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Thread: History and back-end information of the "little guys"

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by ironyusa View Post
    Josh, when you say Andy, Eric and Chris with zodiac... I didn't realize Andy or Eric we're part of zodiac. Maybe I read that wrong.

    Maybe 2 years ago I heard that Glen from infinity and some other guys (from hybrid?) had some rights or something for a Chris Cole design. No clue if any of that's true, but any clue how hybrid, Chris and Glen would possibly be tied in? I seem to recall it also being associated with Trauma or a guy named Corey who may have been with FEP.

    Also, don't you know the guys that were Vanguard in the UK? They're the remnants of lucky UK, right?


    On tribal, I got this from someone on MCB:


    -Doesn't make it true, but it's not my word.
    Wasn't Infinity Glen and Dave Zinkham? Pretty sure Dave was involved with the Legend.

    Vanguard, you need Paul Garry (PeeGee) for that info, but I believe basically yes, it was the Lucky UK crew. I think Simon cave over to the UK at one point to try and help them out as well. Martin Carnall was doing the machine work.

    That is who did your machining for you, wasn't it Josh? Having worked for a time with Martin many many years before I personally wouldn't have used him to make a shovel, let alone a complete gun. We were truly blessed to have had Belsales as our go-to when we were setting up the Ego.

    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    WDP. From the UK guys when I was over last, their accountant kept on playing with money and they didn't want to go away from the 3 tube body. According to the rumors the accountant would send $1m from the bank at location A to location B, to show there was $1M there also, but had done something else with it? I guess the fees ate of a good chunk of that. If something else had happened, it might be closer to truth than some guys BS'ing. When I was doing something with J&M they got a call from the WDP guy and they were talking about starting it up again with them. I made some proposals on what we could do, but J&M fell apart about then also. They still wanted to stick to a 3 tube body IIRC. No clue on the IP.

    Just for clarity Andy, didn't Chris work with you guys on the original FEQ Quest project? And then you did improvements, and Chris took the CAD and IP and ran? Or is my memory worse than I remember? And then you had to do the other bits on the Zealot to work around it? Which actually is a clever setup, having seen that CAD.

    On that note - Spurlock did help out Chris on the Zodiac. I think PeeGee said that they just used a GI Nano Body scaled up 120% as the start to it. Chris had a hard time getting Spurlock to get part made right each time - I saw the pics and the CAD. QC was not decent on the prototypes and on the bolt tip. I helped him try and fix the ASA reg, and it was a bit too crazy tight. Designed a couple regs I would like to reproduce later. Balanced reverse moving base design in one. Would make a great LPR. I ended up redesigning his bolt tip. He wanted venturies. He took a gun shooting 295 and put his bolt in, and it shot 265. Put mine in, 335. I got a zodiac out of the deal. Decent gun.

    Spurlock had been sent a bunch of solenoids and boards from Cole. Then he tried to sell the Zodiac over here without Cole's permission. Then he used the noids in the Vapor. Not sure if he used the boards also, I think not. There is Quest/Zodiac DNA in the vapor though.
    As far as I know the Greene Brothers still own all their IP through NPF (National Paintball Fields). NPF helped keep WDP afloat for some time. I really believe it was their insistence to stick with the 3 tube design together with their reluctance to adopt break beam eyes and persist with the COPS for too long that killed them. They allowed others to come into the market and take their crown.

    Anything you want to know about WDP and the Angel, just ask. We were there right from the very start.
    Dear boy, I work at Planet Eclipse, don't you know..

  2. #32
    Another company that we should have the history of is the people who made the matrix originally. Was it Airtech industries or something like that?

  3. #33
    Adobe Evangelist emisnug's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Wood View Post
    Vanguard, you need Paul Garry (PeeGee) for that info, but I believe basically yes, it was the Lucky UK crew.
    He's still around the Keele area iirc. Multi-talented man.
    No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

  4. #34
    Insider imped4now's Avatar
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    In regards to the Tribal/MacDev possible connection, I stumbled across this. Note the last post:

    http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/a...e-ask-one.html
    OlllllllO

  5. #35
    wow, the MCB staff is so pathetic they changed my user text and pic to stupid stuff.

    lol, what idiots.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  6. #36
    Insider imped4now's Avatar
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    Haha, I didn't even notice that. Sorry, not laughing at you.....
    OlllllllO

  7. #37
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    Edit, I was incorrect:
    Unfortunately, "paintball villain" Francois Louvett was responsible for creating these, and they were milled and assembled in Bulgaria, so there isn't a lot of information out there.
    IIRC, the Tribal was out at the same time, but I believe that they were done fully from blocks. IIRC the ads for the tribal line pre-dated Merlin extrusions being for sale?

    On the Vanguard side, PG and Martin ended up working with Chris and Daz, a couple local guys who had some money to burn on another project, and threw a couple million at the whole mess? I think they said $2M. Cool guys, had dinner and beers with them a few times. There was a bit more money than organization though it seems, at least at the Vanguard level, from what I inferred. The shop was setup in a section of the building C&D had to do their other businesses. I guess they blew a good chunk of cash on some Chinese bodies that were screwed up at first, then they got their own machines. There was potential there - but that last 5% that is the killer, as I and many of us know.
    Last edited by pbjosh; 11-28-2017 at 11:10 AM.
    Josh Coray
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  8. #38
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    That is who did your machining for you, wasn't it Josh? Having worked for a time with Martin many many years before I personally wouldn't have used him to make a shovel, let alone a complete gun. We were truly blessed to have had Belsales as our go-to when we were setting up the Ego.
    J&M (Jason and Martin) did it originally. We actually did pretty well, but they needed me there on site to straighten out some things, which was a bit difficult to do due to distance but also family. 3 young kids and a couple pre-teens doesn't make for a wife that likes me taking business trips, especially over seas. Working with them we did get a lot done. I think a few more weeks right before launch and we would have had the product solid on day one. They did do some things like in the middle of the run small fiddling with sizes - so parts would not always fit. It was more than a bit infuriating. On the other side, we solved some problems really fast. I know just enough machining to help, and was flexible on the design, and just ignorant enough to miss some big things. The potential was there, but they were just to far away to allow me to give them the needed feedback and oversight.

    Josh, when you say Andy, Eric and Chris with zodiac... I didn't realize Andy or Eric we're part of zodiac. Maybe I read that wrong.
    IIRC: Andy, Eric and Chris were with FEP. Correct? Andy did CAD for an update, FEP crashed, Chris took it when FEP crashed and the patent (or something fishy) and started Zodiac. So they were not involved with Zodiac, but they were involved with Chris at FEP.
    Josh Coray
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  9. #39
    Insider imped4now's Avatar
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    Bringing this back up. I found post #77 particularly interesting:

    http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/p...-marker-8.html
    OlllllllO

  10. #40
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    Damn, 5+ years of dev time for a blowforward

    Makes me feel a little better. Not much, but a bit.
    Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts

    I work for the company building the Paragon

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