QRS daytona coupe wheels and skellenger side covers

[Mike Casey]

Its been a very long time, but I FINALLY made it over to the foundry to drop off some tooling. First was the molds made by the master himself... john foster of quartermortar. These are wheels for the daytona coupe project. Scale wheels that are 3" wide in the rear and 2" wide in the front. These are going to be absolutely amazing when finished in aluminum.

The other mold is for the skellenger side covers. When i purchased the tooling from skellenger, the side cover molds were missing. I made a new mold off of a old side cover. The wax pulled OK and I think this may be a usable tool. We will see when they show up in aluminum...

Enjoy!

[Mike Casey]

these are for a custom car and will not be available for sale.

[Mike Casey]

I wanted to ad since my last post sounded kinda cold... This mold was created to make these scale daytona coupe reproductions i have in the works. 2 Cars. That will really be it. I have found over the years its just not worth the investment to produce and inventory this stuff for sale. It sits for years, you have tons of money tied up into them and then at the end of the day you make $5-$40. I would rather keep that investment money in my pocket.

The skellenger project has been a bit different. I know the rears wont sell. Thats OK. Because in that case, having 50 rear ends is not a bad thing! That whole project has been a HUGE hit on my wallet since day one. Just trying to spread the cost over time.

[Mike Casey]

funk, the years have been just beating on me. I could not even tell you guys what type of investment i have made in the "resale" portion of this hobby due to the fact julie would beat my ass.

But let me give you a small example so you can see from my prospective.

Example:

-I think it would be cool to make custom wheels
-I post this onto the forum and everyone gets excited and wants some
-I get TONS of PMs
-I work with a designer and get quotes from multiple shops
-I find the right shop and have to pay for tooling and a minumum run of 100 sets
-I get a loan for thousands to PAY for this tooling, design and minimum run
-I recieve the final product
-I get 4 orders and then they taper off to 5 a year... if i am lucky.
-In the end i get bored of the extra inventory and start giving away wheels and working them into every trade deal possible.
-Thousands of dollars wasted...

This is how it went with my first venture, but i did not learn.

instead, i offered bodies, cast parts and skellenger ring and pinion gears!

Lots of people were complaining how hard it was to get a ring and pinion. Gear sets were selling for over 300 on ebay. After years of work and a hefty investment i bankrolled 100 sets and offered them for sale for just over 100 a set. Never mind that i could have just kept my mouth shut and slowly fed them onto ebay getting 300 a set.

Can you guess how many sets i have sold since i introduced them?... 10.

Dont get me wrong, i am not bitching and crying. I knew this the whole time, but it did not bother me then. I loved this stuff and i liked building it. I am just in a different point in my life now. I did my best, but that extra money needs to be spent on projects and items i desire and need.

This is why the skellenger project has taken so long. Because i know for a fact rears will not sell. They never sold for quartermortar and they are better then the skellenger rears!!! There would be no reason that more then 10 rears would be sold from the skellenger project. Thats great for the 10 guys that get them, because the investment is very low (price of a rear) but for me... i need to make 50 rear ends to even make the project possible. Not to mention the very high cost of the original historical tooling (that i am still paying a loan on). So looking at it as a business standpoint, it is a very stupid project to spend money on, unless... of course you would want 50 rear ends for yourself. Which I would like

The fact is there are VERY few guys that invest in this hobby to make the hobby grow. It costs a lot of money to do that. John from quartermortar really comes to mind when i think about this. I dont think people realize just how far he has gone to do what he is doing. It was a HUGE investment for him. One that he is likely not to get back in the near future, but i sure hope he does.

dtw, we have talked in private about some things i dont put on the forum. I know you know where i come from. we see eye to eye on many subjects... thanks for the support.

[aussie sprinter]

qsl....can i say a couple of things on your comment with your projects . 1 ..johns diffs are nice , but carnt get
13-27's or 14-26's ratio's for dirt racing. it seems to target drag racing . norrowing the market for them .
2.. i have been told that the new crown and pinion for skellengers are soft in the metal ?? i havent used one only what i have heard .. Mike i know that there is people involved in the skellenger project . if i can say sell skellenger repo's like all the castings . sprints and winters . i know the world is only so big for 1/4 scale

[Mike Casey]

aussie, what you heard about the hardness is wrong. Those gears were manufactured from the original prints including the listed case harden depth. I have never heard a complaint from the 10 i sold. I am sure John would modify his selection of gear ratios if it was worth the effort, but really guys... nobody buys this stuff. I guess it could be the pricing, but its what it is. There is just no way around the high cost of producing items like these in such small qtys.

Funk, what would be that one ticket item in your opinion? No matter what it is, i just dont think there is enough market for anything. To make little to no profit on something and have it consume your free time (which i have VERY little of) just is not worth it. Like i have said before. I was doing it as a hobby, so making money was not the objective. But now i need to spend my time and money on my stuff and family.

[Lovedr]

Mike:

You and I have discussed this subject a few times. I think your right, most people are not going to spend the money on this stuff because of the cost. But the one thing I think people will buy is a $500 skellenger but not an $850 or $900 rear end no matter how good they may be. People that run there cars like myself would not mind buying a rear for $500. Mind you, I was one of the people that bought the $300 gears for my MT on eBay including a backup set because of the hell I went through to get them. think about the people like me who just run their cars, people who race, and people who like to build. I think if you were to ask them what's the one thing that limits them, I think they would all say the rear end. Just my thoughts.

[Mike Casey]

the problem is... to produce that $500 rear end, it takes a 20,000 investment. I was willing to do that at one time...

[Lovedr]

Dtw:

I was not suggesting that mike put up any money up front or invest anything. I have told him before I wouldnt do what he's going because I know that the rears would end up costing more than $500. I was just trying to make the point that at that price, I think people would be more inclined to buy one. Also your figures on the casting is a little off. I happen to know what they cost him. I was going to go in on it.

[Mike Casey]

instead of trying to produce rears in a qty enough to sell them in the $500 range, i would prefer making them in qtys that cost me $700 or so. It just makes more sence that way.

For example. These daytona wheels. Sure, i could have made 100 sets of them for a decent price. Problem is investing into them for that much up front cost and sitting on them for who knows how many years. Option two is to make 5 sets and pay 3-4 times the price for them and still have a MUCH smaller investment. Thats all i am saying here.

Dont get me wrong guys, i love this stuff. Everyone here i think knows how commited i have been to this hobby. I am still going to keep doing it, but the dream of bringing this stuff back out in a large scale is basically over.

Lastly, something to think about... skellenger stopped making these rears for a reason. They even looked into doing them again a couple years before i purchased the tooling. They decided against it due to the cost and interest in them. Only at that time were they willing to sell the tooling. Selling the tooling was worth more then investing into the product that comes out of them. To me the number one reason to buy these was the historical value to me of these tools. That is truely priceless. There is not one day i dont appreciate those amazing tools. They sit in my living room and its an amazing honor to have them here. I have spent hours looking at them in awe.

[aussie sprinter]

mike ..i envoy your passion for the 1/4 scale sector .but it comes with a uncontrolable price . to have what you have in skellenger tooling is is just beyond thoughts . and man i would be a victim too ,,,,
Mike....really how far are you in to completing you dream in the world of skellenger.....

ps ..it would not worry me to pay $1000 for a new rear end ..but that just me........

[K]

Mike:

Many years ago I had an old sports car which I lovingly restored. Over the years certain critical parts became increasingly difficult to obtain, so the car club for this model started a tooling fund with the aim of putting these parts back into limited production.

The tooling fund concept was successful and slowly but surely critical parts were brought back into limited production. Maybe something could be done along these lines to resurrect critical 1/4 scale parts and spread the financial burden amongst hobbyists (i.e., not just ‘good old Mike’ ) willing to subscribe to the club or clubs. For example:

Club 1 = wheels for whatever, goal is to raise ‘x dollars’ to produce ‘y sets of wheels’. After production the club folds and then Club 2 forms to do it all again for a different critical part, cool body shell or whatever.

Anyone? Anyone?

[Mike Casey]

aussie... well, i am still really far it feels. I needed to reconstruct the side cover molds. I am not 100% happy with them. I did not make them like skellenger originally did and that kinda pisses me off. This is a much cheaper option. The wax looks OK, but i need to see the final product in aluminum. I will have some samples in 8 weeks. I hope they look to par.

Then beyond that i still have...

castings (120 pcs of side covers)
hardening
machining
finishing
bearings
qc gears
shaft
axle
snap rings
bolts
ring gear hub
cad drawings

The only stuff i have have is...

-tooling
-50+ center sections
-50+ rear covers
-100+ ring and pinion gears
-machining fixtures

I have lost a few parts from sending them out to shops to quote machining. i have also lost a couple complete rears that way. At one time, i almost lost the fixtures to a shop. lucky i got them back days before they closed up.

K, thats an interesting proposition. Must take a lot of work to keep that all sorted as well as seperated.

[K]

K, thats an interesting proposition. Must take a lot of work to keep that all sorted as well as seperated.

Mike: It could work like this:

Stage1 1. You open up a thread on QSL seeking expressions of interest from hobbyists to join TC1 (Tooling Club 1) to make whatever item at a supposed total cost of $5,000 to produce a run of 10. Expression of interest window is 1 month.

Stage 2. Hobbyists express their interest by posting in the thread, when Stage 2 has 10 expressions of interest it moves to stage 3.

Stage 3. TC1 members each submit $500, subscription window is 1 month. In the event that TC1 isn't fully subscribed you may decide to offer an extension, ask subscribers if they are willing to take up the financial slack, seek replacement subscribers, or abandon TC1 and return subscriptions.

Stage 4. Assuming everythink is OK TC1 closes, the part is produced and delivered to each member (individual members pay their own insurence and shipping costs).

You (Mike) now own the tooling (if new tooling was produced) in exchange for your sweat equity. A variation on this is if you already owned the tooling a tool rental cost is figured into TC1 (pays for tooling refurbishment etc.).

TC2 opens, etc., TC3 .... you get the idea. Or some variation of all of the the above.

[Mike Casey]

i dont care about re-couping the tooling costs because i look at them as historical artifacts.