Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mark wrote They had the dies! Why not use 'em? Markwr and there was some spare brass lurking in the corners. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ----------- It's not quite that simple. It's not like they could pull a few guys out of the Wetzlar unmployment office, give them some old dies and say "here are the plans from 1920, build us a camera". You have to find suppliers (we are talking 100s of parts here, all of which will be subcontracted), find a modern finish, test and ensure quality, write manuals, train assemblers, test asseembly quality, revise manufacturing, print a service manaual, train at least one guy to do service, get boxes printed, write marketing and sales material, on and on. Not to mention the time spent by the Leica head honchos in top level decision making that goes into getting any project going...Having the dies for some of the parts, even if they are still compatible will modern metalworking machinery is not going to save you a lot of $$$. My family has done some manufacturing in my time (plastics mainly) and if they are doing this for 200-300 bodies a year, they are not going to make a lot of money at $2500 MSLP, if they are making any money at all. Jonathan Lee