BBT’s travel report Day two; just more steel pressing companies…

Day two was as busy as day one, another 4 factories and loads of discussions, it all started in the morning with a pressing plant that is specialized in smaller parts for window mechanisms, latches, hinges, brackets and the like…

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Single operation presses line up, plus a deep throat press, together with the plasma cutter its the basic lay out of any press shop…

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One of our toolings, the plasma cutting jig and sample for our battery cover project, the battery covers are ready and will be shipped in January, another new BBT product for the vintage crowd!

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As said this shop is heavily specialized in smaller parts, many times more heavy, window winders, brackets, latches, hinges you name it they make it… only for Classic cars! Our guide Kevin reveals us many many secrets about production methods…

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But no time to loose, up to the next…. down the road in Taiwan, you see many Buddha temples, its always difficult to take a picture from the back seat, but here I tried real hard to share at least something with you….

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Next stop is a polishing shop….

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Chrome plants don’t understand Classic cars, so a private polishing shop is a must to use when you want to reach certain qualities… These guys make 20 to 30% more salary as the average worker in Taiwan, but they need to be dedicated… and we are witnesses, yes they do, perfect job!

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From the polishing shop it was just around the corner to the first paint shop… here we learned a lot about the electrolysis friendly new primer… shall the next production BBT sheet metal also arrive in this silver? ready to weld? Its something we will discuss internal BBT for sure… nice coating, ready to weld (no need to grind down) and ready to paint, as its holding fairly well….

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In this process you see we’re really looking for companies with small production series… no need to produce 3 or 500 pieces anymore, techniques today make smaller series affordable as well, all you need is the right engineer… our GT is perfect for this!

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Time for lunch, this looked like a perfect cafe to stop by! It’s a share holder of the pressing works as well…

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One of the new things from the pressing company, dinner cafe furniture, all you see is real steel!

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So let’s try out…. We must admit it was very good and comfortable…. Interested in one of those? Just let me know, I can supply… but all steel is not all cheap… remember, you buy a half of a car!

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In this mountain area resort the garden was beautiful, wowh…

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Sad about the grey cold weather…

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But when we see palm tree’s we do think the sun along for free…

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OK, enough relaxed and lunched and enjoyed, back to work…
Next stop was the pressing works HQ… another 1000 ton press!

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And another bunch of plasma cutters, standard equipment remember?

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Half finished products, lots of stamping need several stages to get finished, for a rear quarter like this its mainly 3 or 4 stages, but sometimes its up to 6 or 7…. and every stage require its own proper set of toolings…

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Single operation press line up, pretty impressive huh?

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This is a 2D plasma cutter at work…

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Yes I do look happy, another almost finished project, vent wing assembly for bay window, the vent wing itself will be available soon, the entire assembly will wait a while, but is also in final stage of development! Here we do last discussions, for BBT its mainly to tell we don’t want compromises, only the exact same part like the original, or even better where possible!

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Some more preparation and investigation… Very dedicated engineers at work, the son of the owner, and the production manager….we talk straight to decision makers of production!

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Alain is checking out the details on some parts, we have to know possibilities…

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Believe it or not, this state of the art workshop is nothing more as the tooling inspection and final adjustment shop! A dream for mechanical engineering!

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Here it is, our T25/T3 vanagon, for reversed engineering… a real model to fit parts in the factory yes, absolutely necessary, we go far and beyond to make what our cars need, and with this we leave competition behind…. far behind, nobody in VW industry is doing what BBT does, not even close… we can assure you… we have another three cars on the way over…. are we crazy? Yes! but we do feel good…

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After some real boring business meetings it was time for dinner, we’ve been treated well, with my personal favorite Asian dinner style, Tepanyaki… The real thing….

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Tuna with fresh seasonal salad, yammie…

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Seems somebody was aware from my upcoming Birthday, you never can start celebrate early enough! Thanks Kevin, you pay a lot of attention to your customer…

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Another busy day didn’t need a lot to let us sleep for a good nights rest, while you read this on Friday, we’re visiting the foundry and a roll forming company, so stay tuned, we try to bring another update full of travel experience tomorrow….

Oh yes, who said this was “Holiday”? Factory visits for 12 hrs a day is harsh, believe me… makes you tired… but do we want to miss it? Not a split second of it, we make better parts, and learn about production, so necessary to bring the right parts to the market…. So yes, this is as much holiday to us as the beach to many, actually we have every day holiday, as we work with passion… beat this…

More of this tomorrow…

2 Comments

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  1. You do live an incredible life Bob! And we are all luckier for it! Your devotion to our hobby and your business is beyond belief. I’m missing you guys!

    Bill

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