Blue, thanks for the intelligent, well-thought-out posts. We always appreciate solid suggestions from the Family, and often incorporate them into our cars/designs.
We may try to run the wing mounts from a material with a lighter load, perhaps 20%, if we can get it. One of the problems is that wing mounts don't take a lot of plastic. The shop buys material in 2,000 lb lots, and there's no way we can pay for 2,000 lbs of expensive plastic when we're only going to use about 75 lbs, so we have to use something they normally stock.
Another concern is that it takes about an hour for two men and a forklift to put any mold in the press, then almost as long to take it out. All shops charge $125 - $200 to "hang" the mold. (Cheap, when you think about it.) So, if we hang the tool to run 1,000 pr of wing mounts, that's 12 - 20 cents per part just to hang the mold.
Making a short run of 50 sets so the Team can test a new material is absurdly expensive. So here's the way it happens: The next time we need to make wing mounts, we'll make the usual production run with the normal material. At the end of that, we'll have them make 50 sets or so from a new material that they normally stock and we think might work. The Boyz will get them for testing in practice and we'll see if they work. If so, then the next production run after that can be the new material.
This is a far more complicated business than I imagined at the start. If I had known what we were getting into, X Factory probably would not exist. Hidden expenses are everywhere, and problems constantly crop up that have nothing to do with designing or racing an R/C car. A very small company as we are must be extra vigilant on costs, and that alone is a full time job.
Unfortunately, I must constantly reject great ideas because of cost concerns or lack of money.
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