Louver Blueprints?

Does anybody have the louver blueprints available? Both side and back windows?

 

when you find them.. make mine in a carbon fiber design, please. A red carbon weave would be best for mine though. lol

 

I know there have been other threads on this topic, hoping somebody will surface with them.

 

What do you want to do with them?

 

It maybe something I can do. I remember seeing them when I was younger and don't remember them being overly complicated. My guess is that they are manually laborsome to produce or someone would have picked up the ball by now and run with it. I won’t know for sure unless I can study the blueprints (possibly move it into CAD), maybe there is another way to skin this cat. There are plenty of new materials and machinery out there that can make these more affordable. The last price I saw here was in the $1200 dollar range for a vintage set. For our cars, that’s out of our price range for the vast majority of us. We may not be able to produce an identical replica but we can still get the look and feel another way.

 

As I understand it there are only a couple of techniques that can be used to match the contour of the glass. I spent some time thinking about it one day, tried to figure out a way to mass produce them and I kept getting hung up on the contour of the glass. Laser cutting seemed the most effective mass production method to me. Extrude aluminum then stamp into the shape needed to cover the glass. Then laser cut the louvers and put on another stamp to shape them out.

That was as far as I got though. I was going to draft the back glass and make a design for the louvres but I haven't gotten around to it yet. 3D modeling isn't really my strong point.

Also if someone has the blueprints... Send them to a laser sintering company for a quote. like these guys... http://www.lasersintering.com/

 

Molded abs plastic...done. They could probably be sold for 100$ and make profit.

 

the blueprints are linked to somewhere here on the forum. i remember downloading them recently, but can't find them on my computer. must have deleted them.

in the past, willpak was asked to reproduce them. iirc, they were even given the blueprints. they refused, as they couldn't see any profit in them. my best guess is that if they won't do it, nobody will.
a member on here, cometized, once talked about reproducing them. he's somebody who surely would have the skills. as it seems, he didn't get it accomplished.

 

This is a supply and demand problem, plain and simple. We are not Mustang owners who number in the hundreds of thousands. We likely fall into the tens of thousands range, of those, demand for the product will likely be in the 100's to 1000's range worldwide.

Say an initial production run of 500 at a reasonable price point of $359 will produce a gross profit of $179,500. After tooling, raw materials and all other overhead, net will likely be negligible if not nil for the big boys like Willpak.

A small machine shop or alternative materials product could bring the profit margin in line to justify an order only run to satisfy our community. I would think a good machinist apprentice or enthusiast with some skill could make one from scratch in four hours (provided you took the time to create multiple jigs and bought the materials to spec, three inch slats, 3/4 inch rails etc…). As little cutting and shaping as possible. A real machinist is likely out of the price range, skilled labor these days is very expensive (that's a whole other topic). On top of it all, the units will need to be painted and packaged. The math would work like this, labor $80-$120, raw material $50-$100, paint $10, packaging $20, misc $10-$30. Profit would likely be under 50% of price point. That said, it’s all really a guess until you do a feasibility study with actual numbers and create a prototype.

Now if we could get 10,000 customers, that's 3.6 mil. gross, that would be worth Willpak's time.

 

I agree with most of it.. May not need a machinest if it can be done on a plasma table and light breaking at points. Looking at the bluprints I felt I could POSSIBLY get the main rear section done. It's the hold down brackets that seemed dificult to understand and make. Being that I am not a BIG fan of them, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it ..

 

Nice idea but do you really think one could sell 500 maverick louvers??? NOt so sure about that one.

 

Maybe I can help out with that and I can model them and include them with my 3D Maverick. I'll try and find some pics (unless someone has some already) of the louvers and I'll rough them in this weekend. Let me know if you're interested.