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Good day , I'm Wess a parts designer from The Netherlands

palmettomoon said:
Welcome to the ODT but I have a couple of questions. I'm not simply being snarky, I'm genuinely curious.

Was this a hobby project or a business venture? Helwans are not highly thought of or sought after pistols here in the U.S. (at least to my knowledge). They are usually very inexpensive. When you consider the costs involved in manufacturing a component for such a 'thin market' pistol(s), what volume must you sell to recoup your investment in the development & manufacture of them? 100? 200? 1,000?

Your efforts are sure to be appreciated by owners of pistols that may otherwise be paperweights.

Thanks again for doing this.
Click to expand...
JusLookWutYouDid
 
palmettomoon said:
Welcome to the ODT but I have a couple of questions. I'm not simply being snarky, I'm genuinely curious.

Was this a hobby project or a business venture? Helwans are not highly thought of or sought after pistols here in the U.S. (at least to my knowledge). They are usually very inexpensive. When you consider the costs involved in manufacturing a component for such a 'thin market' pistol(s), what volume must you sell to recoup your investment in the development & manufacture of them? 100? 200? 1,000?

Your efforts are sure to be appreciated by owners of pistols that may otherwise be paperweights.

Thanks again for doing this.
Click to expand...

Hey There for me the first project started out as a hobby but it has turned into a business idea.
I'm currently developing other projects and I'm more focussing on sight upgrades for old surplus pistols at the moment.

As you said the locking blocks have a thin market and I only had a couple of hundred made.
That's why they're a bit expensive... 99 USD a piece and 85 USD for 2.
But people forget that the shipping cost are like a quarter of that and Ebay & Paypal are a bunch of thieves as their Fe's are pretty high (15%)

That all said, the quality can't be beaten on my blocks and I already have a lot of satisfied customer who otherwise have paperweights. Hopefully over time I can find more people who have Helwan's and Beretta 1951's so that these surplus pistols can be back on the range were they belong.
 
chazehen said:
Welcome and thank you for the enlightening post. What are you working on next?
Click to expand...

Thank you, I'm currently in the last stages of development for non permanent fiber optic sights adaptor for all model of TT33 Tokarev pistols. And I'm going to look into making parts for the Spanish Destroyer carbine in 9mm Largo.
 
pavogrande said:
Very interesting -- your part has the look of an invetment casting --
like palmettomoon I wonder about the profitabilty of making that bit --
Ciska Peters and "zeeman" are my favorites --
Click to expand...

Ciska Peters xD that's so old school my parents used to listen to her!

A lot of people mistake my block's for being cast, but I can assure you they are not.
After the milling process the block's have a surface finish 3.4 RA and at first hand I tough to my self shall I have them polished in some fancy way or should I leave them as is.
When the first prototypes came back from the company who does the hardening it had undergone a sandblasting treatment to ensure that all the spots from the salt water had been removed.
And I must say I personally like the way it looks as is..
 
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