Quote:
Originally Posted by Oblarg
I think it depends on what you mean by "meaningful quantity." If you're putting together a tube-and-gusset chassis, it's not all that difficult to do your riveting by hand. It's still faster than bolting the assembly together.
If you're doing sheet metal, I can see how it would be a real pain to have to do all your rivets manually.
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We do tube and gusset for pretty much every system. We did't have a pneumatic riveter until 2011, and did hand until then.
It's certainly meaningful quantity, and it's certainly worth it. The time saved is huge.
I like to think of labor in terms of minimum wage. If the cost of a tool saves enough labor that it's "making" more than minimum wage, it's worth it (as our kids make well above minimum wage when they're out fundraising). The flipside is true too... any fabrication we do that "saves" less than minimum wage is a bad decision, and should be a COTS item.
Too many teams work themselves for below minimum wage.