Does anyone here do any small scale repo parts manufacturing? With all the underemployed, industrious, creative people here, something cool is got to be being made. I'm wondering whats being repoped, and if its more of a hobby or real business.
Yes, I for one am in business, doing metalshaping as well as limited manufacturing of certain parts. My parts line is just being introduced this month, and consists of 1) Desoto 'Maneater' grille teeth hammerformed out of 1/8" aluminum flatsheet, polished and ready for mounting, (or delivery to a chrome-shop). Manufacturing these teeth in aluminum gives the customer advantages when fitting them to different than stock spacing or to a different curvature mounting pan, which means grinding the base to fit/filling where those changes are needed and then polishing out once again. This is very laborous when working with pot-metal. Not so bad with aluminum. 2) A modified mounting pan for those above mentioned Desoto grille teeth, that has additional metal incorporated into the design to allow for t*******/fitting into Merc, Ford, Chevy which were much deeper than the original stock Desoto mounting pan. I've also changed the curvature to a radius that is more compatible to those 3 cars bumpers. 3) I'm currently trying to obtain a '49-'50 Merc grille surround that is suitable for patterns. Once I have all of the information needed, I will make a buck and metalshape those grille surrounds on a limited basis. I continue to keep my eyes open and my ear to the ground, so to speak, trying to determine targets that have sufficient desirability, profitability and are difficult enough that not everybody and their brother will become a compe***itor. It's tough enough to wade through the tooling/learning curve to building a new product. Getting to that point only to find you have compe***ion for a very limited market, can just make building those parts a non-profit situation. The difficulty for people doing something of this nature is capitol for start up. Right now with credit being so difficult to get, you have to be able to work off of your own nickle for an extended period of time. This just isn't possible for most guys that have just been laid off/fired/terminated. Their concern/focus is unemployment benefits, paying rent/mortgage and keeping the family fed. Cash reserves being used to try out an idea for business would lead most wives to running out of the room screaming! I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone wanting to do something to gain independence from 'normal' jobs, where you punch a time-clock and work a shift for a business, other than your own. It's just a very tough time to do this kind of thing and the number of targets available that you have some chance of becoming profitable at are limited. You have to be really honest with yourself, about your abilities.You also need to have the stubborness to stick with the tooling process until it's done, even when it has/does take 3 or 4 times what you'd planned. Not an easy road to take. Not sure I'll make it either, but I will know without a doubt, I have and will give my best effort to see this through. Even with that, there are still no guarentees for success, and success is just being able to pay your bills in this climate. There are way too many people out there who can't. Dan Stevens dba, Steelsmith
There are a number of us making reproduction / aftermarket parts. Parts based on originals, but altered slightly to accommodate the modern enthusiast.
I make '41 Studebaker taillights. I cast them in aluminum, and designed a new sealed bucket for the backside. Hand ***emble and polish them in my ba*****t, one at a time.
Many Hudson parts can be had from K-GAP in California. Lots of rubber gaskets, dash knobs, lenses, and such, and even limited sheet metal parts and hood ornaments! Nearly every rubber gasket and seal for my 1937 Terraplane is available though them, as my car has them!
I did a batch of Lincoln type Door ****ons a couple of months ago. They may make a comeback when I get some other projects rolling on their own. I developed a magnetic sheetmetal **** welding clamp (see link in my sig) which is now for sale. I'm kicking around the design for a series of finned teardrop air cleaner housings to fit various popular carburetors. I have plans drawn up for a long finned breather that comes out the side of the valve cover. Like a large version of the Offy breathers you can still buy. It's in line to be prototyped in the coming months. I am also currently about 80% done with a design for a 3-in-1 metalworking machine that I plan to build and offer for sale. English Wheel, Plannishing Hammer, and PullMax type rigid stroke metal forming machine all on the same frame. Hoping to keep the final retail price for the complete machine (all three tools) under $4,000. Hoping to keep the EWheel alone under $1,500. I hope to have the metal machine prototype up and running before the end of the winter. It will be set up to use 1" square die shanks, but it will also accept the large PullMax dies (25mm square shank). I will be offering thumbnail shrinking dies, plannishing dies, and will also do custom dies of any shape. I have been looking at doing Desoto grille teeth, but in steel, so they're easier for the customer to modify to fit. Maybe just do them in halves and leave the finish work for the customer. I'm still kicking that one around. And lastly, I've got the die drawings done and the CNC code written to make a set of dies to press out gauge cluster faces that can be grafted into whatever dash you have. Sized to fit modern gauges and reversible so you can set the gauges into recesses, or on top of bosses. Always looking for a project, and there's pretty much nothing I cannot build. It's just a matter of doing it at a price that folks can afford to pay these days.
Not a re-pop, but I'm making a machined cast iron part for an O/T vehicle. Paid to make the patterns / castings, rounding up all the other sub-components for the kit. Just seen my CNC machining fixtures today. It's a little too complicated for me to machine, so I've outsourced it. Exciting and expensive time. The best part is that I have received some orders for the kits. WOO HOO!! Not enough to break even yet, but gotta start somewhere. Have several other ideas for new and re-pro parts. Doing the leg-work to see if there is enough demand to justify the $$$. Not gonna tell you what though till I get closer.
thanks for the responses, I have a few things in mind for repoping. just wondering how its going for others. I did just repop a 32 anti-chatter rod, probably not much market though.
I was one of the founders of K-GAP Hudson parts, mentioned by Patrick66, which originally stood for Kale-Graefen Automotive Parts, since sold to a younger couple. We worked it out of my partner's garage and my spare bedroom. He hand poured lenses and rubber mats and we worked with some other folks who worked out of garages and with some small shops too. Also contracted with a couple of small extrusion and small mold companies for stuff beyond our capability. It took a lot of hustling and late nites. But considering we started with one red plastic grille emblem for '50-54 stepdown Hudsons and had a 13 page catalog by the time I left and my partner sold the mail order biz to the couple who are now dominant to the Hudson hobby and on the internet at www.k-gapstore.com you'd have to say it worked over 25 years.
If anyone has the capacity to re-pop a cast iron head at a reasonable price, let me know!!! 1984-1987 Ford ****** diesel. Only available with an aluminum head... Why in the HELL they would put an aluminum head on a diesel engine is beyond me... 22:1 compression, and 900* exhaust temps kill these things quickly. I'm in with a forum group of ****** diesel owners, and we would LOVE to have an iron version instead of having our aluminum ones re-welded every 50k miles.
I'm lookin for someone to cast aluminum fin cover for my mid 60's chevy truck brake & clutch master cylinder. Its goin on an 1929 ford Shawn
What's a reasonable price and, honestly, how many do you think could be sold within a reasonable amount of time (1 year). There are a lot of cool ideas floating around, but how many people are willing to step up with the cash??
Every time we get our head welded, it's about a $400 job. There's a guy in Australia that's making iron heads for these motors [it's actually a mazda], but he wants $1300 U.S., plus shipping and international paperwork that comes out to about $130. Plus the fact that he has only delivered 3 heads to customers in the past 2 years... If a bare machined head could be had for oooooh, say, $450-600, I'm sure about 10-15 guys on the board would be very interested. Your probably asking why we are interested in keeping a 25 year old car with a poorly designed engine on the road..... 54 mpg is why.
This is not exactly a small scale repo, but it's worth a look. I am custom building a blower and manifold for a 276/291 Desoto Hemi. I'm not sure where I will take this project as of yet. If there is enough demand for the manifold, I would possibly consider putting this into a limited production. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=363118
I figured the mileage was why you were keeping these alive. At 450 - 600 there isn't enough money in it for that low of a volume. The guy selling for 1300 is probably closer to reality.
When we went to talk to ***orted companies for K-Gap items, we were constantly confronted with the fact that "short run" in most industries was 100,000 items or 10,000 feet of rubber. The challenge was always finding companies who needed fill-in work between their BIG jobs just to keep their machines and labor force busy between contracts. With the current state of economics in this country there are a lot of shops looking for ANY size contracts. Don't hesitate to talk to pattern makers or foundries or rubber extruders or whatever you want to make. There are schools who will take on some of this work too so look into that just like high school auto shops fix cars there are schools that teach pattern making for example. There is a short run foundry and machine place in El Paso making Cl***ic car heads and manifolds. I can't think of the name or find their ad. I've heard good and bad about them over the years as far as business practices but high quality parts. I think they reorganized with a new name once. Anyone know some facts about them currently? They do very small quan***ies.
As an idea, I was looking for a 47-54 Chevy/ GMC 1/2 ton frt spindle. No one makes anything. I guess the hard part here is for those looking for parts to hook up with the someone making small scale production. Web searches rarely turn up anything useful.
20+ years old, unpopular, 3 year only motor, good luck getting heads done anywhere for less than $1000 each.
Perhapse you're right. But just on the off chance that someone out there has the skills, and would rather do a specialty job for small bucks rather than stand in the unemployment line..... I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'v never done any sand casting work, but I'd be willing to try if I had a mentor who could show me the ropes. I'v got access to lots of junk [cracked] heads I could cut up to make the molds out of. Oh, and BTW, it is by no means an un-popular motor. There were hundreds of thousands of them made, and they [literally] litter euro and australian junk yards. It was just very rare here in the U.S.A.
My best friend is a retired casting-plastic molding parts designer.He says making sand molds for casting iron parts is old science and not all that difficult.He says the difficult part is getting the molten metal free of impurties and the correct combination of ingredients .Of course you need an oven to heat the metal in first place. Casting non structual parts like headlight brackets from aluminum might be easier.Actually small parts like this that are painted can be cast from epoxy resins in easy to make plaster molds.
Don't know if it's the head material. Aluminium-headed Mercedes and VW diesels seem to keep going for ever - not to mention the all-alloy air-cooled Magirus truck diesels (lovely engines, BTW. The V8s sound amazing!) Perhaps it's more like a structural weak spot in the design, in which case a redesigned aluminium casting would be the thing.
But, back to the topic, I agree that this is an important thread, not only because of the obvious implications for those of us who might be looking for unusual parts, but also because it almost forces some thinking about the whole business of economies of scale. There is currently very little ****ysis on the subject, even the most hard-nosed of realists being content to regard increased volume to be a silver-bullet solution to production cost issues. There is barely any awareness that methods are not equally sensitive to economies of scale. (For instance, microchip manufacture is far more sensitive than, say, traditional brick building construction. Or rather, the optimal volume/rate situation for the former is far higher than for the latter, as trying to build too many houses at once generates all kinds of costs that are avoided if you build them one or two at a time, without effecting anything to speak of in savings.) It is also not understood that many technological decisions are made not on the basis of potential performance but according to the volume/rate implications of a method of operation that may be preferred for organizational or financial-strategic, or even political, reasons. Hence we are fed the notion that the more "advanced" and all-round better product - indeed these days the only responsible product - is necessarily the one that coincides precisely with the requirements of methods that are highly sensitive to economies of scale, and achieve an optimal cost situation only at very high rates of production. Yet a moment's consideration of the situation reveals that this is untrue. Starting from a clean sheet of paper, that is to say if we wanted to build a car for the express purpose of providing hot-rodders the maximum scope for modifying it, we wouldn't choose the methods that optimize at high volumes of production, but would on the contrary use low-volume-optimal, often handicraft, methods as much as possible. But this would be reflected in the design of the car, and would require a different sort of design thinking, beginning not with shapes but with awareness of techniques of making and what is sane in their terms. We'd be making Chain Gang Frazer-Nashes, probably. It might, incidentally, be argued that there is ecological sense in that approach, far more, if one considers the overall situation, than pumping out a dozen hybrids per second. Now, with re-pop parts, we're trying to translate designs conceptualized out of a high-volume manufacturing mind-set into a low-volume situation. The amazing thing is how often it actually works! It is perhaps because the original methods were often simply a case of low volume multiplied, as pre-WWII automobile manufacture was really quite labour-intensive despite certain people's best efforts. I have doubts about the viability of re-popping some of the parts on the latest generation of cars, which seem much more effectively designed to be made in their millions or not at all.
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