When's it gonna end ?

[torredcuda]

It`s even  tougher trying to build a car now that I am on fixed income, I can`t work OT or a second job to help offset the higher cost of everyting. Good thing is I did just get a raise - I`m on Social Security Disability and it just went up a decent amount but still a lot less than I was making working.

[chargerdon]

Just for the record.   Coal accounted for 30% of the electricity production in the USA in 2020.   That percentage has been steadily dropping over the last 50 years and will continue to drop as more Hydro, wind, and solar increase.    Going green includes but certainly not limited to battery cars.   

Call me selfish, but, at the age of 75 i seriously doubt if i will ever see the lack of gasoline to power my two classic cars.   On the other hand, i do worry about global warming and what life will be like for my great grandchildren if we dont go green !! 

PS, i do admit that since the last three daily driver cars i have purchased over the last 20 years have all been 6-8 year old vehicles with at least 75,000 miles on them, that i probably will never see the day that i buy an electric vehicle, as ill be dead before the used prices on them fall to within my budget.   Sigh.. 

[captcolour]

Just this week, we found out that our supplier of the white ink used to produce the white stenciling on our reproduction heater hoses has discontinued that particular ink color.  I can see possibly some of the more abstract colors being dropped from what they offer, but no more white, just crazy.  Our choices from them is a soft gray or soft yellow.

So now, we will have to go through the efforts of locating another ink supplier and probably at a higher cost.  We already had to go to a different method of printing the date coded markings on the fuel filters that we offer.  In an effort to control cost and to insure product quality for the artwork needed for projects like the various stencils needed and items like the jacking instruction decals, etc, a much higher quality scanner and printer was purchased to achieve the results we needed.  Finding small Mom and Pop shops willing to do the quality and quantity of the items that we need is getting much more difficult to locate.

The next ten years will be very telling for the hobby.  With ever increasing cost from labor and materials to the parts, at what point does it flatten out?  For the past 20 years, we have been thinking that things would plateau, but almost everyone is busy with orders at the current time.  We are seeing a slow down to a small extent on our end, and unfortunately the prices for the raw materials to finished product continues to increase with no indications of any change.  No true winner in this situation.

Have you thought about lasermarking these items instead of printing?  More permanent and no dies required.  Not all black plastic or rubber items will mark white with a laser without modification, but perhaps worth a try.

For items painted, you paint the item white then black, then laser etch off the black leaving the white letters.  If want yellow, paint yellow then black, etc.

[RUNCHARGER]

Yes: Obviously energy costs are the biggest contributing factor to high freight costs. OT but I have no problem with alternative energy sources for transportation either. We've been bent over all our lives by the oil companies and I'm not against using oil for our collector cars and some other source for our dailys, I don't think that will come solely from electricity though but that's another discussion.