Happy Holidays Deanna and Alan. Any updates? Also, in a recent video I saw Alan being interviewed at a comic con, he said that VV offers acid aged weathering. Is this something we can discuss for the TFU II trailer concept run?
Thank you and MTFBWY.
The last estimate for completion was that shipping was to start in September 2017. That was given after the previous estimate (Summer 2017) came and went.
Last we were told the TFU2 run had now been placed behind the upcoming TFU1 run because the chassis still needed to be designed and they wanted to try out a few of the TFU2 ideas on the TFU1 run.
As for when we'll see the TFU1s, they've been "about 2 weeks away" since December last year if you follow VV's posts on their community Facebook page, so your guess is as good as mine. I would be shocked (in a positive way) to see the TFU1s in 2017 given that another movie is about to drop, and given that the TFU2s have been placed in the queue behind the TFU1s I wouldn't expect any movement on this run for months.
It seems thatthe TFU2s have joined the TFU1, Slothfurnace collaboration, Kylo Ren replica + original crossguard, and replica armour in a long backlog of stuff that VV has been talking about for 18+ months but hasn't seen the light of day for whatever reason.
I don't work for VV so can't speak to the acid aged weather question.
Sithslayer1 I got your message. The weathering we do is an acid weathering, the chemicals used are acid. I will reach out to you before doing your weathering to discuss specifics to make sure we are on the same page.
Sharky, are you on this run? If so and you would like a refund on your deposit please contact me. Otherwise, it is impolite to comment on a run in which you are not a part of. Or make aspersions to time frames. We have offered the same to every single person on this run. Folks who are still waiting are waiting because they know the end result is going to be spectacular. And, it is. Those who do not wish to wait can contact me, I am happy to refund your deposits on this run since it is way overdue.
This was a very limited run of 30 pieces that has been fraught with complications. Most recently we parted ways with the engineer we brought on board in no large part because of issues in the chassis design that he was partially brought on to take care of. So, unfortunately, I am having my machine shop fix the CAD issues so that they can finish production on the chassis and we can finally put this run to rest.
This is a very special reveal chassis inside a saber that has some exterior accuracy details that to my knowledge have never been seen on a TFUII replica before which is why we have not posted pics or reveals. I want to keep it close until they are shipping. These are awesome, collectible pieces and I am really excited to be sharing them.
As for the Slothfurnace collaboration, we have been working closely with Sloth to make sure what we are producing accurately represents not only the Derelict saber, but also the awesome style of reveals that he is known for. Collaborations like that take time. The replica armor is waiting for two last molds to be produced and then it will launch, hopefully early next year. The Kylo we are working on a Parks version and I am waiting for them to arrive, they are overdue, the original Kylo is in progress but backseated to some other projects since Phoenix Props was doing their version and we felt no need to drop ours at the same time. Our original crossguard is coming early spring.
Perhaps you do not understand how production works with a small shop? There is a limited amount of capital that has to be juggled for each project. There is no way to do everything all at once unless you somehow have outside funding, which we do not. We also, no longer take deposits on runs prior to production, so we are not "leveraging your money" like many other people doing runs are doing. They are not putting their own money in, they are using yours to fund their runs. WE have decided we do not want to do business that way and we produce the product first (The TFUII was an exception as it was a past run from a few years back now). Once we have the product in hand then we are comfortable putting them up for sale. We chose to do things this way as we have watched so many smiths fail in the hobby by getting overloaded, spending the deposit money, then running into financial crisis or health issues and not be able to fulfill their orders. We do not want this to happen to us so we made a decision a couple of years ago to primarily close the custom log until the lion's share of orders are fulfilled, no longer take any more than a 10% deposit on customs, and not accept deposits on runs at all anymore at least for the forseeable future. The upcoming TFUIs we have everything in house, when they go up for sale payment will be in full on the website like any other product and we will begin building them out immediately. Target is that all ship in 6 months or less. When we finally get these chassis for the TFUIIs, the second deposit will be due at that time, we will build them out and collect that last two installments when they are ready to ship. That is the last run happening that way for us as it has been a humbling learning experience and one we do not wish to repeat. Hopefully this offers you some insight.