Hey all, Dave from Proton Props here.
Apologies to anyone that’s not heard from me directly for a while, and if you’ve reached out and I’ve managed to miss your communication I do apologise. Unfortunately I have nothing but trouble with Etsy comms these days since they restricted my store, I do try my best to respond to
Emails and messages, unfortunately I do sometimes miss them due to them pinging across on several platforms and it’s hard to keep track of what I’ve already replied to, especially as I’m one person running the show.
The delays have been horrendous, and unfortunately this has been well beyond my control. In the interest of being transparent this is the full disclosure: I started the business using BenOfKent products for my builds, and as many people have probably discovered he hasn’t been the most forthcoming with orders, I also had this issue so I changed suppliers early on to Karnivorous Creations. Mike initially was helpful and quick with some bits, however he then slowed down massively and I was in a very similar situation to the BOK issue. I raised this and Mike then he offered to sell me the molds and rights to produce it myself, reducing production times massively as it got to one point I was waiting on 8 months for 4 shells. So I bought mikes molds for all of the stuff so I could then start to produce it and we both agreed on a deadline for him to ship it. However, I’m now past 12 months paying for molds and I still don’t even have a quarter of what I’ve paid for, I’ve made a lot of my own molds to be able to produce as much as I can but a lot of orders are awaiting guns as the stock I had I’ve used up and Mike has been ‘sending’ the mold now for months and months. I received half of the mold last week, and at this point I’m still unable to complete it which in turn makes me look like the incompetent one to my customers. Im pushing nearly every day to get these to me, but it’s not just that that’s given me delays. Sound and light kits are sparse currently due to microchip shortages from my supplier and we’re all aware of the wait times from GBFans, which I use a lot of parts from as they are the only ones that supply a lot of items and often there are large delays on parts, and as for my shells I have to import a particular resin from America to the UK, which after brexit hasn’t helped and neither has the resin shortages in the states.
Amongst this I’ve had covid twice, both times have been very bad as I’m a diabetic, I’ve been made homeless, and changed premises three times. It’s not been the easiest of rides, and unfortunately it’s not very time effective to send everyone a message when I drill a hole in their shells, there’s only me doing every single aspect of this, and it’s very hard to do that all whilst spending time with my family, trying my best to look after my health and maintain the work / life balance. It’s not easy honestly (and this isn’t a woe is me comment). I’m so grateful for peoples custom and that they trust in my to deliver something special, and I have been. I quote a lead time to what I’m hoping / expecting it to be, however due to the nature of what these things are it’s not like I can just get all the bits I need from Amazon Prime or from my local hardware store. If you want to the best product available on the market it may take a little longer than expected sometimes. Could I push these things out at a lesser quality but quicker? Yes. Am I going to? Absolutely not. I take pride in my work and I believe I make one of, if not the best commission packs on the market. Im not going to cheapen it to bring the lead time down because these packs are works of art, and you can’t rush art. If anyone has any questions please email me on
protonpropsuk@gmail.com Hopefully that’ll give some insight. I’ll scan back through my messages as much as I can tomorrow to see if I’ve missed people or anyone in this thread. Again, apologies to anyone - I am about, I’m not going to take your money and vanish overnight.