Why So Few (Apparent) Sheet Metal Makers?

[SteveB31]

Regarding sheet metal parts for Model A's. The whole thing boils down to cost. United Pacific started making last year, all the parts to make a 1932 5 window coupe body, form steel, in Taiwan. It takes about 300 parts to make a 1932 5 window coupe body, and some are large and complicated (doors, rear quarters etc). they make these in taiwan and they are nice. They make the complete body and they are selling well in the Street Rod market. The reason they put up the $$$ to make all these parts to make this body, is because it is a $25K body. Street Rodders will pay $25,000 for a steel body. Down uder they are making the new 1928-1929 closed cab pickup cabs. Nice quality, but pricey ($10K for a cab). Again, the street rodders will pay that, and it appears the restoration people will not, so they are not going to invest the money in making these parts for the restoration customers if they will not pay the prices that good parts demand. Just my observations......

 

[Chris in CT]

Hey Guys, I'm going to jump in here with something bound to be very unpopular with you, but give me an ear for a moment if you can. Who says that replacement parts that are made for anything should necessarily be "bolt on?" What I am concerned with is that the part be of good enough design and good enough materials so that I can work with it when it arrives, and so that I can "custom fit" it to the vehicle, article, or instrument that I purchased it for. I do not expect anything that I purchase to be "bug free" at the outset; but that I will have to work with it to make it perform the way I want it to in my particular application. I do not know about the Ford factory, but I do know that in some manufacturing situations, changes are made to parts on the factory floor that are not documented until significantly later, and sometimes not at all. One has the engineers who design a part, and then you have the master mechanics and technicians who get these to work in an applied situation. Occasionally, we have the joy of receiving a part (like Bill Stipe's shocks) which are exquisite, and which we can bolt right up, but this is the exception, and not the rule. Also, we are going to have to pay a premium for the privilege of owning a unit(s) like this. The flip side of this is that the other repro shocks really cannot be repaired/corrected, and so they are useless (to me, anyway). If these could be "corrected", I could conceivably have purchased a set (I actually did, in the beginning) and modified them myself. That's enough, for now. Looking for motoring weather to come back around...

 

[Arcieri]

I don't think some people realize how big a press is required to form a fender, and the size and complexity of the dies needed to produce those fenders. It's not just one *boom* operation, either- you have those wire-rolled edges, and the reinforcing plates in the "tail" of the fender.

This might help to explain why more dealers don't get into the sheet metal stamping business.

Ray