What do we need to bring back? Individuality and craftsmanship. Theres already too much stuff being re popped in my opinion. It defeats the purpose of building a rod or kustom if everything is 1-800 shit.
I like the hubcaps idea. A thought would be some of the Honest Charley, or J.C. Whitney type accessories that were popular in the late 50's ,early 60's , on a small run basis. 4 bar flipper, caps, sombrero caps, fiesta caps, in 14, 15 and 16 inch sizes.
Try building a traditionally styled custom or hot Rod outside the good old US of A and you might be mighty thankful of that 1-800 shit. Our junkyards (what's left of them) aren't exactly overflowing with old American steel. Paul
Very true Paul, its even difficult here in other parts of North America where there is lots of rust...these parts just cant be found, or if you do find them they are usually beyond salvation!
Oh boy, I could go on all day. Those oober cool dog dish caddy hub caps in ALL the sizes. Grill teeth, and just about ANYTHING 57-60 ford trucks. It's hard to find parts for these, and they can really be a pain. There's about 1600 people i know of who would buy those truck parts from you.
Didnt he do okay with stlying his own wheels? Maybe not hubcaps. Dont want any one to get munsoned... we are talking about repops right? ...
not trying to rain on anyones parade but everyone wants something untill you make it i made john deer tractor mufflers with the original baffle hand made all the tooling used about 4 punch presses to make them up sold about 3 of them and auctioned the whole box of them off at the last that was about 1K THAT THAT EXPERIMENT COST ME about 10 people told me that was the cats meow that was a ops , but proabbly right place to put empahsis made fireplace log grabbers and sold all them after i quit and at least broke even on them now i dont even want to fab up any parts anymore, just buy and assemble, yea right that dont work either
I deal with that too. EVERY person has the "you will sell a billion off these" idea. If the guy is into quads,,, and needs a part I hear "you would sell a ton of those",,,, nope. I even had a guy try to convince me of that on a custom wheelchair part.
Heads up! I will be repoping 50-51 desoto grills once I get situated here. As a sculptor/patterm maker and foundryman this will he a fun project for me. Keep in mind that each teeth is slighty smaller as they near the end so I will have to make more than one tooth pattern, raising the cost a bit more.
as a small timer,i don't get fancy pricing on materials. i'd be willing to cast many things,if people pay what i ask. i don't value my time as cheap,same goes for my skills. not many pattern makers like pinstripers out there.