PAF Style Baseplates Stamped

[JGundry]

I know this is a bit of horn tooting but I'm pretty happy to get these done. I don't plan to offer these for sale. But I think the pics should be encouraging to anyone wanting to get these made.

I provided a PAF baseplate sample to a USA stamper and asked them to copy it. They came pretty close even with some of the tiny details. I like them way better than any of the available baseplates I have tried. Finding the material was a headache and it was not cheap but I'm glad I got it done. Now every part of my PAF style pickups is USA made which is a good feeling. I think the big plus of all of this is having better control over dimensions, material composition and quality and having a more reliable supply of all the parts.

[kevinT]

looks good. Just curious, What quantity did you buy, ,,Was there a minimum?

What was the cost for the die/tooling?

What did it finally come out to as cost per baseplate?

[JGundry]

looks good. Just curious, What quantity did you buy, ,,Was there a minimum?

What was the cost for the die/tooling?

What did it finally come out to as cost per baseplate?

I ordered 1000. I think less than that and it may not be worth doing. I got a bunch of quotes from USA to China. Tooling ranged from a low of $425.00 to a high of $9,800.00. For 1000 pieces the price not including tooling ranged from $1.07 per piece per 1000 to $3.98 per piece per 1000. I don't really want to say what I paid for these. But obviously you have to shop around as the prices are all over the place.

Edit: I just remembered one USA stamper gave me a per piece price of $15.50 per piece at 1000 pieces excluding tooling! That one was funny.

[David Schwab]

Edit: I just remembered one USA stamper gave me a per piece price of $15.50 per piece at 1000 pieces excluding tooling! That one was funny.

Geeze! And people wonder why things are made in China these days! The USA can be so damn greedy and expensive.

The baseplates look very nice.

[JGundry]

Geeze! And people wonder why things are made in China these days! The USA can be so damn greedy and expensive.

The baseplates look very nice.

Thanks Dave. One of the most frustrating things about having parts made in the USA is convincing a US supplier to take your money. No joke some places practically dare you to order from them. Fortunately some suppliers are great but some are just terrible to even get a quote from.

[Bruce Johnson]

I don't think it's greed as much as fear of risk. With so many job-shop type companies these days, they just don't want to take any chances on anything. They'd rather not take the work than take a chance that it might go sour and they could lose money on it. If you're not a familiar customer, or the job isn't just like many others they've done, they don't want it. They'll bid high or not respond.

To a degree, they're right. I know from 20 years of doing custom metal and woodworking, that the more unusual a job is, the more likely it is that you'll lose your ass on it. But, I think many companies these days overdo it, and are being self-strangled by their owners and managers. With computerized time and cost tracking, you can gradually convince yourself that nothing is worth doing.

What often gets lost is that the nature of doing business is about taking on risk. There is benefit to doing tough jobs.

[clown_luthier]

wow Jon this look realy nice

i'm still on cutting step

[David Schwab]

I don't think it's greed as much as fear of risk.

When I said greed I was referring to things like rents being sky high, which in turn makes everything else expensive to compensate. I'm talking about artificial inflation.

As an example, look at the difference in price of magnets from someone like SensMag to one of the US companies who are buying them from SensMag. Why are they so much more from a US distributor? Because things are more expensive here. Why are things more expensive here? You get the idea.

[JGundry]

wow Jon this look realy nice

i'm still on cutting step

Good work! You need to add a radius to the tab that runs along side the length of each bobbin. The All Parts baseplates don't have this radis but PAF baseplates do. It is just cosmetic though. Another thing about the All Parts baseplates is the legs are just a tiny bit shorter than PAF baseplates.

[kevinT]

Hi jon,

what is the spacing on the baseplate? 1 15/16?

Just wondering why you didn't go with a joint venture with other makers here to help reduce costs.

I'm sure if you'd purchased 5000 it would of reduced the cost for each one drasitically.

[clown_luthier]

Good work! You need to add a radius to the tab that runs along side the length of each bobbin. The All Parts baseplates don't have this radis but PAF baseplates do. It is just cosmetic though. Another thing about the All Parts baseplates is the legs are just a tiny bit shorter than PAF baseplates.

Thanx Jon,
i understand, i will reduce this in next batch, this are only samples to develop folding tool. i have early pat# to compare how it should look at the end.
Now make one double white set and put a lot pics here
you should be proud for your work!

[belwar]

With computerized time and cost tracking, you can gradually convince yourself that nothing is worth doing.

What you just put into words is a very hard earned life lesson on my part. Very well put.

[JGundry]

Hi jon,

what is the spacing on the baseplate? 1 15/16?

Just wondering why you didn't go with a joint venture with other makers here to help reduce costs.

I'm sure if you'd purchased 5000 it would of reduced the cost for each one drasitically.

Hi Kevin,

The price break at 5000 was not as big as you would think. The material cost is pretty high for these and the machine time is not cut down whether you do 1000 or 5000 parts beyond set up. Since I could handle the tooling charge I decided to just go solo on the baseplates.

I have the drawing at work but the spacing is exactly the same as the PAF baseplate they drew it up from.