison will be painting the office and game room this weekend and the carpet will be installed next week, so the new office/shipping room will be functional in another week or two.

This weekend, I’ll be updating the main website and adding new specials for January and who knows I might have another surprise or two in store – or maybe not, we shall see what I can pull together by the 1st!

Yesterday we finally started the move into our new workshop. Construction still isn’t complete, but it is complete enough that I could move the furnace (melting pot) and the spin caster in and put them in place.

I ran the gas line and the air lines on Sunday, and by the end of the day was able to set the two pieces of equipment in place. The gas line went very smoothly, no leaks – a really good thing for a gas line! I did need to fiddle with the air/gas mixture. In the old shop, we ran off small tanks, and I could never get the gas pressure just right. In the new workshop, we are running off the main tank, and the pressure is as low as it should be (no more sooty flame either).

The air lines are not quite done. There are a couple of small leak in the manifold – but I kind of expected that as I didn’t have all the right pieces. A quick trip to the hardware store and about 10 minutes worth of work and I’ll be leak free!

One of the really nice things about the new setup is that we can expand to a second and even a third spinner without much effort (ok, going to 3 spinners will b a wee bit of work, but not all that much. If all goes well, by the end of 2007 we should have a second spinner in place – that will help speed up production, especially where larger figures (54mm) are concerned.

So, by tomorrow, we should be able to restart production. It will be nice to get back to casting figures, especially in a nice workspace. For the past week or so we could not cast at all due to low temperatures (below freezing is bad).

Next up will be the center bench – can also double as a wargame table if we ever need a second table. Then, I’ll be building new mold racks, so I can store the molds in the workshop, in an organized manner. After than some stock bin shelves will go up and the last piece in the workshop itself will be the order counter – mainly a countertop with a computer terminal, so we can lookup figure and mold information without leaving the shop.

By next weekend, the office and the wargame room should be ready for painting and carpet. So, by the end of the month the office and shipping room should be ready to roll. Then comes the wargame room. New Year’s weekend should see the (beginning of) the construction of the new sand table for the wargame room. Guess I need to decide between 12, 16 and 18 feet on this. The table will be 5 wide and somewhere between 12 and 18 feet long. The sides will be just 5 or 6 inches high. The goal is to have the table ready for the first of the workshop weekend games in February (date to be set in early January).

The last workshop space to be redone will be the mold making room. This is located in the basement, and it will be reorganized as soon as the shipping room and shop are setup.

By summer, we will have our resin casting shop completed, or at least fully operational. This will be located in the space that housed our workshop. The actual used space will be smaller and thus easier to insulate and heat.

Well, anyhow, now you know what I was up at the weekend. Still plenty more to do, but closing in on getting caught up.

After a short delay, here is the promised list of winners for the month of November:
Christopher Pacheco, Serge Gaudreau, Keith Steiner, Bob Wiltrout, Kevin Wynant and Robert Piepenbrink

Since this was our first drawing and because I had (still have) so much “stuff” on my desk, we changed the eligibility rules a wee bit – anyone who has placed an order in 2006 was eligible for the November drawing (the same will be true for the December drawing)

We won’t list the prizes here, but I’ll choose from the packages I’ve put together something that comes close to the types of miniatures each of these winners has purchased this year. As for the winners, if you have an active order, your “prize” will be shipped with your order otherwise we will get packages out to you this week.

Oh, and to give you an idea of what types of figures are going out, they range from 15mm Japanese (Russo-Japanese War) to 54mm ACW kits, to 28mm Fantasy to 40mm SYW to as yet unreleased science fiction kits to “lost” 30mm Scruby Napoleonic…

That’s all for now!

Here we are, December, nearly the end of 2006. I can’t say that I’ve been too happy with our progress in 2006, but on the other hand it could have been much worse. Well, 2007 WILL be a better year. We’ve had a wee sit-down and wrote out our projects for 2007. This time we made the rule that everything had to fit on one side of a 3×5 card – that way I couldn’t get too carried away! This doesn’t mean that we won’t add projects as the year progresses, just that we won’t overload ourselves up front. We will be sharing more on the 2007 projects in January.

To close out 2006 I thought it might be interesting to see which parts of our website(s) have been most popular during the year. The data gather may not have taken the most scientific approach, but the results are representative of what folks have been viewing…

In rough order of number of hits we have as the most popular pages on HistoriFigs.com and TableTopTalk.com:

TTT
The popular section is: “The Morschauser Files”

News
This page!

Product Listings
/soldiers_of_the_seven_years_war.htm
/AmericanRevolution.htm
/ghastlyco.htm

Wargamer’s Corner
Jack Scruby’s Basic War Game Rules (N-gauge)
Scruby’s Rules for a 30 Years War Game
Jack Scruby’s Rules African Colonial War Game Rules (N-gauge)

This closely follows the patterns observed in previous years. Previously TTT didn’t have a “most popular” section, but was still a high traffic site. News and TTT are always battling it out for the number 1 spot. For product listings, we typically see the Napoleonic listings in he top three, but this year they have been replaced by the Ghastly page (now if you all would just buy more Ghastly products to justify the higher number of hits on the page). When it comes to the Wargamer’s Corner, in previous years the articles on painting N-Gauge figures and ACW painting guides were tops. The posting of the Scruby rules sets have pushed these out of the top 5

Well, that about wraps up the review of our most popular web pages.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting the monthly winners of the Mike’s Grab Bag contest. That’s right. For November we will have multiple winners. I didn’t get much done this month, so there is a lot on my desk and I need a clean desk for December.

The N-Gauge 30YW figure special will run through December, so be sure to join the crowd of folks picking up these nifty little figures!

If all goes well the first bits of equipment will be moved into the new workshop this weekend – still not quite done yet, but getting really close (we had hoped to move in last weekend, but things were not quite ready) – I really want to be done by next weekend, so we can keep production flowing.

That’s about it for today – check back on the weekend for more specials and contest winners.