Fred that what I'm looking for, honest opinions, I appreciate that and no offense taken at all, nothing worse in my eyes than someone who tells you what they think you want to hear. Drives me crazy,. Anyway to answer some of your questions,
Q: To big, to heavy.
A: It's within 5lbs of other aftermarket bumpers such as the ones that I mentioned earlier.
Q: To Wide
A: being in utah for a bumper to be legal it must extend from track with (center of tire) to track with. Mine does exactly that. It as well has to be 4.5 inches in height. Mine is not completely across but I think I can argue that interpretation pretty strongly. Remember this is only one design. the other fab shops generally have one bumper that is 60 inch with (which this one is) and one shorty (generally 52 inches.
Q: 2 separate peices to mount the winch and fairlead.
A: Mine is actually the only one that I have seen that actually uses two pieces. one main plate from frame to frame to mount the winch and one to hold the fairlead. All the others use anywhere from 4 to 6 and they use 3/16 inch steel, where mine is 1/4 inch in that section.
Q: Bumper biz already saturated
A: You could not be more correct. That is why this will only be approx 5 or 10 percent of the business. i have something else in store, nothing super new just a big twist that hasn't been done. That will be my bread and butter. Alot of these other shops also are in it to support their hobby, I'm in for the business, small business at that. You can be small, medium which equates to working long hours 7 days a week, or large where you hire someone to work long hours a week. I doubt that I'll ever get that big nor do i want to, it's not in my business plan. Yes I even took the time to thoroughly write out a 5 year plan as well as I'm working on the 10 year plan. That's part of the reason that it is taking me so long to launch the bugger. I'm not going to halfass it.
Q: Fewer pieces, less welding, etc
A: The fewer the pieces definitely keeps the costs down that why I built the prototype to see where I can modify the construction of it. I've already cut the time down by 2/3rds. However less welds does not necessarily make it stronger. If you are a good welder those welds will yield more tensile strength then a non welded piece. In this case almost double the strength.
Q: receiver hitch rated for a certain load
A: point taken, however this prototype the hitch was only placed on there for my personal use so that I could have a vertical bar with a horizontal one attach at the top of that which I could slide into the receiver so that I can mount my kayaks and canoes on top. If would be difficult to mount a receiver hitch on the front to make it strong ewnough to say handle the load of a removeable winch, becuase if you were to design it for that the bumper would stick so far out to accommodate it that it would look very weird.
Q: the tube in front
A: this was actaully the toughest thing to do because I was severly sleep deprived coming back from a 4x4 trip when i did it and could think straight and kept screwing up both the cut and the bends. it about drove me crazy, normally bending is pretty darn easy for me but not this night.
Thanks again for the honest opinion Fred.
