Go Greener?

[Eclaireur]

Very happy to receive a couple of Rubicon models (Sdkfz 250/9 Neu, German stowage, and British CMP truck) and now building away.
But boy oh boy there's an awful lot of packaging. I mean that little half track is quite a small vehicle when finished but had five plastic bags (six if you include the decal sheet) and two boxes. The truck has four plastic bags, five including the decal sheet. I love your minis but am also worried about the planet ...

1. Can you do something to reduce the amount of plastic? maybe wrap the box in cellophane and not the sprues individually or bag in paper?

2. Single boxes for those bundled kits?

3. And Heaven knows you must think about sprue design because there's an obvious incentive for you to save money on raw materials but are you limited by standard sizes when creating them? There's often a lot of wasted plastic.

any thoughts?
EC   

[ripley]

While less packaging would be nice ,without keeping the sprues separated  by packaging  I find you get more damaged pieces . And with Rubicon being half way round the world from most of us , sending parts back if broken ( if they'll take them ) is going to take time and money for postage . Having received numerous kits from eastern Europe in flat packs with news paper to keep the parts safe  , you end up with more broken kits than usable ones . IMO the packaging stays as is and I will blue box what I can at home

[ultravanillasmurf]

One of the sprue limitations is the fluid dynamics of liquid plastic. I suspect there is not much you can do to reduce "waste" plastic in the sprue (except get more parts on each sprue) but that can lead to insufficient plastic reaching all corners of the sprue. You can increase the pressure on the plastic, but that can lead to flash as the plastic is forced between the halves of the mould.

The plethora of plastic bags was mentioned many years ago. I will see if I can find the reply.

One possible option is the stackable sprues used in the past by Wargames Factory, where there are pegs and sockets in the sprue design to allow the sprues to be stacked. There are problems in design with that, and their previous reply might shine a light on that.

[elias.tibbs]

I’d still rather see the half track expansion packs as actual complete boxsets, priced competitively.

[Rubicon Models]

I’d still rather see the half track expansion packs as actual complete boxsets, priced competitively.

They are now on our online stores as special bundles "priced" competitively! 

[Rubicon Models]

As for the "greener" issue...

Of course, we wanted to help the environment too, but there are also other concerns in terms of production and efficiencies.  Sprues are like tree branches, they tended to mangle together in a stack thus making packaging extremely difficult.  Parts tend to drop off if not handled delicately too.  We use recycled plastic bags whenever is possible.  The plastic bag protects parts from falling off the sprue and acts as an air cushion between the sprues.  It also eases packaging and protects them during cross-ocean shipping.  The bag for the waterslide decal is to stop moisture getting to the decal, thus ruining the sheet.

We hope this will clear things up a little bit.  The printed box we used are also recycled material as well.

[elias.tibbs]

I’d still rather see the half track expansion packs as actual complete boxsets, priced competitively.

They are now on our online stores as special bundles "priced" competitively! 

Yep, I’ve seen those, but as a retailer selling Rubicon kits it’d be nice to just have a box that is a stummel that I can sell.

Having them seperate just seems to put people off at the point of sale.

That said, I do understand that boxes and box design isn’t cheap. And that some of the expansion kits are designed to fit multiple variants.

The 251/22 would be an ideal kit to combine first.

[Tracks]

The 251/22 would be an ideal kit to combine first.

I completely agree!
When I got the expansion, I was wondering why RM just didn't release this as its own kit (half-track included) because you only have the option to build the 251/22. Also, since I didn't have an extra 251D kit, I had to order another one.

The other bonus with being its own kit is that you can make a 251/22 or a standard 251D, so if a gamer/modeler couldn't find a regular 251 kit, they could still pick up the 251/22 kit and build it as a normal half-track. Almost like what you can do the Rubicon Models BM-13 Katyusha kit. I have two of these kits, but I plan to assemble one of them as a standard truck. My plan was to buy the regular truck kit (I needed another one), but the only kit available at the time was the Katyusha kit. Since I knew I could just assemble the kit as a standard truck (without canvas top), I bought it.



Note, the picture above is an older photo of my model, and was not finished yet (about 75% done).
I should take a new picture because it does look different now, and includes the crew figures.