Guys, what are you not understanding here? Or is it really as simple as greed - wanting cheap parts for your projects no matter who gets burned in the process?
John goes into the hole to produce the items no one else has. He takes the time to nail the little details no one else has gotten right, and offers them in metal. He was the first person to hit on the correct profile for the gun's heatsink, and spent hundreds to have a master machined. All of the members here who now boast an accurate hot-wire cut aluminum heatsink on your guns have that part because of John. Perhaps some of you have very short-term memories, but many of us remember 10+ years of GB prop forums during which there were no trigger tip assemblies available. Not plastic, not resin. No rings of the proper thickness, no hooks with the flat edge or proper bevels. No drilled and tapped holes to match the banjo tip's bolt. Certainly no metal assemblies, welded together, which combined all of those features - until John came along and offered them.
What's more, John never once did a part run for a profit. You may be surprised to hear that John does not have his own pack, and never has. He hasn't even been able to always keep a copy of parts he's sold. John loves propmaking, and the research involved, and the idea of an ideal prop community. He makes these parts because there's a legitimate hole to fill there; he chooses these specific projects because no one else has done them or done them RIGHT and we're all clamoring for them. He could charge twice what he does for his parts and most people would still buy them, and maybe John could have bought a fiberglass shell or all the other parts he needs and he'd have his own complete setup by now. In this case, he charged enough to cover the cost of keeping TWO TRIGGER TIPS for himself. And they even cost him something if he were to figure in gas to visit the machinist or his hours in planning the specs. They were basically given to all of us AT COST because John believes in a prop COMMUNITY. More so than any other builder I've talked to. Hell, I've tried to get John to charge more because I think he deserves to fund his own pack project off of the parts he's supplied all of us with - he REFUSES!
Now, while some of you are quick to point out that this is a "small" part and not something to get worked up over, perhaps you should take a moment and consider how much cheap resin it takes to crank out that "small" part. You know, I doubt John would have minded someone casting it up, with permission, and selling them AT COST, like he did. He wants people to have these parts- that's why he makes them. That would require asking John for his permission and then selling them for less than a dollar each, though. Do you guys really think it's right for someone to make $5+ a pop off of John's work, which John basically gave to us for free? It's wrong, and there's no two ways about it.
Charles says "a few cuts" and this piece basically makes itself. He says "a fifth grader could make it." He doesn't claim to have painstakingly recreated all of those minute details which appear on John's laser-cut, welded, drilled and tapped metal replicas. "The simplest of simple parts" for someone of his skill. I would never have knocked Charles' parts in the past on this forum, because I think there's room for every level of accuracy and every level of builder and collector - but anyone who knows Charles' parts would have to admit that this is a level of detail he's just never gone to before on any of his parts. And why this one? Why get down to replicating the flaws on a small detail piece like the trigger tip when entire proportions of more major pieces have been considered "close enough" so many times in the past? And if this is such an easy piece to whip together, why did it take John's product before ANYONE offered this assembly before? The demand's always been high.
John's not vindictive. He first tried to settle this off the board, in private. There would have been no repercussions for Charles, no banning, no humiliation, no one would ever have known about this latest incident of recasting. Anyone saying that banning him (which is policy on this and most prop forums for recasting) is too harsh should know that he brought it on himself.
Charles' silence on this matter since his first unconvincing post is very depressing. He should really step up and give John the apology that he's owed. And the rest of you who are saying that it doesn't matter should do the same, and maybe thank him for what he's given to this community. Hopefully you didn't convince him to walk away entirely. I know he's considering it.
- Douglas
