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Post by Maethius on Oct 31, 2016 12:17:12 GMT -5
I don't think I'm getting this one for Christmas. REALLY would love it if someone cast copies of this kit.
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Post by ultimateultrasaurus on Jun 11, 2018 17:32:41 GMT -5
Nice to see you're happy with it at least someone has him and actually built it and it did cost you an arm and a leg. But I'd really love to see this project started up again. I think a lot of people including myself would love to have a reproduction of this one. I understand that you built it (cause who wouldn't) but it would have been easier to reproduce if still on the sprues I guess. But as long as all the parts could be scanned it could be made through (not 3d printers, because they are still rough most of the times) plastic injection kit machines. I know that the best people at "reproducing" are Chinese. A company like BT or such should be able to do it without too much trouble. And normally I am against copied items, but Hasbro lost the license long ago and Tomy never had the rights for the Gravity Rex... So no-one could be bothered in making a big deal out of it. Let's brainstorm how we can start this up again. You could even earn back some money and make a whole lot of people really happy too
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Post by Maethius on Jun 13, 2018 15:10:50 GMT -5
It could be printed on an SLA printer, like the FormLabs Form 2. Resin casting actually would be easier on the off-sprue parts though, depending on the caster's level of skill. I don't know how much it would cost to reproduce the kit either way, but I would be very interested in finding out.
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Orion
Lance Corporal
Zach
Posts: 54
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Post by Orion on Jun 14, 2018 2:16:48 GMT -5
Nice to see you're happy with it at least someone has him and actually built it and it did cost you an arm and a leg. But I'd really love to see this project started up again. I think a lot of people including myself would love to have a reproduction of this one. I understand that you built it (cause who wouldn't) but it would have been easier to reproduce if still on the sprues I guess. But as long as all the parts could be scanned it could be made through (not 3d printers, because they are still rough most of the times) plastic injection kit machines. I know that the best people at "reproducing" are Chinese. A company like BT or such should be able to do it without too much trouble. And normally I am against copied items, but Hasbro lost the license long ago and Tomy never had the rights for the Gravity Rex... So no-one could be bothered in making a big deal out of it. Let's brainstorm how we can start this up again. You could even earn back some money and make a whole lot of people really happy too First off, I want to address the idea of injection molding. This would be prohibitively expensive. Extremely. I’ve worked on prototyping a few 3rd party Lego style elements that eventually were injection molded for ABS to achieve the Lego like finish. For the Gravity Rex, you would need a smaller-medium sized mold for the red parts tooled up (approx. $20k), a small mold for the gray parts (approx. $10-15k) and a micro mold for the silver parts (approx. $10k). You would then need additional molding for the Gravity Wheel motor and for the launcher cannon and missile. So at least another $15-30k. Plus machining and producing of the metal innards of the Gravity Wheel. For a company like BT where they can’t just ask the factory already making the Koto models to make a few on the side, like traditional bootlegging, they’d have to recreate the molds, the packaging and instructions. Per mold you’re looking at $1.5-2 worth of ABS, so just in material cost you’re at $6-$8 before packaging or moving inventory, so probably a per unit price of $10-$12 all said and done. To sell, you’d probably list these at $20, wanting to make a $5 profit per unit, leaving $3-5 to recoup the mold costs. At needing around $55-75k in just mold tooling and such, you’d need to sell 15-20k units minimum to recoup the initial cost. At 20k+ units, you’re definitely on the radar of Tomy and Hasbro. You can claim that Hasbro has lost the license, but they still have the rights to their own products they’ve created, I can bet big money on that. Even if Hasbro doesn’t have a solid legal standing, Takara-Tomy definitely does as they own the Zoids trademark, and the designs of all Zoids (including the Hasbro created ones). So if Hasbro couldn’t do anything, they could lean on Tomy (since they still work together on other licenses ie Transformers and Beyblade) to send out a C&D or any other numerous legal options to shut down a mass reproduction. Your claim of no one being able to make a big deal is very far off base. As for 3D printing: I have a SLA printer (and a cheap Monoprice FDM printer), it is far from being “rough”. In fact, with the thin micron layers it can print it, my prints often look as nice, if not better, than ABS mold injection products. You can actually even print with ABS plastic. I recently printed some DnD figures for a friend, and my SLA easily beats the comparison photo he sent of official DnD figures and leading 3rd party marker Reaper with it. Even my cheap Monoprice if set to a low micron level and slow print time can create fantastic looking models. I’ll have to see if I can dig up some unpainted photos, but I have a models that look like retail products that I’ve printed at home. Honestly, 3D printing would be the best option for recreating a few Gravity Rexs. You could print in colored ABS to avoid painting, and you could have an exact replica or a minorly altered replica to fix some of the issues with the actual model kit - like the triangular pegs stressing the plastic. Additionally, modeling the parts in CAD or similar before printing, you could mirror the rocket launcher cannon and have two whereas the standard kit has one. The hardest part of 3D printing a Rex would be acquiring one. Way back when they were on eBay, I got out bid as my max at the time was $700 and they went for over $1k. After that, 3D scanning each part wouldn’t be hard - just time consuming. There are numerous programs out there that with a few hundred photos from different angles around the pieces can create a replica 3D file that can be imported into CAD or similar and cleaned up for printing. You’d have to pull apart the Gravity Wheel motor and rocket launcher to model each piece, but it’d be doable. The second hardest part would be printing the pieces. The kit has 33 pieces, plus 2-3 for the launcher and another 4-5 for the motor. 39-41 pieces would take a long time to print, even if you could fit 2-3 on the print table of a SLA at a time. The bigger pieces would definitely be 6-8 hour prints each, and the smaller around 3-4, estimating. You’d be looking at 120-ish hours of printing to produce one kit. That’s not including the time spent scanning and cleaning up the models. Between material cost, you’d probably be $80-100 in ABS plastic to print it. That’s not including the 120 hours of electrical costs, or the time spent scheduling, setting up and removing prints to keep the printer going 24/7. Resin mold copying: Similar to 3D printing, you’d need an actual Rex to make a mold copy of. Then you run into needing to be really good at resin molding to make a decent copy, otherwise fit and finish will be an issue. You’d need to make numerous molds to replicate all the pieces. Then comes the fact that resin always needs clean up work by the end user and painting, and you’ve turned away a large portion of your market. Just look at the small numbers that the garage kits sell in to see why the time is definitely not worth the reward. No matter which method you choose, you’d be looking at a selling price $100-$150 per unit with no profit whatsoever, not even for time spent tooling/mold making/3D file refining or labor into making each kit. Reconstructing a function Gravity Wheel motor would just add to the cost, and the likelihood of selling more than 5-10 units is super low. The end of the matter is that you’d want to keep the replica numbers low as well to stay off Tomy and Hasbro’s radar, least you be hit with a C&D if you’re lucky, a lawsuit if you aren’t. THAT BEING SAID, I would love to have a Gravity Rex of my own, even if it was a resin or 3D printed replica. It would be great to see someone in the community attempt it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, rhasputin is the only one that we know where the Rex ended up, the other two have vanished, correct? And it looks like rhasputin was last online here in 2016, and may not even have the Rex anymore (or it could have been damaged, parts lost, etc). If I had access and more time/energy, I would totally be down to replicate a Rex, it just would be a massive undertaking for whomever decided to go for it.
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Post by Leon35 on Jun 14, 2018 7:38:35 GMT -5
I have been looking into this idea off and on over the last few years. Other than a printer, what programs and equipment would one need to use to do this? (prefarably free, open source programs)
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Post by ultimateultrasaurus on Jun 14, 2018 9:54:42 GMT -5
Well scanning and printing would then be the best option and I don't think the price would scare true fans off. Also the motor is easily replaced with another Gravity motor so I still say it would be really cool
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Post by Maethius on Jun 15, 2018 2:24:25 GMT -5
It also depends on if you wanted the kit to be remotely functional. I wouldn't mind owning the G-Rex with just the motor housing for display. If the motor is identical to any of the other G-Zoids, you could easily supplement by swapping one out (though not cheaply anymore). Back in the day paying $150 for a rarer windup kit wasn't that uncommon... I paid that much for my Sea Panther and about that much for my Twin Horn. Of course, being a copy, I probably wouldn't mind so much jointing up the G-Rex, but that's kind of my M.O.
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