[sdiy] Reproductions of Vintage Synth Parts (how are they made?)

[Bob Weigel]

For certain parts...I mean unless you are really concerned about making 
it look identical underneath for instance on a slider cap... I'd think a 
person could just build some kind of mold where you can pour a bunch of 
them at once, let them set up with a form with greases shafts that sets 
down in the plastic as it's drying..then when dry pull them out.  I 
dunno.  I'm about to try it with an ARP quartet switch cap but using 
maybe white epoxe instead of plastic.   -Bob

Tom Arnold wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 09:37:35PM -0500, Ken Elhardt wrote:
>  
>
>>I'm wondering how it appears so easy for the Technology Transplant guy
>>on ebay to make reproductions of vintage synth knobs, buttons,
>>switches and so on.  I was under the impression that getting some
>>custom plastic part fabricated from scratch was expensive, but he's
>>got all kinds of stuff.  Does anybody know the process a private
>>individual would have to go through to make a reproduction of a
>>Jupiter-8 knob in quantity for example?  Are the costs reasonable?
>>    
>>
>
>I went through a lot of trouble when I was working on getting reproductions
>of the Davies 1900H knob made.  This is the knob used on a lot of stuff like
>Modcan gear.
>
>Anyhow...
>
>Best price I found was via Taiwan Knobs.
>
>Tooling charge was quoted at $2900
>Per Part  15cents
>Min order 3000 pieces
>
>30% Deposit, 40% when samples are ready, 30% when samples approved.
>
>To get decent pricing you have to order at least 10,000 or sell them at
>greater then $1ea.    These prices are from 5 or so years ago.   The numbers
>just never worked out for me to be able to do it.  Note that my goal was to
>get them well below $1ea in decent quantities.
>
>Tooling for phenolic is much more expensive then for regular plastics like a
>lot of more modern knobs are made from.  Found a US supplier that could have
>done the knobs in a modern plastic for a tooling fee of $1600 or so and if I
>remember 25cents/ea but in this case it wouldnt have looked right.
>
>  
>