Aussie Carbon Builders - New FB Community!

[Mark Kelly]

I can't answer for Warwick, but the market for custom bikes here is very small so any sensible business plan involves establishing in overseas markets.

BTW if you noticed, at the top of the page from Ellsworth, the distributor for the DP420, is a note saying their policy is MOQ = carton lots. That's a lot of glue.

[devlin]

The boat industry charge an absolute fortune for the same stuff. I worked with a thermal engineer whose brother built carbon boats. I enquired as to getting supplies through them and they just laughed at the small quantities I wanted. Said they couldn't help. That's when I gave up on carbon. There are guys around doing it. I have a buddy just about to glue his first carbon frame up. There is another dude who has posted on here who is building a carbon tandem. I've seen a few few home jobs floating around so it's being done. It's just more expensive and a lot herder to access. A lot has changed in the last 5 years but the cycling market here is a lot smaller and the big companies have it sewn up. People are starting to come around to the idea of a custom frames but we are probably 10 years behind in having decent market share demand. So it's a good time for us to get stuck in an establish ourselves in the local market. I went with steel because I love the way it rides and it is a hell of a lot cheaper to get into. I'm keeping an eye on carbon and doing plenty of reading as a mate and I have some ideas on something we want to do but we are realistically probably 12 months away from starting.

[crumpton]

I can't answer for Warwick, but the market for custom bikes here is very small so any sensible business plan involves establishing in overseas markets.

bummer. good luck. though i've shipped a few down there and i know others have.

BTW if you noticed, at the top of the page from Ellsworth, the distributor for the DP420, is a note saying their policy is MOQ = carton lots. That's a lot of glue.

thats how i buy it. thats how its done in business. you cant make money buying carbon and glue one frame at a time. the last PO i paid for pre-preg was almost $10k US. i buy 3m adhesives generally about $800 a pop.

[Mark Kelly]

And once I've been in the biz as long as you I hope I'll be buying in carton lots too. For now, however, it would be out of date before I finished with it.

[Mark Kelly]

However that suggests a good first thing for Warwick's association to do: contact Ellsworth, find out what a carton of DP 460 costs and do a group buy. I'll coordinate it if there are enough takers. PM me if interested.

[crumpton]

i am willing to help from here. i am willing to have you guys dump US sourced goods at my address where i can send to a forwarder that some of my clients have used in the past to get bikes to your island.

my limitation is i prefer not to be in between you guys and the suppliers nor do i want any financial responsibility. i am happy however to point you to where i buy stuff.

the idea is you have your glue, tubing and whatever sent to my address. i'll repack into single carton and hand off to a forward that you pre-arrange with. would this be helpful?

get your group together, get your shopping list and lets go from there.

[crumpton]

I can't answer for Warwick, but the market for custom bikes here is very small so any sensible business plan involves establishing in overseas markets.

BTW if you noticed, at the top of the page from Ellsworth, the distributor for the DP420, is a note saying their policy is MOQ = carton lots. That's a lot of glue.

you musta missed this link in my earlier post... free postage

3m dp420 | eBay

[progetto]

Thanks for putting your hand up Nick, it is really appreciated.

[devlin]

you musta missed this link in my earlier post... free postage

3m dp420 | eBay

That link comes up as 0 listings when I click on it.

Your offer is huge for the guys. Cheers Nick.

[crumpton]

offer is sincere, link works for me.

you can always got to au ebay and search 3m dp420

cheers!

[holy-mojo]

Hi,
It may also be worth getting in touch with 36T (36T | Carbon Fibre Cycle Wheels36T | Carbon Fibre Cycle Wheels) who are working out of Torquay near Geelong and are involved in the Carbon Nexus at Deakin. They are developing very interesting carbon bike wheels and may have some good contacts on sourcing materials. Simon does a lot of work on business start up's which could also be very helpful.

I too have started with steel, but am seriously thinking that I should be moving into the carbon direction and putting my engineering degree to its test. Being fairly fresh over here in Oz (after moving from the uk 3 years ago), I see that the money is definitely being channeled into high visibility brands (read $$$) rather than bespoke high quality. I'm not sure how long this will take to change, especially with the financial headwinds coming this way over the next few years as alluded to earlier in this thread. Personally I'm going to tinker with steel and possibly carbon for the next few years developing my skills and hope that both interest and sufficient wealth exists to support bespoke bike manufacture.

I've joined up to your Facebook group and look forward to contributing in the future.

[Dazza]

If I was a young fella without my past 37 years of baggage I would be into the CF world.
I am pleased to see some new energy with new frame building options in OZ.
I encourage the vision. Bravo.

[CarbonNeutral]

Cheers Nick for putting your hand up to be our big brother in the US. Much obliged!

Nic T, I've got in touch with 36T and Bastion amongst others and directed them to the BCBA FB page. I want to go visit Carbon Nexus soon. too. The plan is to go visit 36T and Nexus in the one hit, so I'm just waiting on some parts to build up a frame so I can take a whole bike to gesticulate at. Once I have the bike finished I'll find a day that works for everyone and go have a pow-wow.

Anyone interested in a school excursion?

[CarbonNeutral]

Nick, it's a global market, mate. You can't survive down here in the antipodes just selling local. I'll explain it to you over a beer someday coz Its not really conducive to teh intarweebz. It would be a long and boring socio-political rant and I'm trying to do less of those these days.

Suffice to say.....10 years of doing Thylacine? Maybe somewhere between 15-20% local, and the rest were exports. I think Baum might be the exception to that, mostly because Peter did a LOT of marketing specifically to the 1%ers here and that's what established them. I never had the resources to go covet the general manager of Volvo or Cadels' PR people or the editor of Moustache Waxing Monthly or whatever, so I had to do what I could - namely - annoy people online. So at a guess I'd say that they might be closer to 50/50, but the market isn't educated enough (amongst other things) to support predominantly local sales.

[devlin]

It isn't a sophisticated market here at all. There are outliers but by and large they really don't know the differences and are spoon fed by the media.

Warwick, I'd have my hand raised as a serious consideration to heading down. I'll get my people to talk to your people.

[holy-mojo]

Hi Warwick,

I'd be up for a visit to the Carbon Nexus. I know Simon from 36T quite well (going way back to the UK) so I could give him a call to check on availability etc. if this would help. He may be able to sort something out with the Carbon Nexus for us also if I ask him nicely. I'm going away shortly until late September but after then would be great - I work in Geelong so mid week or weekends would work.
Cheers
Nic

[Mark Kelly]

I'm in too. September works for me.

While I've got you all here, can I sound people out on the subject of EN 14781 testing? I'm in the throes of building a test rig and have been playing with the idea of getting NATA certification. I've spent a lot of time in QA roles in industry so I can meet the certification requirements fairly easily. It is however, expensive, and probably not worth doing just for myself.

Would there be a market for this as a service if I did get certified? The certification would carry the name of my IP holding company (Quiddity Technical Services) rather than Lyrebird.

[Blakey]

While I've got you all here, can I sound people out on the subject of EN 14781 testing?.

I might be able to assist. Drop me a line.

[Todd Mosley]

Warwick - your facebook page might function better as a group. With a page, all visitor posts appear hidden on the lower left side of the page and it is not searchable. With a group, the posts are front and center and can be searched by keyword.

[dbohemian]

It is very hard to source all the necessary items even in the U.S. I would think it very much more difficult down under. It is part of my long term plan to offer carbon supplies to aspiring builders. I would think if you could order most things in all one place even the $100 dollar shipping may make it worth it.

Like Nick said, you order 5k of this a few k of that and it can be hard to even plough through that amount of material before it meets its expiration date so its helpful for me too.

Of course Warwick, you can always buy a budget plane ticket come build another frame. No shop costs, no storage or excess materials. Just consider it the worlds longest 8k mile commute...