I definately agree with that. Buying just the pieces for the rear door assembly and the risers for the floor would make the deluxe delivery wood easy from there. The guy in Co. that made afew kits for the Deuxe Delivery would not just sell individual pieces. Buying the whole kit would not be neccessary as I have patterns to make some of the common wood other than the header. Rod
Sometimes the costs associated with manufacturing just one or two pieces make it prohibitive for a company to make a profit. There is set-up time and packaging time that if it is spread out over 30-40 pieces, it is much different than unboxing all of the patterns, sorting thru all of them to find the correct one or two specific pieces, fabricating those two pieces, ...and then re-boxing all of the patterns & jigs and taking them back to storage.
You will need to find a price point that will get you your money for digitizing the and the labor to get them to the customer that will reduce the temptation to pirate them.
Maybe the better answer is to start a wood kit division of your company selling the kits for less than the others.
The Victoria Assoc has TIFF's of the original drawings for most of the wood. Some are very dark and nearly unreadable. I've taken on the task to clean them up best I can without redrawing them.
Mike, my question has been do most people that are potential purchasers of prints actually have the capability to fabricate what is on piece of paper anyway. To do good quality work involves using good quality equipment, and IMO there is a fairly vast amount of machinery necessary to do a quality job. Adding to that is a craftsman that can utilize the tools along with the prints to make the pieces properly.
To answer your comment about a wood division, I actually already have a 'wood division' and an employee who came out of the furniture industry who works 40 hours a week fabricating wood for bodies. The problem I have with offering kits at a cheaper price is that our quality/fit is much better than what you purchase in a kit. This is not a 'dig' against the commercially available kits but in reality is more about a hamburger from a steak house vs. McDonalds 'Big Mac'. Both have their place but are really two different products with the same name.
Would buying your plans vs. buying the wood kit or pieces of it be less costly? If all the proper tools were at hand would your plans produce a better product than the kits that are on the market? Bob
Bob, probably not. In life, I really do not want to create a "McDonald's quality" product. The benefit of buying a manufactured kit is for most people is it serves a need however it does have limitations. With a set of prints, someone can measure their own sheetmetal and compare to the print dimensions to make adjustments accordingly before making sawdust whereas if you hold a prefabricated piece of wood in your hand, you can only make corrections if the piece of wood is too big. Often times that is not the case which delays the project and creates frustration.
Don't forget the bandsaw with a 10" throat, power planer and misc. sanders. FYI, Home Depot and Lowes don't carry a decent hardwood selection.
Brent, go for product sales on an individual basis and forget the plans.
Denis, thanks for the advice. For several years now we have been doing coachcrafting on a custom-installation basis where we fabricate the pieces to fit the car properly. On a related topic, in the past we have made one-off sheetmetal panels for people to install themselves and most people balk at the price I must charge. I try to explain that my repro panel is a custom-made panel that is exact in aesthetics however my price always gets compared to Howell's, so we just quit retailing patch panels because of the complaining. My fears about the wood would be the same.
Most that would want patterns would be way to frugal to pay five hundred dollars.
That has been my fear all along in that most people have no idea what is involved.
"How do I keep piracy of reselling the plans from happening??"
Offer them FREE!
Ron W
Exactly !
Excellent idea.
Give them away for free. The important point is to help get as many A's possible correctly restored and on the road.
So who should organise it and handle the funds needed to provide drawings?
Well, what about organisations like MARC, MAFCA and MAFFI.
Personally, I would much rather donate $100 towards getting Ford archive drawings on the web than building the model A museum.
I guess it should not matter that I have spent 1,000s of hours of labor & dollars making these patterns & prints yet you are suggesting I am suppose to just to give them away??
Embed the purchasers ssn (or other id dats) in strategic places through out the prints.
Wouldn't a large black permanent marker circumvent this anti-piracy tatic?
Thanks all for your thoughts. Always good to hear other's perspectives.
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