Thanks guys,

Shipping is something that takes a bit of networking and some haggling. You can find deals out there, especially if you ship regularly and use the same company. It definitely costs money, but you can do it cheaper than just the price you will get by going to the post office and asking them to send it. 

One thing I noticed that no one has mentioned yet and was something that ruined a short lived idea for me was shipping. My initial passion and still is, was metal working. I needed a part for a chevelle that after looking I realized no one made. It was easy for me to produce. I could pop them out quickly so cost of making and materials wasnt too bad. But when I went to ship them. It cost me the same amount to ship them as it did to produce them. The part was just sheet metal. 18guage thick, 47 inches long and 6 inches wide. So Not all that big. I sold it for 150 in bulk a piece or 190 per part. It cost me 145 to ship them. So in the end i did the labor for free after paying for the metal. I cant imagine a hood or other car part will be cheap to ship unless you are a business that does shipping daily. 

Im no business expert but i have daydreamed about how working with CF could make for a business and i settled on the idea you would have to have some sort of Bread+Butter product. Maybe not something your very interested in but something that would sell and would be cheap and easy to produce. How about for your situation juts making flat panels in varying thicknesses and standard sizes A5,A4,A3 etc and setting up a little stall at car and bike shows. maybe buy some tube stock bulk as well to sell at a small profit along with some of the specialist adhesives. Get some decent graphics done for a stall and a few demonstration pieces showing what can be done with CF sheet. Youve already got the kit and you dont want to waste too much time making complex things that may or may not sell so go simple and stack high and sell at a small profit. Just my two penneth totally amaturishworth :-)

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...

  

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.

Cheers Buddy



Shane
-Carbon Amateur-
*Never give up!*

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

Hi Richie,