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The tooling fund is a unique Stag club endeavour. I think the problem idea of recreating head casting is a laudable and monumentalenterprise but I fear it may be as doomed as the re-manufactured of original wiper blades. If you remember the tooling fund funded the tooling to re-manufacture the original blades but after a very small run the company manufacturing them failed and now there seems little prospect of re-manufacture. The problem with theheads are they are so costly that it seems unlikely that anyone would fund the casting and machiningof say 30 of each side and if they produced lots of say5 then the casting and machining cost would be disproportionally high. The high cost puts people off buying thus making the production run even shorter and the unit cost higher. Its a 'demand, price spiral'
I am not unhappy that Abingdon Hammer have a monopoly inmanufacture as presumably they would supply to other outlets in the same way other re-manufactured parts are distributed. However I hope the SOCTF has an agreement in place that makes the tooling their property so that in the, hopefully unlikely, event that AH go bust or 'cool on the idea' the investment is not lost. I am not criticising the SOCTF as they have commissioned projects like the wings and rain channels that have given us excellentquality items.
Personally I don't think our yearly subscription is too high and the use of these grants by the SOCTF may not always bear fruit but it is a better use of funds than giving every member a keyring and reducing the next years subscription as was the case a few years back when the club found itself cash rich.
Well Done to everyone involved, we may never be able to afford them but to recreate them was a real achievement. - Alan
The tooling fund is a unique Stag club endeavour. I think the problem idea of recreating head casting is a laudable and monumentalenterprise but I fear it may be as doomed as the re-manufactured of original wiper blades. If you remember the tooling fund funded the tooling to re-manufacture the original blades but after a very small run the company manufacturing them failed and now there seems little prospect of re-manufacture. The problem with theheads are they are so costly that it seems unlikely that anyone would fund the casting and machiningof say 30 of each side and if they produced lots of say5 then the casting and machining cost would be disproportionally high. The high cost puts people off buying thus making the production run even shorter and the unit cost higher. Its a 'demand, price spiral'
I am not unhappy that Abingdon Hammer have a monopoly inmanufacture as presumably they would supply to other outlets in the same way other re-manufactured parts are distributed. However I hope the SOCTF has an agreement in place that makes the tooling their property so that in the, hopefully unlikely, event that AH go bust or 'cool on the idea' the investment is not lost. I am not criticising the SOCTF as they have commissioned projects like the wings and rain channels that have given us excellentquality items.
Personally I don't think our yearly subscription is too high and the use of these grants by the SOCTF may not always bear fruit but it is a better use of funds than giving every member a keyring and reducing the next years subscription as was the case a few years back when the club found itself cash rich.
Well Done to everyone involved, we may never be able to afford them but to recreate them was a real achievement. - Alan
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