That should be foundry etiquette! I have been working with a friend in Texas trying to get some rare aluminum motorcycle "bling" made. We paid for the tooling, paid for the time to make all molds, paid for the aluminum, paid for the pouring, etc. We go to pic up the parts, tooling and molds and the guy says we only get the parts, he keeps the tooling and molds and can do with what he wants. Is this the norm? Please respond only if you have direct knowledge of these types of "deals". I don't want to read a bunch of armchair wannabe lawyer crap. As you can tell were pretty pissed. Thanks
ouch! that hurts! happened to a friend of mine who dealt with a company that rhymes with "heelco" not only didn't get back the tooling/molds. didn't even get back all the parts he took in!. sorry i can't be more help. he just took it in the keister, i have to hear about it alla time though.
What can be done, and I have direct knowledge of this, if you bring suit, you can post bond and the sheriff can confiscate the tooling and place it in bonded storage until the court decides who it belongs to. Each state may have different procedures, but the tooling can be held until a court decision, whether you win or lose. Hopefully, you will have a response from a lawyer here.
we had molds made by one outfit that couldn't get the cast right (too porous). we had the molds sent to another foundry that guaranteed the cases not to leak. they cast about a thousand great cases then wanted to triple their price. we took the paper work showing design and purchase of injection molds, and a cop, and went and took the molds back. of course there were lawyers involved. so unless they charged discounted prices for the making of the molds with the express intent of using for their own use (which would be in the contract) you should own the molds.
Every part my business partner and I have had made that required molds or tooling we have gone to the shop doing the work with a contract spelling out that we get the molds and tooling at the end of the job.We have had to go from shop to shop to get it our way.
I'm in the process of having frame brackets replicated in 4130 for a 1911 Excelsior Auto Cycle 7 hp twin. I provided models or patterns made of abs plastic produced in a rapid prototype machine to Willis Garage in Ohio. Going into it Jeff Willis and I agreed that he would make the molds and pour one part for inspection and that I owned the mold. After and if corrections are needed he will pour the number of parts I want and deliver them and the mold to me. The mold is mine and I can send it back to him or anyone for that matter if I want more made. It's working out well. I don't know if he works with alluminum. Can supply contact info. I don't have it handy right now.
That is not the norm, but what was stated when you received the quote? The pattern shop that I deal with will quote a price for work to a customer as the owner of the patterns. Most of the time he is also dealing with the foundry also and getting the castings for the customer. When doing this he will keep the pattern or leave the pattern at the foundry so that more castings can be made when the customer need them. If the customer is done and wants the pattern then they get it. Now sometimes a customer wants a cheaper price and he will work out a deal where he does own and keeps the pattern but this is all done up front so the customer knows that this is going to happen. Hope this helps.
No written contract, just a meeting or 3 and a hand shake. No one in their rite mind would pay what we did JUST for a handful of aluminum parts THAT IF reproduced in any quantity would ruin the value and rarity......... In an odd sort of way later I will be able to tie in an old rodder/motorcycle builder to show you this is "on topic" not O/T.........................
Before this goes somewhere else I don't have a "friend" problem, We as in the 2 of us have a problem with the one stop in house foundry shop.........................
We have a sister company that can do the Aluminum work for you here in Missouri. Contact me via PM for more. As to your issues, each state is differrent and has their own laws.
no one in their right mind would do that without it all being put down on paper. IF you have no contract then you have nothing. Sorry man, tough lesson to learn.
Having gone through this in an experimental aircraft business, ALWAYS get it in writing! I ran the production side of the business, which did not include engineering or purchasing. We got the short end of the stick more than once for this same type of thing. Sorry to hear it has happened to you. If it had been up to me there would have been a legal fight over ownership of our molds, as it was there wasn't anything done about the disputed ownership. Now the business is closed and the molds are gone ... Dan Stevens dba, Steelsmith
Dealt with this when i did design/engineering with manufacturers all the time including metal and plastic parts. Sub-contracting something out is a pain, you need to have your ass covered from the time you walk through the doors for the initial meetings, confidentiality agreements just to look at drawings, sketches, engineering drawings, etc. That is if you don't want anything reproduced. Then contracts as to tooling, molds, piece prices, etc. Contracts should state that what you as the client are paying for you can remove and keep at any time. Most foundries (reputable ones) anyways will do this automatically, they should have a contract simply for their own tax records. Anything not payed for by said foundry automatically belongs to the client that payed for it, whether it be a design firm, end user, or tool/die maker. Unfortunately without any written and signed agreement you don't have much to go on without a lot of lawyer involvement and money. The only consolation i can offer is that most of these places don't know what they have and the chances of them reproducing in mass are slim, their up front costs wouldn't be enough to risk it that's why they rely on the client to come in with the start up capitol before they even get off their asses.
Did you read all of the fine print and terms and conditions? If so, what did it say? Has he made a first article and provided that to you (proof of design) normally done prior to any production units being made? You should not have given them any money until you have that. I used to buy casting and forgings for the Government and it is standard practice for the supplier to provide the first article that basically proves the tooling makes the required part. That is when you pay for the tooling normally unless y'all had a prior agreement or your not financially sound and would put them at risk for all costs. You have to read everything and make sure you cover the risks in wwriting before you hand over money. All these items need to be cast in stone (Pun intended) before any work starts. The fine print tells you who owns the tooling.
I have had several patterns made and have cast many parts both for my business and for my hobby. I have never had a contract other than a estimate paper with the price of the patterns/ tooling. If you pay full price for the patterns/tooling and can prove it they are yours. As simple as that. Get an attorney. This is nothing to fool around with. Just be sure you payed full price for your patterns /or tooling.--TV
Thanks and I couldn't even spell it close enough for spell check, that's pitiful! Panic, in my pissed off humble ways of wording things I was looking for first hand experience advice and I got more than I expected. Seems this in not an isolated case. Hows my spelling Fidgiter?
the Aluminum/Magnesium foundry I worked for always returned any tooling to the cusomer after the run was finished. The final shipment always included any moulds/tooling. The customer always had the option of us retaining the tooling if there was the posibilty of future orders but SOP was always return with final shipment. Very rarely we wouldn't ship tooling if the customer had a history of very slow payment but I only recall that being the case in one or two incidents. Frank
With nothing in writing its gonna depend on what you were specifically billed for. I'm in the machine shop biz, and if I bill a customer for fixture ABC and jig XYZ along with billing his parts, then the implication is that he's paying for the jig and fixture, so they're his. OTOH, if I bill the same amount for setup charges, then the jig and fixture remain my property since I'm billing him for services performed and not for hardware produced. Another problem you'd run into is the fact that you don't own the design. If Ford sends drawings to a foundry for some part, that foundry may well absorb the setup costs in order to get the production contract. But even though they own the tooling, they don't own the design, so they can't sell the product to anyone other than Ford. Assuming you took original parts to the foundry and asked them to reproduce them, unless you own the tooling you can't prevent him from producing and selling to anyone he wishes. Now if he agreed the tooling is yours, and delivered it to you, you can't prevent him from making the tooling again and producing parts to compete with your repro parts. If you have some obscure part you want reproduced, the first thing to do is avoid telling any potential supplier what the part is for. If they seem to make any effort to find out what its for, forget them and keep on looking. If a casting needs subsequent machine work, you can keep yourself safer by having that work done by another shop. Its not hard today to have a part digitized and then reproduced as a pattern by anyone who's got a CNC mill. If you figure the part will have some significant value, then have it digitized and subsequently modify it in a CAD program to remove the evidence of machining before having the pattern made. Although a "turnkey solution" might be cheaper and definitely seems more convenient, its also putting all your eggs in one basket, so its not a good idea unless you know for sure you can trust the people you're dealing with. By keeping things somewhat separated, and always remaining vague about the function or application of the part, you can remain a bit more sure that you're just paying for work and not paying to create your own competitor.
We do have receipts saying paid in full subject to test of "fitment". Receipt also says "Terms 50% W/order $4275.88, 50% on Casting tooling completed" Doesn't that imply casting/tooling was part of the original deal?
If you don't want to involve lawyers...bring your reciept. If you paid for it, you own it...at least in the most simplistic legal way. Bring a cop and your reciept. Then you might have to battle with them later, in court, if they think they really own them. (That's IF they wan to to spend money on lawyer fees, or they go to small claims) Even without a contract, a judge usually can see what really happened. AT least in small claims court....
If the receipt says paid in full do what chopolds says take a cop, or 2, and pay them a visit to get your stuff, let them decide whether or not to pursue it any further and just deal with it as it comes. Find as much paperwork and documentation as you can and write down any and all meetings and calls including dates and times and a summary of what was discussed. That way if they want to go further youre prepared as best you can.
No Contract?!? Well, without a contract, I would suggest you get one of those armchair wannabe lawyer types to get your stuff back. Good luck, I really mean it, man. Next time, though, pony up the dough for a contract. Lawyers are not all bad.
I am a manufacturer. If you paid for the tooling, you own the tooling, period. Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement or a non-compete? Sorry, didn't read all the posts. Don't do anything without some form of written contract. You don't need a lawyer, you can download most things you'll ever need, free, and simply tweak them to your project. Hope you find a solution that's not too painful.
By rights, if you paid for the tooling then it's yours. If you front with a lawyer the foundry guy will probably just hand the tools over, to save himself trouble. As the designer of the tooling/parts you do retain rights over the design even if the foundry starts producing parts from your tooling. You can sue them for a royalty/ licensing fee or get an injuction to stop production under copyright laws with whats known as "intellectual property". I.e you thought of it so you own it.
I would say that probably every state has different laws, and every Judge will have a different interpetation of each case. Without a contract, it will be your word against thiers, and if they have done this before, there word will be very easy to understand. I went through this exact same issue about 8 years ago. I had built a aluminum & steel gad pedal mount assembly for an ot car that had a plastic one originally. these cars are often driven hard, raced, etc and are prone to broken gas pedal mounts. I built a prototype of what I wanted. I tested it in my own personal car, had pics to proove my progress and my work. I talked to a few foundries around on my side of the state, and finally settled with one who's price was midrange of the others. I. like you, didn't have anything in writing with the foundry, just a lot of talks and an agreement on a few first run parts to be tested for fit and function by me, if they were acceptable I'd at that time give him a number for the production amount I'd want. I paid 50% for them to start, 25% upon the first test parts run, then 25% upon approval. When the first parts were done, I asked for a minor change, they completed the change and then run another batch for my testing and approval. I was very happy with the parts and paid them for the final 25% of this part of the process. When we sat down and discussed the amount of parts, first production run was going to be 2500 as this would give a fiarly decent run size for them and an affordible price for me. At that time I had mentioned that when the run was done, I'd come and pick the parts and the mold up....well here is where my fun began. Just as you are finding out, I was told that if I wanted the molds I would have to BUY them!! The money I paid was for them to design and build the tooling/molds, set-up and machine ready the process for producing the parts. They told me that they charge that type of a figure for any desing and tooling work, and for the set-up and process ready work. I of course thought they were nuts, so I told them I'd have to think about it and I'd let them know. I was working for a machine shop at the time, and asked my boss what he thought and what I should do. The first thing he asked was what does my contract say? Well...I didn't have one. "Not much that you could do", was the next thing out of his mouth. I decided to talk to a lawyer to see what my options would be. Check around, a lot of lawyers will do a first time consult for free. The one I found came highly recomended and also was willing to take the case for a very small fee up front and if I won the case I'd have to pay another fee but if I lost I would not have to pay any more than the initial payment. I gave him all my information on how I built the first parts myself, tested it in my personal car, etc. He spent close to two weeks before he called me back, he had set up a time for him and I to go and meet with the guy from the foundry. When we were there, the guy from the foundry had his story, as well as several different contracts from other jobs that they had done that were basically exactly what I had them do for me. In all the ones he showed us, every one of them were charged for the process of design, building of tooling, set-up and ready processing of the molding machines and guess what....after the production runs were completed they had to purchase the tooling from them!!! I decided at that point to just walk away. My lawyer told me that chances are I'd loose in court. I do not know whatever happened with the tooling. I never disclosed what the car was that I had built them for, and the pics only showed the florboard/firewall in my car. From them I'm not sure they could figure out what it was. So I guess I'd say good luck. I myself would consult a lawyer just to see what the laws in your state are. Maybe you could ask the foundry how much they would charge you to pruchase the tooling. I'm not sure what else to say but good luck, and let this be a HUGE lesson to you and all the others that read this....GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING...COVER ALL YOUR BASES. My lawyer told me that even if all I had was a hand written agreement that indicated the tooling was apid for or would be mine, I would not have had any problems at all. Good luck. Al
The Jalopy Journal
