Is there demand for someone to make discontinued parts?

[h6ty6 0]

Hi,

 

I hope you don't mind me posting here and asking you this! I am a girl (well 45!) and have absolutely no clue about machines My dad loves his old tractors and I love seeing him so happy with them and that's the extent of my involvement.

 

The reason for my post is that I have a very trusted engineer friend, he's 25 years old, well trained, and has been taught in a "traditional" way about how to make machine parts. He has had a really rough couple of years and is now finally back on his feet and helping his dad on the farm, fixing and maintaining the farm's machines. 

 

Since I know nothing at all about the market I cannot tell whether he is just being miserable when he says that there is no market for what he does now. Is that right?

 

I repeat I know nothing about machines. But if I suddenly woke up tomorrow with a sudden urge to start some business where I needed a huge CMC machine (are they called?) I would firstly raid my piggy bank. Then I'd go online see the prices and either say, "Oh well, bang goes that idea" (Which would never happen) or "How about second hand? LOOK here's one for $1,500!". So I buy it and it's brilliant then after 3 months it shudders to a halt with an almight clang and I see that I need a  new part. So that's easy until I try and find the part and suddenly now see why it was only $1,500.. the parts were discontinued 10 years ago. I'm bust, the business cannot survive with the best will in the world. UNLESS, I find someone to make me one? I just send the old bit and they make a new one? Or he drawings, or whatever it is you need to do to get an exact replica made.

 

Am I completely wrong and is my friend completely right? 

 

I would love to help him set up a new venture and get him started on something he loves doing, give him that sense of pride again. But I don't want to suggest it to him only to let him down.

 

I would very much appreciate your thoughts and I realise that I am over the pond in the UK and you are all in the USA? I think? Please forgive me if I am wrong! But your comments will be extremely helpful and I assume affecting everyone in the same kind of position throughout the world.

 

Thank you so very much and apologies for the interruption.

 

Kind regards, H

[Ransomes256 18]

H,

There are more members here in the UK than in the USA (take a look at the member map).

There are a number of people who remanufacture parts and have become specialists in specific machines.

Personally as my hobby I supply the majority of Ransomes MG spares.

Please do not take this as a critisism of your thoughts but the problems of what you suggest are many fold.

CNC machines (Computer Numerically Controlled) are very expensive and take several forms plus specific tooling can seriously add costs. 

I have a reliable number of suppliers who do manufacture parts on my behalf when I do not have the facilities but it can take many years before I see any return on investments made.

Establishing precise engineering specifications for parts can take many years of research and may just not have sufficient returns to cover time and costs.

Safety is a paramount concern for some parts and manufacture would probably be avoided by anybody charging for the part.

Many of our parts are very heavy and some owners around the world have to suffer huge carriage costs whch restricts demand.

If your friend has access to specific machines and skills he could off these on the site or VHGMC. 

 

These are only my observations and not trying to put you off trying which I applaud and I wish you good luck and success.

 

Stay Safe.

Neil

  

 

[expeatfarmer 591]

H,

Nice thoughts on helping your friend, giving someone a leg up when they are down is very rewarding.

I have a friend in UK who is now extremely wealthy , he runs a specialist engineering company with four employees making specialist fabrications for high value gas and oil projects as well as one off prototypes for all sorts of people, all his work is gained by repeat business and word of mouth commendations. Your friend needs to find a niche market which requires high value one off or low volume machining/fabrication projects. The markets he needs to look at are oil and gas /mining, automotive restoration of rare high value vehicle parts , steam engines etc. The other area where people spend a lot of money is on one off architectural metalwork , creating wrought iron gates ,lighting fixtures, room screens etc. I know that Jay Lenno has a huge car collection with an attached restoration workshop where they can actually reproduce more or less any rare or obsolete part for any of the cars and vehicles they have using CNC and 3d printing machines.  People will pay huge amounts of money for bespoke iron work such as gates , setting up to manufacture such things is not expensive and can be developed slowly by producing small samples and items that are not too expensive and taking them to rural shows architectural exhibitions etc.  If it was me I would try and get a low cost foot in the market to test potential before I spent big money on machines, if you gain a specialist commission that needs a machine you can very quickly buy one. As  a final thought it may be worth making contact with a number of one make car clubs  such as Ford V8 owners or Bugatti , Bentley owners clubs and asking them if there are any specific parts which they have difficulty obtaining, as an example I know that V8 flathead Ford exhaust manifolds are very hard to find .

I hope that is helpful and wish you and your friend good luck.

[h6ty6 0]

Thank you both very much. Ransomes 456 - I am not 100% sure you understood me properly, which is likely my fault! He isn't interested in making CMC machines, it was a pure example to explain my query, but thank you anyway. I also did not realise there were a lot of UK people since its a dot com site. I am sorry if I offended anyone!

 

Expeatfarmer - all of that is extremely useful, thank you very much. All I do is ask him in my extremely simple head things like, "I have a friend and this bit has broken off his tractor so could you make it if he gives you it and says (I hold up a coke can) this bit has split off bit it goes to .....blank... Will you understand where that bits go etc?" And he says yes or I can work from a drawing.."
 

Now all I have to do is convince him he can do this. He is stuck in a rut of having suffered failure to raise funds for some tools (since we all have our skills and he is expert at what he does but is completely useless at selling himself!), so now he thinks it's pointless/hopeless/whats the point in even trying...? We have all been there. The worst thing is that he had about £10K of tools but as you do when you're young he didn't appreciate them, I don't know what happened, but the past is in the past and there is not a thing you can do to change it.  The only thing you CAN do about it is make steps towards progressing TODAY and come back even bigger and better than you ever were.

 

You can get grants from the government for this, can't you?

 

Thanks so much again.