Azazelx wrote:
Artemis Black wrote: Gallahad is completely right. If Tre starts casting in house he'll never get out of the circle. You gave two examples but only one is relevant. Warlord don't have the sculptors do casting, they are big enough to essentially own a casting house. That's not the other end of the spectrum, it's a completely different spectrum.. Heresy however is a very relevant example and I don't think we need to drag why it's so relevant through the mud :|
Tre is a sculptor, that is his most valuable skill. 'Any' time spent doing anything else is a false economy. I wouldn't let Kev pack an envelope or waste time spinning moulds (I also wouldn't be happy if he decided to start doing 'anything' that meant his hands were near molten metal). His time is one of our most valuable commodities, to spend it on anything that isn't his best skill is crazy. When we were sharing an office I even made his tea so he wouldn't be wasting that time
(To be fair, my wife and partner probably made more of his tea but you get the gist).
Ok, that's all fair enough and makes sense to a good degree.
OTOH, I don't know the finer points of Andy/Heresy's life, but it seems like "The Dragon" was the thing that brought his house down, rather than in-house casting. "The Dragon" is why I think that perhaps the PVC project as it stood dying on the vine is a good thing for Tre'. Still, Hasslefree appears to be doing an order of magnitude better than RBG is, despite Tre' also being an excellent sculptor with a distinct style. Kev obviously has a much wider range of models and genres covered than Tre', but there should surely be more proactive advice that he can get to build his business. To cast, Tre' would need a trustworthy "minion" to do it, which means he'd need to pay an employee, so sales would have to rise by "that much" and so forth before the business can expand. Fair enough.
I can assure you that despite my normal level of sarcasm the next bit is said without. Tre is a personal friend (not sure if you knew), I give my business advice to him direct, that's why I 'm not offering it here. I was mostly trying to head off, what to me is, contradictory/worse advice.
I also don't really want a discussion about Heresy on a public forum, again, personal connections etc. Suffice to say that I don' believe the Dragon is the problem. I do absolutely agree that the PVC
KS not coming to fruition is probably best for Tre though.
The only time I'd consider getting in-house casting would be if our casting bills equalled or came close to the combination of wages of the person we'd need to cast plus metal cost for the year. There's literally no other reason to do it. My skills (for want of a less vain word) are also needed elsewhere for 40hrs a week so I'm not doing it. I'd then need to find a caster who can do the same level of work, which isn't as easy as it may sound, as the casters we currently use,
imo, are the best in the world, so that isn't easy either. Plus there's initial machinery costs.
(I'm also sending ya a
PM)
Unrelated, are we taking up this thread for the relaunch or will there be a new one (Can anyone start one? No idea about the forum protocols yet).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ninja'd!
