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Alright guys... so after reading the thread that got bumped up in regards to plastic part production for our cars it sparked my interest. After messaging the other company that was looking at producing these parts and finding out they didnt have much to offer I went to a local friend that I attended high school with who is running a printing company. We have been messaging back and forth and I'm going to be dropping off the center console/shift surround piece. The biggest cost for me right now is going to be paying for this part to be designed. But they're willing to work with me and have the ability to make bigger pieces that the prior company in the other thread is unable to do.
SO I wanted to make this thread to start gauging interest on who would like to be involved. What other parts are common to be developed? What would you guys like to see? I'm entertaining the ideas of having group buys and paying for the development if there's enough interest in the specified parts.
Who would be interested in a modified center console with 94 texture?
Ideally I'd love to see the whole interior haha. But it's probably best to start out with the shifter surround like you're doing, the AC panel, gauge hood, gauge face, etc, and see how those turn out. The other ones might be a bit too large to do.
I don't care about finish. I have a 94 but it's pretty difficult to match up perfectly and I've wanted for a long time to do something similar to the Spirit R plastics, a soft coating like that and in that color if possible. So the finish on the plastics is of little concern to me. If they made all the pieces and they fit together well I'd buy every one of them for a whole new interior.
I'm not exactly giving up on the other company yet, but it's good to address it in as many different avenues as possible. More chances of success.
Well as far as finish goes right now Im going to be shooting for the 94 textured finish being thats all I have to provide. Im scheduled to meet up with and drop off the center console tomorrow evening so the development of this piece can start.
How are you manufacturing these? I've advised before that 3-D printers really don't have the resolution to make 100% printed interior / detail-finished parts. You will need to team up with (or become your own) mold maker for this to work. The two major parts of the equation are laser scanning the parts and converting the output point cloud files into solid CAD models. After that, the CAD files will need to be "cleaned-up" and massaged enough to generate useable mold negatives. The software required to do this a few years ago was rather costly and difficult to source. Of course, many of the companies that rent the laser scanners will do the basic conversion... for a price.
Now, if you can wrestle all those costs into submission, you'd have a profitable side business on your hands. An idea I had a few years ago.
So like I was saying in my first post of this thread is that I have a buddy that has a 3d printing and scanning business. They do have patents on a couple textures and do some really cool stuff. I did take a few pictures of finishes they could do. They've done a lot of work on classic cars. After our conversation when I dropped off the piece yesterday where we are at now is that Im waiting to hear pricing from them on everything.
I think at a minimum right now they will be doing the design file for this console and depending what we can do price wise for these its sounding like we will be leaning towards seeking a mold maker with the design.
So these are a couple pieces he brought yesterday that arent finished or anything. He just wanted me to see examples of a couple different textures that they can do with their printing device.
Well being that there has been almost no interest so far Im not sure which direction to go other than what Im interested in. I have some plastic molding companies Im looking in to for the production of these pieces as well. Just trying to figure out what will be the most cost effective.
I would love to see a lot of these pieces remade but so far its not really seeming like there's enough interest in anything for it to be worth the investment
I would love to see a lot of these pieces remade but so far its not really seeming like there's enough interest in anything for it to be worth the investment
For this to work, you would need a full set of plastics: Gauge hood, bezel, HVAC panel, and tunnel cover. It would have to be offered as a set (to fully match), with the option to pick and choose. Best bet would be to make these in carbon fiber if possible, like Carbonmiata. Also, as I found, there really aren't that many of these cars floating around still in LHD. That creates 2 types of 3rd gen: The "survivor" with original panels that probably just only need refinishing, and the drift missles/track toys/etc. that aren't show cars and just need something with usable tabs. It's a super-tight market with not much demand.
He's been working on it for a while now. Wouldn't hold your breath
I agree, and kinda why I brought it up here.
I'm confident if you made a well constructed, properly fitting, reasonably priced gauge hood....group buy numbers would be pretty high. Just look at the numbers from group buys like sbg's grab handle and bubble tech's map pocket cover. The gauge hood is the next biggest interior weakness.
Well Im glad to finally be getting some good feedback in here... Ive been talking back and forth with a few companies and Im looking at sending a piece out to a different company to look in to some different options with them as well just for the sake of shopping around and finding what will be best. So from what i can tell so far the gauge hood may be the best piece for me to be sending out first. Ive been feeling a little gun shy due to the lack of interest in comparison to the large upfront investments I have to put out there but Im still very motivated in pursuing this. The company I spoke with yesterday is looking for detailed pictures of one of the parts to give me an estimate on the engineering and design and what the options are from there so hopefully this weekend I will be removing the cluster hood to get some pictures together.
So my buddy got back to me that was looking at designing the center console in CAD and i formed me of roughly what it'd cost to be able to have the part 3-D printed once it was engineered. The 3-D print price was around $350 per piece.... WOW!! Also spoke with another guy about having an injection mold developed. He said I was looking at roughly $10k for it plus the production of parts which once the mold was developed would be very cheap. So... on that note unless we all picked a piece like the cluster hood and had a large buy Im open to other ideas/avenues people may have for us to get something going.
So my buddy got back to me that was looking at designing the center console in CAD and i formed me of roughly what it'd cost to be able to have the part 3-D printed once it was engineered. The 3-D print price was around $350 per piece.... WOW!! Also spoke with another guy about having an injection mold developed. He said I was looking at roughly $10k for it plus the production of parts which once the mold was developed would be very cheap. So... on that note unless we all picked a piece like the cluster hood and had a large buy Im open to other ideas/avenues people may have for us to get something going.
Do the bubbletech hood clusters people need those.
08-15-17, 08:57 AM
