James, the color was carefully selected to match the color of the highly polished slack adjusters and differential as well as the wheel well color and the color of the tires. I could have asked for Volunteer Orange to match the trim on JDUB's plane.
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James, the color was carefully selected to match the color of the highly polished slack adjusters and differential as well as the wheel well color and the color of the tires. I could have asked for Volunteer Orange to match the trim on JDUB's plane.
Jon, The check (with a creative spelling of your name) for my stands should arrive shortly. Please hold them in Knoxville for my pickup there around the end of October. More coordination later.
The beginning of the stands starts with getting the pieces ready for welding. The tubes are cut in a saw, the other pieces go through other processes including shearing, or punching or bending.
The next step is to weld the stands. In the photos below Nick is welding a stand using a MIG welder.
The photos are out of order, but in the center photo Nick has tack welded the base and gussets and is beginning the finish welding. He will weld every joint.
The first photo shows a pallet of stands staged for powder coating, along with pallets of charcoal grilles and fire rings in the background. Powder coating is taking place today so I did not get photos. The coating line used to put the finish on the stands happens to be the same powder coating line that was used in Detroit at one time to powder coat our Diesel engines.
While Nicks was welding bus stands, in another department of the factory Bonnie, Mimi and Renee were assembling electrical power outlets such as you might plug into in a campground.
Attachment 7200Attachment 7201Attachment 7202
The photos are out of order, but the top photo shows Renee putting the outer panels on an outlet, this one being a metered pedestal outlet, center photo shows Mimi packing a completed power outlet, the bottom photo shows Bonnie installing the internals.
The outlet being made is a Jamestown branded outlet (notice the door), but the company builds and also private labels outlets for other companies which are sold through electric supply houses and big box stores.
Good stuff Jon. Thanks for your efforts.
My partners and I have been involved in lots of business - mostly successful (thankfully), some not so much. Manufacturing was one endeavor in which we got a spanking. When we sold our FRP plant after 2 years in the red, I had a new appreciation for the process of profitable manufacturing.
Ron Walker, I will have your stands in Knoxville. They will be available any time after the Kerrville rally.
To those who will not pick up stands in Kerrville or Knoxville there are two options. The first is to ask a friend who can pick them up at either place to carry them to you. The second is we can ship them UPS in four boxes direct from the factory in Jamestown. To get an idea of the costs to FL the cost will be $65 (to Orlando as an example) or to LA in CA will cost $96. The price will vary depending on the zip code. Let me know.
To Gordon......I have restored three bankrupt businesses and created one from scratch. All were manufacturing. I love doing that kind of work and at this point would do one now just for kicks, but I don't want to be stuck with one. I suspect trying to sell even a successful one in today's economy would be tough. For a time I helped a few lenders try to get their borrowers out of a hole, but found unless I had the power to control the borrowers they were going to continue doing whatever they did that got them in trouble in the first place.
Mine are coming in Mauve with embedded Rubies and Diamonds, right?
We bought our plant with a plan brought to us by guys with a strong background in the design and engineering side of FRP products. What we learned the hard way is that custom built projects with high markups can quickly go upside down if there are mistakes in manufacturing or specs aren't met perfectly. This leads to the manufacturer (us) correcting the problem at our cost to build a reputation as a high quality, dependable company. This is critical when the custoimer base is largely volatile type industries (petrochemical, etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Wehrenberg
There was a market for the products but they were rarely repeatable, and building one off vessels or other complex custom fabs required perfection that our folks and existing systems where unable to deliver reliably. We could have gotten there by making a big step up in an added layer of QC personnel, higher qualtity CAD capabilities, automated layouts, etc, but just lost that loving feeling.
I ended up selling it to another FRP manufacturer who was geared up to make a limited range of vessels and could run the same dimension vessel on all shifts for a week or month at a time. Lower margins, but much less variability and thus cost overrun on customer satisfaction. To mimick his model would have required investment in bulk product and trying to penetrate a market already dominated by a couple of brands (his included) - read lower pricing, thus not attractive returns for some time to come.
Could have bought a nice XLII with what I "learned" on that investment!:cool:
Welcome to my world Gordon. An education at the most expensive college is chump change compared to the mistakes we pay for in the real world.
The factory is geared for custom production and the key to success in my opinion is building from a database of custom products that has been perfected over time. With the exception of certain operations such as the cutting of tubes and welding of the stands, most production is run on computer controlled equipment run by programs in the engineering database. Not every production facility has such capability, but then again not every company is expected to deliver a truckload of special products within 3 days of receiving the order. That turnaround time is routine, and a truckload of steel is received and shipped in finished product within a 3 to 5 day window. At that speed of production we cannot afford errors, and when I sold the company we were experiencing one return for every 10,000 products shipped. As a footnote more than 50% of the production was brought back from Korea, China, Malaysia, etc. so obviously with tight margins there is no room for mistakes.
The stands took 2 days from the release to the plant until staging for coating. NO QC, no factory floor supervisors, but a bonus for productivity and severe loss of bonus if a product is wrong.
As I said, I have a whole new appreciation for manufacturing after that experience. Also learned to appreciate what Mango's business is like although we made a good investment in restaurants - just a lot more to it than most realize.
Will stick to oil and gas, and real estate........
and bad crabmeat rolls.....
Restaurants are a manufacturing business with the exact same issues ranging from production to delivery as any industrial manufacturing plant. I have a great deal of respect for folks that can juggle all the issues in a restaurant that needs all the skills our factory possesses in terms of production, but also needs the people skills we sure do not have.
The QC department missed the crabmeat.
The bus stands are ready to ship. I have been reconciling the confirmed orders (see post #132 on this thread) with checks received so far and shipping information and some problems have arisen. I have checks from people who are not on the list, or who did not confirm they wanted stands. I also do not have checks from some people who did confirm.
Here is the situation...I can try to add the new orders to the run, but this means the factory will have to go through the set ups again. I am OK with that except those who have not sent checks already have had stand produced. If I don't get paid for them they end up in my garage.
So I have two options.....I can use the stands that have been confirmed, but not paid for to give to those who did not send a check, or I can order additional stands to cover those that confirmed but did not pay, and still have stands for those who paid but were not on the confirmed list.
Just so the scope of the problem is known 14 still have not paid but confirmed, while 20 have paid, three of which were not on the confirmed list.
If you have not paid please do so ASAP. If I have not received payment by this time next week I will apply some of those not paid to those who paid but who did not confirm and make the balance available to whoever will pay. I have to pay the factory for these and neither the factory or I are making a cent on this.
I have a few that the purchaser has requested that we ship. We can do that easily via USP. Please provide me with shipping instructions and I will see they are shipped direct from the factory. The price range should be as seen in post #167.
Jon, I have paid but would like mine shipped. My address is Paul Branham, 301 N. 1st. St., Springfield, Il. 62702. I appreciate what you have done for the benefit of all. Thanks. Paul.
Paul,
I am awaiting all shipping decisions from those not picking up in Knoxville or Kerrville and will ask the factory to do all shipping on one day. I will let everyone know. Likely this will happen at the same time the truck shipments go out to Kerrville and Knoxville.
Jon, I assume you got my check, and like we talked about I will pick up stands in October at your house, how many H3-45 stands did you get were they all the same as my measurements? Thank you for all the work! Gary Carmichael
Jon, I assume you got my check, I will pick up at your house late Oct were all the H3-45 the same?
No amount of lost investment is as bad as the memory of that long night.....
Wow Jon, What an absolute nightmare for you to have to deal with. I know you were volunteered for this project and you graciously took it on but then to have the situation you described above is just the pits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Wehrenberg
I sent my check on September 2ND but it hasn't been cashed so I have no way of knowing if you received it. Could you post all of the confirmed names and just simply indicate they are "paid" or "not paid". That also may serve as a reminder that the "not paid" need to get it in gear. Again my heart felt thanks for all the work you have put into this project.
If you have sent the check I have it and will hold it until I am confident the stands are shipped, hence nobody's check has cleared.
I don't want to post names.
Tomorrow I deposit all the checks received for stands and issue shipping instructions to the factory. The stands being sent to Knoxville will be available as soon as we return from Kerrville, around 10/18. I will have stands for Debi and Eric and Gary Swaim sent to Kerrville, but if it is not convenient to get them there I will bring them home to Knoxville.
If you have not paid the $193 please do not send it now, but give it to me in Kerrville. Be aware that some who confirmed did not pay, and some who did not order or confirmed did pay so I made an executive decision since the order has been produced. Those who have paid even if they did not order will get stands. Those who confirmed the order, but did not send a check will get stands if they are available. I anticipate I will have more stands available than I will have been paid for so if anyone wants stands in Kerrville it will be first come, first served.
jon
you sold out here in kerrville before we got a set. what is the correct height for a 2001 XLII? thanks.
danny and debbie
13 3/4 front, 11 3/4 rear. Works for XL with world transmission and XLII.
What do you think about these Jon?
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...4819_200304819
Would these be a good alternative or should they not be adjustable.
Gary,
I couldn't open the link. It locked my computer up. But if it is for the air over hydraulic adjustible jacks I use them often. On my coach with the hydraulic part all the way down, and the screw adjustment all the way up they are 1" short of my support points in the rear with the bus fully raised. As long as the hydraulic portion is down they are failsafe supports. I tend to use them for lifting however although they will work as supports also.
Gary,
I got it to open and see it is jack stands.
Two concerns. Is it 12 ton per pair or each one? The drawback however is if the minimum height is 18" they are too tall.
On my way back to the bus from work today, I received a call from fellow Pogger Ron Hampton asking my whereabouts. Ron mentioned that he had just pulled in next to me in Theodore, AL. Ron had picked up my bus stands for me in Kerrville and was making a delivery.
After a long day on the road under less than favorable weather conditions, Ron found his way to the campground we're staying in while I'm deployed to the Mobile field office in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill incident.
Many thanks, Ron, for taking the time and making the effort to get my bus stands to me.
Delivery to my door. Man, you can't beat that!
Can't beat that for service! Poggers are great! That is how much you guys were missed at the rally!!!
Deb, Eric, and Jay
Jon, Are these stands still being built? If so are there any for H-3s? I could use a couple sets. Scott Akers