I now know way too much about bottom bracket production costs.
The end result of all this is a realistic price for the bottom brackets, French thread (or Swiss for that matter) with anodized cups and all the little details you'd expect from a Velo Orange bottom bracket. There are a few other details to work out but they are relatively minor.
But the details are what kill projects like this. Like dust seals. A little bit of matte black rubber coated brass to keep out gross contaminants. Well, the factory dust seals are beautifully embossed with the threading of ISO bottom brackets: 1.37x24t. If that is on a French or Swiss bottom bracket, and it's stuck in a frame it will cause much consternation for the mechanic I think. So I ask a few questions, make an inquiry or 2 and go down this theoretical path of buying 10s of thousands of dust seals, with a hefty mold fee, and a per unit cost that is not insignificant.
I'm still looking at the target price, assessing whether or not it is still worth it, picking at it here and there. We can cut our margin a little, increase the price of the French BB a little, ditch the crank bolts and still be under $50. Velo Orange would have a ton of dust seals and the only affordable French thread cartridge BB set in the world.
7 comments:
well, I could have just used one. I ended up getting a Phil wood and a friend had french mounting rings. maybe also looking into those IRD cartridge bb, that you could use with english cups or italian cups. probably a lot cheaper to just make the cups/mounting rings, than the whole unit.
I have posted on the CR and iBOB lists all the details of getting just the cups made. The factory is not interested in that-too many quality control, user error and long term functionality problems with making both cups interchangable.
Believe me, I have tried. For years.
And I could have used a French bb yesterday as well for a conversion from Campy NR to Sugino compact cranks. Ended up using one of the YST bb sets that have not threads and mount like the old Mavic bottom brackets after chamfering the bb shell.
Considering the cost at OE level for a basic cartridge bottom bracket, doing just the cups isn't necessarily much cheaper.
its cool that you are considering french bottom brackets. ive used both the phils and nos sugino ones in the past on different projects but the cost of each is high for the average consumer. given the range of spindle lengths and taper variations have you considered selling cups and cartridges separately like phil does? also curious to hear who you think the target market is for this product. the majority of french bbs i see are on relatively inexpensive peugeots.
My initial goal for the BB sets were to offer sperate cups. None of the factories will agree to do this because of quality control issues and user error when installing.
It seems a simple solution but it is not the economical one.If I insist on seperate cups, the price would be almost the same as a Phil.
Phil is not he only game in town, but there isn't a cheaper alternative. $50ish bucks may seem pricy, but there's no way to get the price lower if I want to include dealers in the mix, which I think is key if I want to sell them in quantities that make the factory happy.
I hope you manage to bring this to market.
An affordable cartridge bottom bracket would have a ready market in France. The fixie craze is sweeping Paris, and many older frames are being repurposed as fixies. Often this involves crudely rethreading the bottom bracket to BSC. A French collaborator could substantially increase your potential sales volume.
Shimano continued to serve the French-thread market into the mid nineties. I own a Shimano cartridge bottom bracket (a UN70 or 71) with French threads.
Would it be possible to use two flangeless cups? This would be advantageous for chainline adjustment, and would seem to offer the potential of reduced tooling costs the left and right cups could be indentical.
I am restoring an old Peugeot, and would buy one of these in a heartbeat, even for 50ish bucks. As much as I like the bike, a Phil would be overkill. Or "overPhil".
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