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Hi Guys, This looks like it is going to be a bit rough for a while, but it should be functional. If you can stand the way it looks, just use the forum and site as much as you can and report anything to us that is out of wack. Best to just email me: john@windstoneeditions.com or susie@windstoneeditions.com so we don’t miss it in the threads.
As there are some structural issues to deal with, Clay will probably be a bit overwhelmed for the next week or more, but he will eventually get to the design and layout, and try to improve the visuals. That said, we are now running in WordPress instead of Drupal, so I doubt that we will get the exact look of the site back.
So first let us know what doesn’t work so we can deal with the important stuff, and then what you like and don’t like about it. Just noticed that there is no preview before posting anymore.
Looks like it is just re-painted with thick paint. Why don’t you ask for a picture of the bottom? I don’t have an anonymous email to use, but I am curious to see if it has our pad. It is not one that gets knocked off much.
Thanks.
Now if only Windstone would enforce known scammers contacting people. More people have been ripped off by scammers who offer to trade and then don’t send their end than anything else.
I do wish that we could find a way to properly police what goes on with sales between members, but we really can’t. We are not directly involved in these dealings and we get second hand, and usually poorly documented, or incomplete, and for the most part, unverifiable information when something adverse allegedly transpires between members.
Yes, it does happen, members have been banned from the forum for various verifiable reasons. There are also members who’s actions have been called into question, but we cannot really verify the allegations. It seems that some of our members are constantly buying, selling and trading pieces, and then there is a complaint, or even two or three, out of what?. Maybe hundreds of transactions? How do we judge these things when we are not a party to them? This is difficult at best.
We make no profit from what is sold or traded from the Classifieds, and as the listings are just a convenience to the members, we have elected not to be responsible for a feedback system for transactions. I believe that sort of information, unverified by Windstone, is available on someone else’s site. This does not in any way mean that we do not want to be informed about the behavior of the members. So please do keep us informed and rust that we will never turn a blind eye on these problems, and when appropriate we will take whatever action we can, but also please realize that while we can easily make policy changes to the forum rules, we cannot be arbitrary in who we include and exclude, or when we do it.
As far as we can tell from old samples they don’t darken with age. Tobacco smoke will do it, and it doesn’t take that much. The first white dragons were not very consistent in how much gold was over sprayed onto the white but we have always used high quality no-yellowing clear finish. Our old samples look just the same as we remember them, and they are a lot darker than the newer white pieces, but it is the gold overcoat.
As far as I know, we have not seen this before, except from smoke, but we may have used a slightly different formula for the white in the past or something. Keeping them behind glass will really reduce the U.V. exposure, so that wouldn’t be it. We can check our old samples to compare with the newer ones. How old is the first dragon?
The access denied issue is probably fixed, but let us know directly if it isn’t. The site should not be loading slowly. Is anyone else having this problem?
Hi Ski, Just noticed this and want to welcome you back to the states. The website has been acting weird for a week or so and even I had a hard time logging in, so that may be why there aren’t a lot of replies here. We will keep an eye on it. Anyway, I know you didn’t really want to go to Korea, but how did it go this time? And how are the kids? And, well, everything else? I have only been through El Paso once and didn’t really get to look around. Probably a lot larger city now.
Thanks for asking, but Pam is fine. She did take some time off for a long over-due vacation, but we are getting eBay pieces together again and will start listing them soon. There has actually been none that we had ready to list as Melody has been working on sculpture and other projects, and we are training a new painter. When everybody is up to speed again we may have another painter take a shot at some eBay pieces. We will see.
Thanks for the pictures. This sure looks like a job for a good epoxy to me. And maybe, because you have dissimilar materials that can expand and shrink at different rates, one that is not too brittle. Is the fish color fired on, or painted? If it is fired on, you should be able to find a solvent that will remove the old glue. However, it did break clean from the metal, so maybe you can just sand or file it down to the original glue on the fish and epoxy it to the metal. Usually it is best to sand metal with coarse sandpaper before gluing and apply the glue to the metal before it re-oxidizes. I think I wouldn’t be afraid to use something like J B Weld epoxy for this as it is reputed to stick well to metal, but I would also make sure it is recommended for glass. You will have to touch it up with paint, no matter what you use, so clear or opaque shouldn’t matter much. I found some J B Weld (which is opaque) in very small tubes, or syringes. It is the old type of epoxy that smells like a Binturong. We use a somewhat flexible clear epoxy from 3M for glass, but it isn’t available in small tubes.
Can you post a picture of it and tell us the size? Without that, my first comment would be that the repair will only be as strong as the weakest glue if you don’t completely clean it. Second comment would be that E6000 may stick to most things, but I don’t think it would do as well as epoxy if there is a gap to fill, or not sufficient surface area.
Melody thought that I should answer this. The truth is they have been waiting for someone here to start a KickStarter campaign and offer the first ones in a variety of finishes. We had started to put it together and then, due to an employee relocation, it lost momentum. Our employee is now re-settled in Montana and he says he could get on it again. It may not be an A-One effort due to the fact that none of us are into having video presence, but it will, no doubt, attract some attention, which we sorely need. Any suggestions as to ways you would like to see them painted are welcome.
Mild soap and a water rinse shouldn’t hurt the paint, but we still will not recommend it as there may be other factors, such as prolonged exposure to moisture that has caused damage under the paint. If the paint looks cloudy it may be a sign of that sort of damage and cleaning could remove the paint.
It is probably better to just rinse off heavy dust than to rub the finish, but a real hazard is hitting the sink faucet or the sink and chipping the piece. The best place to rinse one may be the front yard with a hose. But you are going to get the felt pad wet and it could stain with water marks, which are really dirt that gets pushed ahead of the water as it soaks in. At that point, as with any fabric, it may be best to drench the whole pad rather than get it partly wet, and quickly dry it with pressure and a towel.
My guess on the pricing because these are small like the baby dragons is that they shouldn’t be much more than those sell for, especially since it doesn’t look like these would have been that much harder to paint than production dragons and they weren’t painted by Melody. They are not nearly as complicated as the grab bag baby unicorns and poads so my guess would be no more than $100 or at least not more than the small grab bags that were around $130. I am hoping closer to $100 personally because I really can’t afford much more than that and would almost rather buy the production baby dragons in colours I like if these are too much more since I would be risking getting a colour scheme I am not fond of in the grab bags.
Just wanted to say that, after totaling all the hours put into these grab-bag dragons, we found that they took about three times as long to paint as the small production dragons, and Melody did tweak every one of them herself after Brandi got the basic painting done. They are all different, but all wonderfully painted with great shadings of colors.
