Author Topic: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...  (Read 8759 times)

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hhiibel

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #30 on: April 01, 2020, 01:40:00 AM »
why cant the half inch stud be necked down to 3/8s at just the top and provision/seat for 1/2 nut in bottom of shaft mount?

jayb

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #31 on: April 01, 2020, 03:49:36 PM »
I just made these myself.  Took me about half a day to machine a fixture to hold 10 nuts, and then another day and a half to write the programs and do the machining.  Figure I've saved myself a few hundred bucks on these prototypes, and if I can't get the production pricing down to some reasonable level, I'd make these myself.  They are cut from ETD-150, which is a specially heat treated version of 4140 steel, as I understand it anyway.  They are 130,000 psi tensile strength, so no heat treating is necessary, although as mentioned previously heat treating is not that big of a deal, for me anyway.  The only thing I don't like about these things is that they aren't black, but I have found a local company who can do black oxide coating, so as long as they don't charge $10 per nut to do that ( >:( >:( >:(), I'll probably do that in production if I can't get these from somebody else at a reasonable price.

You may have noticed that I'm really wound up about this whole situation ::)  To me, I'm trying to bring a fairly significant product to market for the benefit of myself and other FE high performance enthusiasts, and things like these stupid high-dollar quotes from companies in the automotive aftermarket just get in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish.  I HATE that.  You would think that 10 special steel nuts would not be equivalent to 10% of the cost of a good pair of aluminum cylinder heads, but that's how it would come out if I went with ARP for these things.

OK, rant off.  Here is a picture of the nuts that I machined, and also a photo of a couple of them installed in one of my heads.



Jay Brown
- 1969 Mach 1, Drag Week 2005 Winner NA/BB, 511" FE (10.60s @ 129); Drag Week 2007 Runner-Up PA/BB, 490" Supercharged FE (9.35 @ 151)
- 1964 Ford Galaxie, Drag Week 2009 Winner Modified NA (9.50s @ 143), 585" SOHC
- 1969 Shelby Clone, Drag Week 2015 Winner Modified NA (Average 8.98 @ 149), 585" SOHC

   

jayb

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #32 on: April 01, 2020, 03:51:11 PM »
why cant the half inch stud be necked down to 3/8s at just the top and provision/seat for 1/2 nut in bottom of shaft mount?

Do you really think it would be less expensive to do a special set of head studs, rather than these nuts?  I don't.  Plus, a lot of people who are going to buy these heads already have head studs.  Using these nuts, you can use the aftermarket FE head studs as-is.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 04:34:08 PM by jayb »
Jay Brown
- 1969 Mach 1, Drag Week 2005 Winner NA/BB, 511" FE (10.60s @ 129); Drag Week 2007 Runner-Up PA/BB, 490" Supercharged FE (9.35 @ 151)
- 1964 Ford Galaxie, Drag Week 2009 Winner Modified NA (9.50s @ 143), 585" SOHC
- 1969 Shelby Clone, Drag Week 2015 Winner Modified NA (Average 8.98 @ 149), 585" SOHC

   

57 lima bean

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #33 on: April 01, 2020, 04:01:36 PM »
                               Nicely done Jay.Time to wash your hands :)

WConley

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #34 on: April 01, 2020, 04:08:20 PM »
That'll work!  Way to show 'em.

- Bill
A careful study of failure will yield the ingredients for success.

CV355

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #35 on: April 01, 2020, 05:43:02 PM »
You can get a black oxide kit for home use relatively inexpensively from Caswell.  One of my machinist buddies has a few 5gal buckets, some beakers and a heat plate for various home coating projects.

70tp

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #36 on: April 01, 2020, 07:04:52 PM »
Good job!!

jayb

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #37 on: April 01, 2020, 07:17:21 PM »
You can get a black oxide kit for home use relatively inexpensively from Caswell.  One of my machinist buddies has a few 5gal buckets, some beakers and a heat plate for various home coating projects.

Thanks for the info, I will check that out.
Jay Brown
- 1969 Mach 1, Drag Week 2005 Winner NA/BB, 511" FE (10.60s @ 129); Drag Week 2007 Runner-Up PA/BB, 490" Supercharged FE (9.35 @ 151)
- 1964 Ford Galaxie, Drag Week 2009 Winner Modified NA (9.50s @ 143), 585" SOHC
- 1969 Shelby Clone, Drag Week 2015 Winner Modified NA (Average 8.98 @ 149), 585" SOHC

   

ToddK

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #38 on: April 01, 2020, 09:48:57 PM »
I agree about the home black oxide kit, I have one also. It was fairly inexpensive and can treat a lot of parts. Took a little bit of experimentation to get the right finish, but the parts I have done have held up well.

It shouldn’t be an expensive operation to get it done commercially. The chemicals used are as environmentally unfriendly as those used for chrome plating.

CV355

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #39 on: April 02, 2020, 06:19:24 AM »
You can get a black oxide kit for home use relatively inexpensively from Caswell.  One of my machinist buddies has a few 5gal buckets, some beakers and a heat plate for various home coating projects.

Thanks for the info, I will check that out.

Cool!  Those parts turned out looking real nice, by the way. 

babybolt

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #40 on: April 02, 2020, 07:02:11 AM »
Would hex bar stock work instead of machining a hex onto a round bar?  I think they have threaded hex bar stock.

shady

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #41 on: April 02, 2020, 08:33:42 AM »

You may have noticed that I'm really wound up about this whole situation ::)  To me, I'm trying to bring a fairly significant product to market for the benefit of myself and other FE high performance enthusiasts, and things like these stupid high-dollar quotes from companies in the automotive aftermarket just get in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish.  I HATE that.  You would think that 10 special steel nuts would not be equivalent to 10% of the cost of a good pair of aluminum cylinder heads, but that's how it would come out if I went with ARP for these things

APR gave you what I call the F you price. They are fat and happy and don't want to deal with one time pain in their ass projects, so they give you a price to discourage you but hey, they will do it for a ridiculous amount of money. I do the same. say a kid comes in my shop and wants a stupid sticker for the back window of his ricer. I tell him $50 bucks, he says he can get it on the internet for $5 bucks.
Goodby. I have to write a program, put material in the machine, run the program, take the material out, weed it, transfer it and trim it. For 5 bucks? Ain't gonna happen. $50? Yep. There is a down side to it however. I had a guy that I never saw before, come in for some stickers for the side of his pick-up bed. At the time I was a little slow and he never asked a price, so I did them. He was happy, I had $50 for some cheezburgrs and beer. Long story short, this guy was a plant manager for an east coast frozen food distributor. Because of doing that $50 job I got thousands and thousands of dollars worth of work.
What goes fast doesn't go fast long'
What goes fast takes your money with it.
So I'm slow & broke, what went wrong?
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Falcon67

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #42 on: April 02, 2020, 09:31:44 AM »
>It shouldn’t be an expensive operation to get it done commercially. The chemicals used are as environmentally unfriendly as those used for chrome plating.

Depends - if they are in a decent size city or one with the EPAs eyes on it (non-attainment area) you'll likely get hit with environmental charges and it'll likely cost "more" because of compliance efforts.  The instrument company I used to work for used a Polane spatter paint on the cases.  Looked nice, held up well.  When we moved the company to Houston, environmental regs limited VOC emissions so much that once the few companies that even shot commercial paint hit their limits, they hung up the guns and production would stop.  We had to switch to using powder coating to keep our production line going.  And you could forget anodizing.  Most of that went to podunk Arkansas where some guys still brewed that nasty stuff in barrels. 

Jay, since you have the capital equipment LOL, I'd bet that even with a full cost accounting type analysis your in-house production cost is still way cheaper than farming it out.  It's just more work for you.  If this was 1990 I could recommend several places that could likely do it.  I'm sure by now all those guys are long retired.  There was a guy that had a shop in northern Arkansas, across the road from one of Bo Pilgrim's chicken farms.  Looked like just another old tin barn from the outside.  No signs, nothing but a dirt driveway.  One man operation, good looking shop inside with well cared for machines.  Made us some most excellent precision parts and was really affordable.  Don't think you can find much of that anymore. 
« Last Edit: April 02, 2020, 09:33:32 AM by Falcon67 »

jayb

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #43 on: April 02, 2020, 10:35:34 AM »
I just ordered one of the do-it-yourself black oxide kits from Caswell.  I'll report back with the results...
Jay Brown
- 1969 Mach 1, Drag Week 2005 Winner NA/BB, 511" FE (10.60s @ 129); Drag Week 2007 Runner-Up PA/BB, 490" Supercharged FE (9.35 @ 151)
- 1964 Ford Galaxie, Drag Week 2009 Winner Modified NA (9.50s @ 143), 585" SOHC
- 1969 Shelby Clone, Drag Week 2015 Winner Modified NA (Average 8.98 @ 149), 585" SOHC

   

jayb

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Re: You won't believe how much these cost. Take a guess...
« Reply #44 on: April 02, 2020, 10:39:23 AM »
Would hex bar stock work instead of machining a hex onto a round bar?  I think they have threaded hex bar stock.
Believe me Doug, I've thought about all this stuff.  13/16" or 7/8" hex bar stock would work, but I would still have to machine a smaller hex on the top to fit the socket into the counterbore of the heads, plus have two different thread sizes inside.  Can't make the counterbore in the head bigger without it coming to close to the edge of the intake ports.  I could potentially buy 5/8" hex stock, but it would still have to have two different thread sizes, and I'd be a little nervous about the wall thickness of the nut in the 1/2-20 threaded area.  The design I have is the best solution.
Jay Brown
- 1969 Mach 1, Drag Week 2005 Winner NA/BB, 511" FE (10.60s @ 129); Drag Week 2007 Runner-Up PA/BB, 490" Supercharged FE (9.35 @ 151)
- 1964 Ford Galaxie, Drag Week 2009 Winner Modified NA (9.50s @ 143), 585" SOHC
- 1969 Shelby Clone, Drag Week 2015 Winner Modified NA (Average 8.98 @ 149), 585" SOHC