04-23-2016, 11:49 AM
I don't think anyone is getting rich making knobs or those metal Trimounts. Unfortunately those are all low demand products and can't be mass manufactured like the old days. I've seen the process for making knobs and it is neither cheap or easy, plus the molds have a limited life before they have to be remade.
Buy a mold kit for $50 or $60 (plus dyes) and when your first few knobs come out the wrong color or with bubbles on the surface those $10 knobs don't look so bad anymore. Same way with those Trimounts, buy the material to make them, cut or stamp them out and when you figure out your time is worth more than spending an afternoon trying to make a half dozen that look like crap, then $1.25 doesn't look so bad anymore.
We're just lucky someone is taking the time to make this stuff for us. Since Larry Bordernero passed (Old-Time Replications) we've lost the source for many of the large Philco escutcheons unless someone takes on the task of making them again.
Buy a mold kit for $50 or $60 (plus dyes) and when your first few knobs come out the wrong color or with bubbles on the surface those $10 knobs don't look so bad anymore. Same way with those Trimounts, buy the material to make them, cut or stamp them out and when you figure out your time is worth more than spending an afternoon trying to make a half dozen that look like crap, then $1.25 doesn't look so bad anymore.
We're just lucky someone is taking the time to make this stuff for us. Since Larry Bordernero passed (Old-Time Replications) we've lost the source for many of the large Philco escutcheons unless someone takes on the task of making them again.
John KK4ZLF
Lexington, KY
"illegitimis non carborundum"