Hi All!

Me again.

So after a while of planning,  arranging the workshop and almost placing myorder @ £2,000  with easy composites. Ithought I would do some workings out (yes I should have done this before)

So my plan was to make and sell various car body panels andsell them at a cost with a small profit margin. I estimated that the FIAT 500Bonnet in the video would cost about £350 to make, but speaking to easycomposites, it actually costs £600 in core materials.

Now bearing in mind that Carbon bonnets sell for around the£600 mark, I’m wondering whether I need to revisit the drawing board andactually work out if this is a viable business or not?

What are your thoughts? Does anyone on here make parts andhave a good turnover with a margin for profit?

Cheers all

Shane


Shane
-Carbon Amateur-
*Never give up!*

Hi Sean,

There is profit to be made for the shrewd and clever businessman but you do need to think ahead.  Setting up costs of a business are always going to be a big initial expenditure you cannot avoid.

With producing parts, you realistically need to factor into your part cost, the cost of the mould. This is why many composites companies will want a minimum order quantity before commissioning a new mould for a part.

Initially, for example, with a bonnet, the mould costs will wipe out any chance of a profit for making the first couple of carbon parts. However, thereafter your costs come rapidly down once the mould is "paid for".   A mould can last for hundreds of pulls.

It also depends a fair bit on the market you are aiming to cover, eg motorsport, specialist high end cars, modified street cars, etc etc, all of which will have different expectations and requirements.

Plenty of people make a good profitable business from composites, and plenty also fail. 

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Hi Warren,

Cheers for getting back so quick.

I factored in that I would start seeing a return after the initial few pulls however, my point is that even if you do have the mold, the bonnet would cost £600 in core materials to make. And so if the market price is £600 for the bonnet how would you expect to see a return?

Obviously I am using the bonnet as pure example, but wondering how much of this theory extends out to other car parts.

So to be clear, I am looking at how much parts will cost me to make and sell IGNORING the fact that I need to make the mold (lets just say I already have the mold)

I really want to get moving on this but I just need some backing here.

Cheers

Shane


Shane
-Carbon Amateur-
*Never give up!*

Hi Sean,

Hi Richie,

I think it is very hard for many to make any money from working with composites.

Cheers Buddy



Shane
-Carbon Amateur-
*Never give up!*

You can make money on the bonnets,there ate way but there are problems as well

please don't take any of the following as a "dig" just being honest an help

materials first -there are lots of places to buy your materials from.

Vac innovations,carr reinforcements ,John burn,,east coast plastics,alcamie,k+c mouldings are just a few,do some research read some data sheets an save yourself some money.

Be realistic where your starting from an what you want to do,your starting from scratch with a massive learning curve to come.

your going to have stick ups,broken moulds,gel that doesn't cure,gel that cures too quickly,bonding failures,trimming mistakes n a thousand other kick in the arse that we have all had once we have been in this game a while have had

customers.....mmmm what can I say ? I think the advice from the last poster was spot on-get your own product or find a niche.

quick google reveals several people selling fiat bonnets but how many sales have they actually had ?

maybe 10 owners out of every 1000 will think about a carbon bonnet and of that 10 one might just buy if your lucky,and when he does buy he will be looking for the best deal possible !

Joe blogs on the street doesn't know anything about carbon other than "that's what they make f1 cars from " to him black twill pattern is carbon.

many years ago helped build some of the magazine cars for max power magazine when it started

part of the payment was a 4 page spread of all my stuff an how it was made.

my wing mirror covers for example were autoclave cured an fitted within .2 of a mm an colour tint lacquered

A competitor was doing wet lay polyester with a single ply carbon an the rest glass that varied 3/4 mm in thickness !

and he was selling them hand over fist cos they were £15 pr cheaper than mine !!!

l have seen people succeed where others with more rescores have failed doing the same job,was it luck or mind set ?

also know couple of people who are "experts" in the composite field an employ several people an both started out reading a book on composites.

F1Rob is right.. I too have seen guys making parts which are bad.. I mean really bad and they sell them because they are cheap. But it does nothing when you then get to see those same parts up close and are asked to fix them when you were looking at doing those parts yourself..  I think you need to look at what is being sold already in the market you are looking at and how many are doing it.. You find those who got in there first are the ones who will sell the most. Then you find those who are selling really cheaply are  getting sales but will not be there  long if the quality is really bad. 

You need to find the right thing at the right time in most cases. I have been lucky with a few thing and way off with others. But I keep my quality as high as possible and stick at it. Setting up is not cheap and is always hard work.  But if you feel you can make it work go for it...