[rat_rod_russell]

Update time!

Sorry, we’ve been dealing with a ton of drama in regards to our frame tubing laser. They decided without notice to triple the cost of the frames. I called up to order truck frames for the first full production batch and at that time the shop decided to inform me that my frames had been costing them over 1,000.00 each out of there pocket. This puts me in a bad place because it not only interferes with the truck frames but it also put a complete stop to the TriFive frames as well leaving me with just the few frames I had in stock. The machine that cuts the tubing is rare here in the US and when I started they were the only job shop with the equipment I could find. After going round and round with them I paid their extortion level prices for 3 more of the truck frames. I had 2 sold already and had to buy the third just to get the order big enough for them to process it and all out of pocket. So needless to say things have been tight dealing with this.

The light at the end of the tunnel. So I need one of 2 things. One I need 2 shops to tell me that my old price is reasonable and continue manufacturing my parts at that price. This way if one gets to a point where they can no longer manufacture my parts I’ll have another that I know will make the parts at the same or similar price. Second is that I get the same numbers from these new shops as the original and find out that Nerd Rods has no future building my existing kit frames. However, getting a price isn’t easy on these frames. There are lots of parts and they are almost all different. This is what makes it possible for you all to assemble them but they are also difficult to price just from looking over the data. Lots of programing is needed to see how long each part will take on the machine, how much material will each take up, how will they all be nested on the source material, packaging and handling. And on and on. Next comes with the fact that almost no one’s software likes each other so I keep needing to convert my files into different formats for each shop and then answer questions different for each as well. Talk to the sales team, email the engineers and make drawings for the drafts men. I’ve already been told no by 4 shops but they all have the older machines without the auto feeding system so their handling was what killed the projects. I’ve got 2 shops I’m waiting on now for a final quote. One shop’s laser is so new it’s still in the crate but it’s also the latest model and the faster one available and while they change 400.00 and hour their machine is 4x faster than the place in Dallas that charged 185.00 an hour so to me that means half the price. Here’s hoping.


On to the actual prototype. Lots of parts are on order still but lots of other parts are here now. Have a look see.











I'm working on the Time Lapse of the second frame and the 3D animation right now as well so with luck I should have those out shortly.

Later
-Russell