Supply & Demand

[wi0v]

I recently corresponded with Tom Jordan at Snyder’s (also a Ford Barn member) about the Cowl Band on the 28 and 29 Cars. I asking why Snyder’s haven’t found a supplier for the Cowl Bands.
Tom’s reply was as expected, there are two problems. First you have the problem of supply and demand, apparently not a common item on most 28 &29’s. Second, no one has found a way to make them.

The Cowl Bands for the 30-31 cars are readily available and at a modest cost. Whereas authentic or reproduction Cowl Bands for the 28 - 29 cars are not available. Used ones in poor condition are selling for about $100.00. You then have spend between $300 to $400 having the dents removed cracks and splits silver soldered. Then you have to find a plating company. Most plating companies apparently don’t like doing one item that large and that flimsy so they charge extra, if they will even do one.

That said, if all of us that have the 28 or29 cars need to make ourselves heard. I’m sure there are enough of us to justify a company or an individual to tool up and make some. After all, it’s just a piece of molded brass nickel plated, or (although not like the original) they could be formed out of Stainless Steel and simply polished. As for finding someone to make them, I see some of the work being done by members of Ford Barn and just can’t believe there isn’t someone here on the Barn that could make a batch.

I know Bratton’s, Snyder’s, Mike’s, Mac’s, Sacramento Vintage, Smith & Jones or some other supplier has the resources to commission a small batch, if only we were to make ourselves heard. After all, they make them for the 30 & 31’s.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Lots of differences IMO. I have a restored one for sale but sadly I have about $800 in the silly thing. Where the difference is as I see it is in the case of the 30/31, it is out of stainless which will stretch somewhat when forming. Brass on the other hand work hardens (and splits) so the process would be much different by the time annealing takes place. Next is the subject of plating. The chinese manufactured bands are a low grade stainless that are polished. The brass one needs to be polished too but then they must be Nickle plated. This adds expense too.

And finally, it comes down to ROI (return on investment). In this case, exactly how many do you expect to sell? How many are you willing to gamble with using your money? Lets just say that you fabricate the dies & rollers and by the time you have your fixtures and the machine built to make these, you have $5k of actual cash outlay invested because you did all the machine work & fabrication yourself. Now lets just say that there is 30 minutes of your (--or an employee's) actual time manufacturing these but your manufacturing failure rate is 25%. Look at the loss of productivity in that!! Now once we have them rolled to a shape, we need to polish the brass. This means more money necessary to build fixtures to hold it so they won't get caught in the buffers. Now we need to find a plater that does good enough quality so our name does not get flamed here on Fordbarn yet this plater is cheap enough that we don't puke when we get the bill. Now is that plater in your town or do you incur more costs transporting them to/from the plater? Now we need to have boxes made that are substantial enough to ship these in without damage. Naturally the box company wants quantity so he can make a profit but you say you only need him to manufacture a small quantity. How much you gonna have in these boxes? Now you want someone to do the advertising and inventory so you must sell them at 30%-40% off of retail so that retailer can pay the freight and pay the overhead necessary to inventory them.

So realistically, we need to choose just how many of these we are willing to manufacture at a time. So is that number 15, ...25, ...50??? Here's your Catch 22. If you manufacture 50 of them, your amortized costs drop significantly enough that you should be able to have $400-$500 in them prior to sale. Can you sell them for $500? Probably, but that sure is a lot of trouble to go through without any financial reward for you. Therefore maybe you try to retail them at $700. The first 10 or so will sell quickly but then you are stuck with 40+/- left in inventory. That means you have about $15k-$18k of your money still invested in your inventory.

So now lets consider just making 25 of these things. Now we have about $500-$600 in each one by the time the costs get spread over the fewer units so we should try to sell them for $800. The problem with THAT price is all these guys on Fordbarn & Ahooga will complain to one another about the slight deviations from original, and they feel like $800 is too much to spend on a car that is only a "Driver" (remember that thread where no one cares about fine-point and Model-A hobbyists only want a safe driver!!) Well now we have raised the $$ bar where Restorers say "Hell for $800 I'll just get an original one restored." Now we are left with $7k-$8k of inventory to store while we see if we can peddle them.


My point in this little rant is to point out that while Model-Aers say one thing, they do another. We all seemingly complain about cheap quality of reproduction parts yet when there is a quality item and a cheaper quality item being offered, hobbyists tend to purchase the cheaper one. A great example of this was found last year or so when Tom Rootlieb halted production on the good '31 Running Boards. He could not compete with the lesser quality, cheaper boards that vendors were selling, ...and it was not financially prudent for him to make 100 sets and then only sell 10 sets of them annually. In other words, how would you feel if you had $25k just setting on a shelf collecting dust for 7 or 8 years? He realized the risk was not worth the reward. There are other manufacturers that have walked in these same shoes and determined that it just isn't worth it.

[Cool Hand Lurker]

And as you know Brent, you can double that rant for the Model T parts because far less will be sold. And knowing Model T guys, they will not pay a reasonable price for the guy who put in all the work bringing it to market because even a great Model T will not bring what a Model A will.
Supply has to equal demand, but supply cost is constant where Demand is very variable.

[Great Lakes Greg]

Great subject. I have also heard that these cowl bands are a bugger to put on and taking one off can be fatal to the part. I am no metalurgist (in fact, I may have just spelled it wrong), but I think fordgarage is on the right track. Take brass out of the equation all together and use a different material. As long as it doesn't look too cheesy, 90% of the lookers will likely be fooled. The remaining 10% will just have to deal with it.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Greg, I like your last sentence!! Vince, if we agree to get past the nitpicking that will happen from the sidelines about NOT authentically reproducing ("Why didn't they just take the time to accurately reproduce it where it would pass in fine-point judging?"), what would you guesstimate the costs to be to manufacture each unit in a quanity run of 25 and 50 units? I realize you are not going to do this but based on your contacts & connections, what do you think an investor would have in this project factoring in fabrication of the tooling and the R & D??

[Rowdy]

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Tooling alone could run well over $30,000 during R&D. Not to add any fuel to the fire, but we had a real decent one that I painstakingly helped a friend remove from a 29 town sedan. He advertized it all over the web and had it on e-bay twice and it did not sell. So to me that means there is no demand. He finally traded it for some parts, but it did very little to make up for the 5 hrs we spent removing it. The next one of these things I run into I am not going to take the time to remove it carefully, I am going to take it off as fast as I can and put it in the brass scrap bucket. Rod

[Bob Johnson]

or "thinking online"

I recall one of those TV shows where they show manufacturing processes for different item. In on episode they were showing how brass musical instruments are made. To make the bends in brass tubing the would fill the tube with a liquid, freeze the liquid, then bend the tubing. Then they would force steel balls though the tubing to make it completely round again. I think this process might make it easier to make a brass cowl band. If you start off with a brass tube it could be bent using the above technique. Then it could be cut down the middle and the sides could be bent over. I am guessing that you would not need an expensive die, which might lower the capital outlay.

Bob

[Rowdy]

You could be on to something Bob for anyone who might want to try. Rod

[spdway1]

I have a cowl band I took off an unrestored 28-29 tudor, it only goes along the top and curves down the side a couple of inches, it clips under the welting if I remember correctly. Is this a Henry part or aftermarket of the day? I can get pictures if anyone is interested.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by spdway1

I have a cowl band I took off an unrestored 28-29 tudor, it only goes along the top and curves down the side a couple of inches, it clips under the welting if I remember correctly. Is this a Henry part or aftermarket of the day? I can get pictures if anyone is interested.

It is an aftermarket accessory. I have one of those also that I picked up thinking I might be able to convert. When comparing the two side-by-side, they aren't very close in dimensions.

[ronn]

Brent, excellent economics lesson!
Kudos....

[Great Lakes Greg]

I believe a brass tube can also be bent without kinking by filling it with sand.

[Cool Hand Lurker]

Here is a good link that shows the type of processes used in metal forming sheet or tube.
http://nd.edu/~manufact/MPEM%20pdf_files/Ch07.pdf

[norcalal]

You fellows have it all correct. I have and excellent 29 Murray cowl with attached brass cowl band, gas tank, intact dash panel, and upper molding, all excellent unrestored for $500.00 contact me if interested Thank you, Norcalal

[FL&WVMIKE]

Maybe it is too simple, but could you just cast them solid ? Once you had the mold, you could cast them to order.
The mold would be expensive, but, maybe not as expensive as a set of dies. ????????
MIKE

[Roadster62]

The 30-31 market is thre because every 30-31 had a cowl band. The 28-29's that had a cowl band also had a unique cowl unlike the ones on all the others in 28-29. Bob

[Bob Johnson]

More "just thinking out loud.

Here are a few more possibilities on making the cowl bands.

1) Electroplating. It might be possible to plate metal onto a form of the inside of the cowl band. I am not sure what metals can be used for plating.

2) Bronzing. Maybe the process that is used to bronze baby shoes could be used to make the cowl bands.

3) Use some dies to make the cowl band. It would not be too expensive to make a die that would take a flat piece of brass or a brass tube cut in half lengthwise and form a straight length of cowl band. Then it could be bent in a simple form to match the original cowl band shape. The trick would be to keep the band from deforming and not wrinkling. Deforming could be handled by inserting a blank into the band.


The blank should be made of a hard material that can be bent easily (metal, plastic, hard rubber...). A form for bending the band could be made from wood. A metal U channel would be attached to the form to create the actual die surface. Normally you would need two forms to create dies for a press. In this case only the one facing the flat size of the cowl band is needed. To bend the band use a "roller".

[Cool Hand Lurker]

The link below gives all the processes the way the industry does it.
Go to page 24 to see how they bend tubing.
http://nd.edu/~manufact/MPEM%20pdf_files/Ch07.pdf

[Terry, NJ]

As an ex tool and diemaker who owns two 30s (Thank God), I don't even know what a 29 cowl band looks like. That being said, I would say that one would have to have the cheapest hand dies imagenable. Simple rollers to form the brass and a fixture/dies much like is used by the wrought iron guys use, this is cranks and pins. I guess! With these simple tools and a lot of care, one might be able to get 25 a day or better. ( So how many ya gonna sell anyway?) As I remember it, Brass doesn't need a long process to anneal it. Just heat it to cherry red or so and let it cool down immediatly.
You can't harden it with quenching. The big problem is how do you support it while you're bending it? Next you've got the terminal treatment at the two ends, I don't know what they look like so I won't comment on how that should be done. Then polish them and plate them. The terminals could probably be done in a Kick press. Once some simple dies could be made and tweaked, with a little practice, 25 a day is not out of the question
Terry

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Terry, you are thinkling pretty much how I did at the beginning of this thread, but playing your mindset through my mind, how long does it take to "master" the process where you can successfully produce 25 a day? The reason I ask is that two or three days production will be the entire production run needed to make a supply available for many years of restorations. Sadly I think the brutal reality to this whole project is the economic feasability of actually doing it however just like the case with the Rootlieb running boards, if a group of investors wants to commit to a certain quantity, maybe someone will step up to perform the manufacturing. Maybe someone here??