Subject:
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Re: Bulk Ordering - Secrets Revealed.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 19 Sep 2000 21:41:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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2360 times
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In lugnet.general, Robert Munafo writes:
> In lugnet.general, Frank Filz writes:
> > Well, one thing that could happen is serious clones of Lego bricks. I
> > don't know what the costs are of doing ABS molding but model railroad
> > hobbyists are pretty resourcefull. [...]
>
> I worked for a company that had to have a custom mold (actually several molds)
> to manufacture plastic parts for the product's enclosure (the plastic "shell"
> that most electronic products have).
>
> The mold pieces were made for us by the same mold contractor that made molds
> for Revell (the plastic model company) and were made to the same precision. • The
> cost of making the mold parts depends mainly on how much time it takes the
> machinists to create all the surfaces that are part of the mold's active
> surface. In other words, the more complex the plastic shape you're creating,
> the more it costs to make the mold.
>
> Our molds had about the same complexity as about 12 2x4 LEGO bricks would have
> [1], speaking in terms of machinist time to make the mold. The cost for the
> mold was about US$100,000 (it has been about 10 years, so that might have
> changed due to automation and inflation). [2] If you made a mold to make twice
> as many parts, the mold would require twice as much machining and cost almost
> twice as much.
>
> Once you have a mold you can use it about 100,000 times before you have to
> throw it away. In our case, we elected to "resurface" it, a process that
> irreversibly changes many of the dimensions of the resulting plastic pieces • and
> therefore would not work for LEGO-compatible pieces.
>
> So, based on this it would probably cost our hypothetical model railroaders
> about $100,000 to make 1.2 million 2x4 bricks. [3]
Hope I'm not stealing Steve Chuck's thunder, but I was browsing the Brickshelf
Gallery and came upon this picture:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=14552
It was taken on a LEGO factory tour. It's a picture of a retired mold which
makes 8 2x3 bricks. There is a little caption plate which said it made
120,000,000 bricks (thus was used for 15 MILLION cycles). If that mold cost 10
times as much as the mold Robert describes, it still comes out to less than 1
cent per brick, and 10 times the cost of the mold Robert describes is probably
an exageration).
Actually, it looks like the mold may make more than 8 bricks, it looks like it
has 4 layers, and thus makes 32 bricks.
Frank
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Bulk Ordering - Secrets Revealed.
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| (...) like it (...) Nope not 4 layers. The thickness you've observed is the space in which all the hardware for the ejector system resides. Note the fittings for the air lines that actuate the ejectors. Plastic parts don't just jump out of the mold, (...) (24 years ago, 19-Sep-00, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Bulk Ordering - Secrets Revealed.
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| (...) Brickshelf (...) which (...) cost 10 (...) than 1 (...) probably (...) The mold in the picture has a number of removable parts that make up the 8 chambers for the 2x3 bricks. These have to have been replaced a number of times to have made that (...) (24 years ago, 19-Sep-00, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Bulk Ordering - Secrets Revealed.
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| Frank said: (...) I'd caution everyone not to draw TOO many conclusions from these pictures. IIRC Mike Walsh said at the time he took these at LLC. The mold may or may not be the entire mold actually used. Anyone who knows for sure may not be able (...) (24 years ago, 20-Sep-00, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Bulk Ordering - Secrets Revealed.
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| (...) I worked for a company that had to have a custom mold (actually several molds) to manufacture plastic parts for the product's enclosure (the plastic "shell" that most electronic products have). The mold pieces were made for us by the same mold (...) (25 years ago, 13-Aug-99, to lugnet.general)
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