What was this all about?

[twosaturns]

soooo, let me get this straight (pardon the pun):
you want new steel bodies for classic cars, you want them straight and perfect, you want them made in the US, AND you want them cheap?



please.

the American consumer has guaranteed that sustainable domestic manufacturing is not possible. you cannot have high labor costs (or even a living wage) AND have cheap commodities. they are by neccessity mutally exclusive, esp since this cottage industry doesn't have the advantage of economy of scale.
the industry should be happy that ANYONE is even producing replacement body shells.

[Restomod]

I personally would rather have rusty factory sheetmetal that fits and fix the rust... BUT you have to have panels to repair the rust......visious cycle.....

[oestek]

Good die making is an extremely expensive proposition. Even new car manufacturers are very careful in trying to minimize die fabrication because of the very high cost. And they sell those "parts" on a very large scale. Retooling older parts with new dies is certainly possible, but the investment would really put most major body panels well out of the price range of the overwhelming majority of us.

That doesn't even open the discussion to the fact that "new" car dies are not typically handmade anymore. That's one of the reasons that new car fitment tolerances are so much tighter.

It's REALLY expensive to produce dies.

And plastic is much easier and cheaper to make repeatable panels that fit with precision.

[Twentyover]

And plastic is much easier and cheaper to make repeatable panels that fit with precision.

No, we'll have the same problems if and when plastic cars are candidates for restoration/PT. Only benefit will be is that it won't be a RUSTY old platic panel- it will be a warped old plastic panel. There won't be a need to make new warped plastic panels

[minendrews68]

I haven't actually seen a Dynocorn body up close but I've heard that some of the first gen Camaro shells had issues with fit and finish. My question is...how are they manufacturing these body panels? The old fashioned way or is CAD somehow involved?

If there is CAD involved....how the hell can there be any issues with fit and finish. If you're using the proper system...you have a powerful tool right there that can virtually re-engineer the entire fit and finish of these classic designs. Either they're using a bad system or the CAD guy has little automotive manufacturing experience.

Seriously I don't mean to brag (but I'm going to anyway) but get me the scan data and some relatively good criteria off the model in a UG application and you can tell your body guy he'll only be needing his paint gun for this one.

UG? Hey Trapin, have you ever used Unigraphics?
Carl

[Brandon Miller]

UG? Hey Trapin, have you ever used Unigraphics?
Carl

UG = Unigraphics

[trapin]

UG? Hey Trapin, have you ever used Unigraphics?
Carl

That's what we call Unigraphics; UG. I've been on it for 11 years.

[Rhino]

No, we'll have the same problems if and when plastic cars are candidates for restoration/PT. Only benefit will be is that it won't be a RUSTY old platic panel- it will be a warped old plastic panel. There won't be a need to make new warped plastic panels

Plastic gets brittle with age. It may not rust, but it will have it's problems.
When comparing the complexity of injection molding to die stamping sheet metal, the molding process will win almost every time. Even the cheapest of Taiwanese crap seems to be molded correctly lately. It seems to be a much more exact process.
Something else to keep in mind is that many of the issues we're currently dealing with are not due solely to improper parts, but also the extremely loose tolerances of the '60's and 40+ years worth of abuse and neglect. That's no excuse for improperly manufactured parts, but it's hard to place the full blame on them.
As long as you have good molds, along side with todays tighter tolerances, replacement parts for todays cars should fit better than our reproduction parts of '60's cars.

[minendrews68]

Hey Tony,

I used it for about 7-8 years at the company I used to work for. That company was Nibco Inc. We made steel valves, and pvc valves. Their home office is in Elkhart In. As everyone knows I'm in Arkansas. Did you ever go to St Louis for any training. I've been a couple of times. I'll have to tell you some of the stories about the training. We had a ball.

[wmhjr]

Plastic gets brittle with age. It may not rust, but it will have it's problems.
When comparing the complexity of injection molding to die stamping sheet metal, the molding process will win almost every time. Even the cheapest of Taiwanese crap seems to be molded correctly lately. It seems to be a much more exact process.
Something else to keep in mind is that many of the issues we're currently dealing with are not due solely to improper parts, but also the extremely loose tolerances of the '60's and 40+ years worth of abuse and neglect. That's no excuse for improperly manufactured parts, but it's hard to place the full blame on them.
As long as you have good molds, along side with todays tighter tolerances, replacement parts for todays cars should fit better than our reproduction parts of '60's cars.

+1

Some of our injection molding manufacturing is in China. It's a top notch facility, great conditions and excellent conditions - not some slum facility. Products produced there are at least the equal of any US based injection molding. It's just a lower overhead and easier to engineer process. Way too many differences to compare them. Steel stamping is much more difficult to do well, and the dies don't last nearly as long. Far more expensive.