Gauging Interest in a Parts Reproduction service.

[sfh074]

Follow-up

Just posting to update this old thread.

Back when this thread first appeared, I jumped at the chance to talk to this Josh guy from George Mason University who was soliciting the idea to send him parts to reproduce. He was wanting to start a small business of rubber and plastic parts reproduction. I just wanted fresh agitator parts to finish a washer restoration project. Anyways, after several phone conversations, I sent him my agitator cap and rings for a '62 Frigidaire. After receiving the parts he would elaborate how the process was going and talked at length how he was getting tooling and experimenting with resins. After 5 months of nothing but hem-hawing and just talk, I finally got him to admit he hadn't done jack. Hadn't even began to make the mold for a single part. Today I feel lucky he actually returned my parts back to me!

After this brick wall experience, I started calling around and found 2 companies that were interested in taking on reproducing old rubber parts. But both had the same stipulation .... they wanted the rights to the final mold or at least a copy of the final mold. What that means is they would have the right to produce the part at will and sell the part if they wanted to. I was told I would not own the final parts since I did not design/create the original part! WTH! You want me to spend $4200 just to create the injection mold, for the agitator cap alone, and then I don't have exclusive rights to said mold? Turns out $4200 was the cheaper of the 2 bids, the other company wanted $6400. Then to top it off, the first company had a minimum 100 parts run at $27 per part. So just to get a cap repro'ed .... $2700 + $4200 = $6900. So we are talking $69 per cap. PFFT! And the possibility of selling 100 is like zero, especially if the price was greater than cost.

Bud
Atlanta, GA

 

[gyrafoam]

Well Bud,

re inventing the wheel is always expensive. However, those of us who plan on using our machines into the future are going to have to pay for that luxury. It has never been a cheap hobby.
And, without Energy Rings and Tub Support Mechanisms, we will all be dead in the water eventually.
So even if these parts are expensive we still have to have them. We will just have to pay it.

 

[Dubis7]

Apologies and Information

Hi all,

First of all, I'd like to reach out to apologize to anyone who felt that this was anything malicious. There was never any attempt on my part to scam or misrepresent what I was doing. Unfortunately, as I was attempting to do this project at the same time that I was finishing college, I ended up far over my head with the amount of research that it would take to ensure that I could successfully make a mold without risking any damage to the parts I was given.

I'm much happier that I was able to return the parts undone, than return an unsuccessful mold along with damaged originals.

That being said, I've done some research myself, and would like to offer you that information so you can reproduce parts yourself, if you so wish. I've found a tutorial video here () and had purchased the parts I was originally experimenting with from Smooth On, which can be found with a quick google search. You'd need to color match with dyes that they sell, and use a durometer (a specialized tool) to measure the hardness of the original rubber so it can be matched.

I hate to see that some of you feel I had attempted a scam here. That is absolutely not the case. I simply did not have the time I had intended to, which can be chalked up to a lack of experience, and was very careful to keep any parts I had been sent safe to avoid damaging them while I was waiting. In fact, when I realized that actually creating the molds would take longer than I had initially anticipated, I reached out to anyone who had sent me parts to inform then and give them a chance to ask for their return.