Brickmania has been successfully producing custom building kits using LEGO® brand bricks for many years. Our most popular models are those that fall outside of the official product lines, including historically accurate military subjects, particularly tanks and armored vehicles. While we as builders have all greatly benefited by an ever-expanding parts pallet being developed by The LEGO Company (as well as after-market customizers), no one, not even The LEGO Company, has produced a high-quality, functioning, and historically accurate caterpillar track. That is, until now. Introducing Brickmania Track Links™.
Brickmania has teamed up with an experienced plastic parts designer and reputable injection molding company, and have come up with a design for a new caterpillar track that will be functional, compatible, and easy to create future variants. The first two tracks will be available in both single width (1 LEGO brick wide) and double width (2 LEGO bricks wide) and have a chevron pattern found on many American and Allied tanks and armored vehicles. They will be injection molded with black ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), the same plastic The LEGO Company uses to manufacture LEGO bricks, and will be packaged in bags of 100 links (enough to make a small armored vehicle). Brickmania Track Links™ will be 100% manufactured in the USA.
Creating such complex parts in ABS requires a very elaborate set of injection molds to be made. Brickmania has already laid the groundwork for the mold design and we are ready to have them manufactured. Our mold maker has offered us a considerable discount to have molds for both tracks sizes made at the same time. They will, however, still be very expensive to have made, but the savings over doing them one mold at a time is significant. The design for these molds will actually lay the groundwork for additional patterns of track links that we will be able to produce at a later date.
Why Kickstarter?
We here at Brickmania have always prided ourselves at being completely self-funded through the success of our products. The up-front expense of complex mold making, however, extends us fiscally beyond anything we have previously attempted. Rather than stretching our financial resources to their limit, we are asking our supporters help give us a jump start on the most expensive portion of the project.
In return for your support in this project, Brickmania has set up numerous project rewards, starting with a token amount of the finished product, up to the chance to command your own play armies comprised of exclusive custom LEGO® kits, designed by Brickmania's master builder Daniel Siskind. Once the project is funded, a series of stretch goals will be introduced, opening up an even broader range of reward options (alternate colors, additional bonus figures, and more).
NOTE: LEGO® is a registered trademark of the LEGO® Group of companies, who does not officially endorse or support this project.
Rewards: (pledge prices are at right). Images of the exclusive kits are shown WITHOUT the Brickmania Track Links™, but WILL include them in the final versions
STRETCH GOALS:
ADD-ON MENUS:
Do you want more than one of the exclusive kits? Here are the add ons... scroll down to the FAQ for instructions on how to add these items to your Pledge
By popular request we now have additional size bags of links available for add-on purchase. Please no more than 10 of any size bag until we can open a stretch goal of additional colors.
Extra minifigs now available à la carte. No quantity limits! See FAQ for instructions.
We have a couple more add-on kits for the final days of the campaign:
The final two add-on kits are not exclusive to the Kickstart campaign, but the prices will go up significantly once they are officially released.
Risks and challenges
There are several potential hurdles to completing this project. These include technical problems with the molds, creating the custom model kits, and fulfilling a massive quantity of rewards.
We have partnered with a US company with extensive experience with injection molding technology and access to state-of-the-art mold-making facilities. The fact that they are located in our region will streamline the pre-manufacturing process and speed up the delivery of the finished product. We are confident that once the process begins, the final product will be delivered in a timely manner that will beat our projected delivery date.
The bonus models and T-shirts will all be assembled and printed by the Brickmania team, which has extensive expertise in these areas. Brickmania has released more than 100 custom kits in the last three years, and every person in the production cycle has been working together for no less than 18 months. Instructions for the the models are already completed, and we are already in possession of most of the parts needed to produce the kits en masse. Further, Brickmania has its own screen printing shop in-house, and is easily able to produce as many shirts as may be required, meaning that we will not have to rely on expensive, third-party printers. This insures the maximum amount of your pledge dollars will go towards producing our Brickmania Track Links™ mold.
A final hurdle to completing this project could be the complications of shipping a great deal of product around the world. Brickmania's order fulfillment team, however, is second to none. Last year we shipped out more than 15,000 individual orders, and have earned a top notch reputation for swift and effective custom service (Brickmania is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau). With enough backing, Brickmania's expertise, experience, and excellence will insure that this project will be a success.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterQuestions about this project? Check out the FAQ
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Funding period
- (30 days)