ADA: Ask Doc Anything!

[Magmoormaster]

I got one for ya.

In a video from last year, Bacci is talking with Sergei Levkov about the Fastback autococker. He basically says that the design was his, that he did all the milling, and shipped the guns to you for assembly and sales. Is that true? I was always under the impression that since they were called "Doc Nickel Fastbacks," that you designed, machined, and sold them.

[Rusty Brass]

Any chance you could repost all of the things no one's going to want?

[dartamon]

-Whoops, no, I don't. That email is the other stock guy. Please send me a refresher/reminder email and then we can go from there.

Sorry about that.

Doc.

Email sent, I'm not in a hurry.

[DocsMachine]

In a video from last year, Bacci is talking with Sergei Levkov about the Fastback autococker. He basically says that the design was his, that he did all the milling, and shipped the guns to you for assembly and sales. Is that true? I was always under the impression that since they were called "Doc Nickel Fastbacks," that you designed, machined, and sold them.

-Nope, that's pretty much the case. In 2003, I came into a bit of money, and started shopping around for a CNC shop to start producing some of my products. One of which was the Automag barrel adapter, another was my flat-top 'Cocker bolt, and a couple other minor ones.

While Sergei and I were talking about some of this, it came up that he had a big batch of mis-machined 'Cocker bodies. Like 50-60. For some reason, he'd machined them to a standard 9/16" fine, which was something like 9/16"-20, rather than the WGP nonstandard thread, which is 9/16"-24. The customer he made them for refused them, and so he had 'em laying around gathering dust.

They weren't worth his time to rework, so I offered to buy them. I cut them down to mini size and rethreaded 'em to normal 'Cocker front-block thread. (Though a few were sold uncut.)

A couple of those I converted to halfblock, since that was the new and happenin' thing at the time. My setup was closer to a Racegun than a TurtleCocker, and I suggested it to Sergei to see how much it might be to have a run made. Sergei countered that he'd already been working on a halfblock, and sent me a sample- which was of course what would become the Fastback.

I said "screw mine, let's make yours!" It being by far the superior design.

So he made a run, I suggested the name, which he loved, and I sold them. I don't recall the specifics, but I believe for some reason he wasn't all that worried about having his name attached to them. Maybe he was just trying to help me get off the ground. I dunno. I'm sure part of it was he knew that lots of buyers would want to have a full gun built- which was true- and he wasn't set up for assembly and testing.

Why didn't we have more made? Money, mainly. Sergei is a professional CNC shop, and naturally wants to make big batches of parts- that's where you get economies of scale. Make one part, it might cost you $2,000. Make 2,000 parts, they might cost you a dollar each, etc.

As an example, after the first batch of Automag adapters, which was only like 250, he wanted me to do a run of 5,000. Even though that would have dropped the price to like $5 each, that still meant putting out $25,000. I couldn't even hope to afford that, and knew that at the usual rate of sales, it'd take me a decade to sell that many. (And that's been a problem ever since- most of my products don't sell well enough to make buying a multi-thousand-part run produced, and very few machine shops even want to talk to you over runs of less than a few hundred parts.)

So yes, while they were "Doc Nickel Fastbacks", they were 100% designed and made by Sergei. I was basically just the dealer.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Any chance you could repost all of the things no one's going to want?

-Planning on that very thing, though I'm at the moment sold out of several of them. If you check out my store (http://docsshop.storenvy.com/) you can see what I have and don't have in stock. (Though I just noticed that it still shows both my Flashpoints as in stock- I'm actually out of both of those, though I have a fresh batch on the way.)

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Can’t wait looking forward to the progress. Stinks we lost the build thread. Edit: Wait no we didn’t you Hosted that.

-Well, we haven't lost the photos, as you're right, I host those myself, but yeah, we lost a 20 or 30-page discussion on it.

Either way, lemme get some progress going on it, and I'll restart a new thread on it.

Doc.

[Lt. head-shot]

Since we lost all PM's, do you have a list of people who wanted the tank rings you were working on? I know you were doing some great work on those, and there was a good bit of interest.

[DocsMachine]

Since we lost all PM's, do you have a list of people who wanted the tank rings you were working on? I know you were doing some great work on those, and there was a good bit of interest.

-I did not get a list, no. There was no preorder/prepayment, etc. But as soon as I have that batch back from anno, I'll post them- and a couple other bits- in the dealer section.

And yes, when I get a moment, I'll be reposting the 'recreating a masterpice' thread. We'll have lost the responses, of course, unless Carter can ressurect it, but if not, I can rewite it, and of course still have the photos hosted. I've gotten as far as getting the grip frame made- though not yet finished- and that was actually kind of a fun one.

Doc.

[Lt. head-shot]

-I did not get a list, no. There was no preorder/prepayment, etc. But as soon as I have that batch back from anno, I'll post them- and a couple other bits- in the dealer section.

And yes, when I get a moment, I'll be reposting the 'recreating a masterpice' thread. We'll have lost the responses, of course, unless Carter can ressurect it, but if not, I can rewite it, and of course still have the photos hosted. I've gotten as far as getting the grip frame made- though not yet finished- and that was actually kind of a fun one.

Doc.

Awesome, looking forward to seeing more. It was a great thread to read. Thanks Doc!

[DocsMachine]

So yes, while they were "Doc Nickel Fastbacks", they were 100% designed and made by Sergei. I was basically just the dealer.

-I was thinking about this last night, and I recalled that I did do some very minor design tweaks. From his original prototype, I streamlined the "sled" a little, I came up with the little locating pin on the underside of the bolt which helped immensely when reinstalling, I suggested the porting/bore of the bolt (the thing to do at the time was make the hole Big As Possible, and that's exactly the opposite of what you actually want for efficiency and consistency) and I also redesigned the ASA to take a tank O-ring (squished into a pill shape) and came up with the E-Cocker-only version that had a notch alongside the O-ring, to pass the solenoid wire, rather than the through-hole for the standard 3-way link.

But really, those were only minor tweaks to Sergei's design.

And one other reason he wanted a 'machine shop' as a dealer, remember that the Big Thing at the time was E-Blade kits. I'd say at least two thirds (as a guess) of FB kits that were sold, the customers wanted drilled for eyes. Sergei didn't want to pre-drill all of them, and wasn't set up to drill-on-demand. So a shop like mine, that could, as well as assemble, tune and test to specific requests, was kind of an ideal outlet for them.

Doc.

[Cunha]

Nice fastback history. I have liked them since the beginning because of their half block goodness and most importantly nice threaded feedneck as opposed to trashcan WGP threads.

But even seeing them new and following them all this time, I have still only seen around 5 used ones sold online, total. They must be well loved because they have remained quite obscure.

[Siress]

I haven't thought about the fastback in a long time. Looking at it now, all I can think of is 'oh lawd, the pinch points...' 😆 Still one of the most beautiful 'cocker designs out there. You should pester Sergei to take a crack at the modern space dildos. Oh, forgot the rules... What will Sergei say when you ask him to take a crack at redesigning the modern space dildos?

[Jonnydread]

Pancakes or waffles?

[DocsMachine]

Pancakes or waffles?

Doc.

[Paintslinger16]

Which Paintball gun (In your opinion)had something really going on, but just got a close but no cigar award. Missing the mark in execution or some other huge flaw.