Business of Building Ships/Ship Parts

I suppose it was inevitable that the thought of a part-time/home business in combat ships/ship parts would cross my mind (and I've had inquiries regarding whether I would be able to manufacture/sell products based upon the preliminary work I've done on the Gearing Class Destroyers and the WWI German torpedo boats) so here's my go at getting thoughts/feedback from the community on the idea.
If (and that's a very big if) I were to launch the Kashyyyk Shipyards as a side business, the likelihood is I would start off by chasing down only parts common to the hobby then possibly do either wood kits or RTS/RTO (Ready To Sheet/Ready To Outfit) hulls for destroyers (possibly based upon those developed as a part of the rookie ship design program). Either way, I truly have no interest in the idea of being in the business of offering more products geared specifically around/toward the "large" ships of the sort that currently comprise the core of model warship combat flotillas. On the parts side, I might consider the following to start:

• Prop shafts/stuffing tubes (different sizes than those from BattlersConnection)
• Non-reloading torpedo cannons
• pumps

While these three would yield margins acceptable to fund further product development and be sustainable, I can already see RTS/RTO hulls having an extremely low margin and serving more as an at-cost operation, perhaps with RTO hulls being hulls I've previously used as part of my own R&D with small ships and simply being sold to make room for new hulls. The three categories of parts products I've listed can be manufactured to a high level of precision with only a small benchtop lathe, benchtop drill press, a soldering iron, tubing cutter, small tubing bender, assembly fixtures, and resin-casting equipment (~$1000-$2000 of tools based upon my experience and depending upon intended manufacturing volume).

What sort of products would you be looking for from an additional vendor/supplier? What are the key characteristics that you look for in those products?

 

I would be in the market for the torpedo cannons. Or cannons in general.

Though your CAD work is a fantastic contribution in and of itself.

 

Webwookie, take a look at:
www.emachineshop.com
You can ask them to make valve bodies, endcaps, etc and just do the assembly. Saves you a lot of the machine work and time, when all you need to do is thread a few holes, make the buna-ball rod, and stick it all together. Not only that, they get pretty cheap per unit when you order 25 or more.

If you ask ME what I want from a supplier, pumps and torpedo cannons are great, but I want a supplier of negative-pressure Canister cannons. BDE builds some wonderful cannons, but sometimes you need the length savings (and extra efficiency) of some incredibly awesome canister cannons. I've been slowly developing a design for some 3.5" magazine triples that could be expanded up to 6" or more. I'd be willing to share the design if you go into the business.

 

Best of luck!!

 

I dunno, people chipping in for a run of emachine parts has come up before... nothing happened. It's a big chunk of dough.

Nice custom props, spring loaded torps...

And Plans!!!! Dude, you could really make decent plans with your skills. You could have printable ribsets, that you cut out, glue to wood run through the scrollsaw and go. Sell that and I think a lot of people will want it. Expand in to basic layout of internals, hook up with BC or BDE and have a kit... Marvelous!

 

I used the emachineshop CAD program, and it estimated that building one twin torpedo buna-ball valve would cost about $200-something. Building 25 of those valves would cost about $300. Building 50 valves would only increase that price a little. Assuming you go with only 26 valves in your first production run, it's a total of $12 per cannon. Endcaps can be made with a benchtop lathe, and accumulators are just PVC pipe. Estimating another $25-35 per cannon for the actuator, air nipples, buna ball, and other bits, and you can still sell them for as little as $75 each and turn quite a profit. All someone needs to do is provide the startup capital and do the final assembly, and since webwookie has mentioned he may go into the business, I would highly recommend it.

I would also second the idea of laser-cut wooden destroyer kits, those would be great. I personally would love to have a Gearing or Z-boat with torpedoes, budget permitting.

Webwookie, if you do offer torpedo cannons, you should also offer barrels for them. Bent stainless steel would be the best for that, and you could probably set up a jig for that to get consistent bends.

 

Hey Carl,

I am glad you checked E-Machineshop out. I think my "relatively universal" accumlator valve body came out a tad cheaper, and has some features like an O-ring groove for the accumulator seal and a flat base and top (and sides for that matter) for mounting and stability. I think I may have posted the diagram about 2005 for comment, but don't believe there was a lot of response. Glad you found it easy to use. For primitives, it is one of the easiest things I have found to generate a quick an dirty 3D model to play with. It has actually gotten better and more capable over the past 2-3 years.

I also see you priced a part and confirmed what I mentioned - it makes the most sense if you want to do a longer run. Price per unit comes WAY down.

Hope you continue to enjoy it,

Cheers,

 

Webwookie,

I have to agree with Mike Horne... plans! You have CAD skills that most of us could only dream about. Have you considered offering some kind of plan service?

You seem to be able to knock out CAD drawings quite fast. Have you every thought about charging a fee to develop a set of paper plans into CAD drawing? Even if you only did the hulls... I'm not sure how CAD works, but perhaps by generating a 3D image you can move the ribs around? It would be very helpful for those who aren't any good at lofting.

 

I've used emachineshop in the past for a couple of runs of avionics housings for high power model rockets and they definitely become very affordable per unit once your quantities increase. My experience is that the most appropriate way to have them run parts is for only one or two people to provide the initial capital and then sell the individual "kits" or assemblies, even though it does require some slight financial risk on the part of those one or two people.
Since you've mentioned it, I've added barrels to my list of ideas for consideration. One possibility would be to do "generic" barrels in a variety of diameters, with a few bend angles (perhaps 90, 85, and 75 degrees) trimmed long such that the individual builder would simply trim each end to fit. Another possibility would be to set up jigs and fixtures to make barrels specific to particular high-volume ships (yet again favoring destroyers).
As for plans, I don't ever envision charging for drafting building templates from existing ship plans; however, I have already looked into the cost of having a company either laser or die-cut Gearing and V105 kit sets with minimum run quantities of 100 which brought the per-kit cost for the Gearing to under $50 (not counting the tooling and set-up which varied significantly from company to company). A quantity of 250 was only marginally more expensive overall and dramatically brought down the per-kit cost.
I plan upon uploading solid models of the overall hull for each of the hulls that I draw as they become completed; while I wouldn't suggest using them as a basis for lofting alternative rib configurations, they would work quite well for anybody looking to mold fiberglass hulls as the data can be directly converted to GCode (and others) to CNC foam plugs for mold making. At that point, outlines for cutting out windows could be easily scribed into the plugs so that they ultimately transfer into the molded hull, providing a rookie builder with a guide to follow (and given the reduced time of preparing molds, plugs could be scribed so as to be optimized to each of the major different rulesets).
There are already a lot of ideas to consider so I'll definitely have to do some more looking into the costs, time, etc. that I'd be getting myself into.

 

If I like how my Kagero handles, I may have to take a look at your gearing (if you do it)!

 

I dunno, Kotori has been asking for buyers for a run of torpedo guns, and I see no posts on the thread. If there is not demand for 10, then the time it would take to sell 26 or more is probably going to be high. The lost interest and cash flow on the investment is likely gonna drive prices up.

As for plans, their are multiple markets... the scale guys, 1/96, 1/72, and believe it or not, the gaming industry... gotta have cad models to do great video games For the investment in time there are more residual sales.

Couple plans with a detailed how to for a class of boats... And I think Wookie will be addressing the single biggest hurdle most novices face... How do I build this project without a good list of instructions. Knock down the intimidation factor of the novice build...

I think it would be a seller


Mike

 

Carl and I were helping another club member get set for a run of torpedoes. We actually got enough orders, but became concerned about liability and canceled all plans until after having a conversation with a lawyer. Thats something you should do too, webwookie. Talk to a lawyer and come up with a release of liability form that will protect you in the unlikely chance that something happens with one of your products.

 

Looking over some of my past notes from a fully-completed (but proven to be non-profitable) business venture that I had investigated setting-up in the past, I do already have a starting point for a liability release and some other basics, such as company type, etc.
On another note, I decided to take a look into making hull kits for the V105-V108, based upon the pdf data that I published a few days back, if the costs for laser-cutting come out to be quite reasonable, I'll do a small pre-production run of 5-10 kits, sell the ones I don't use roughly at-cost (to anybody interested in experimenting with a WWI 1/144 torpedo boat) and look into the real feasibility of building them for combat/whether or not I could build a product around them.