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Old 04-22-2018, 12:30 AM   #1
doyenofcastle
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tests before selling wood

guys what kind of tests the manufacturers do before sending their wood guns for shops/selling ? in any industry there will be some kind of tests to show the product reliability ,for wood guns of course shooting is very important and hitting the targets but whats the acceptance of that ? how to test your waterproof coating ?wood protection ? scratch resistance ?etc... any Ideas ?
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Old 04-22-2018, 06:57 AM   #2
Diving Gecko
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Re: tests before selling wood

There are zero standards in this industry and the tests range from nothing (many brand name euro guns) to a builder setting up and test shooting each individual gun.

Now, here follows my personal thoughts, just one guy's (long winded) opinion, so take it or leave it:
If you intend to sell your guns, you vouch for them. Then later on, your users vouch for them. You slowly build a reputation and that's about it.

More in depth, if I was ever to make guns and sell them, which it sounds like you'd like to do, this is what I would do; I would make a few for myself to the very, very best of my ability. Work my butt off to get them as good as I could and then start by giving a few away, or at the very most charge the cost of the materials, to a select few spearos whose judgment I trust. It would be a sort of "experimental product". They'd get a gun for free or very cheap in exchange for their feedback and understanding that if anything needs bettering, that's part of the deal. Then perhaps a year or two or three later, when the product has been improved and tested in the real world, you can start thinking about actually selling them.

There's still room for improvement in your guns, so to me it makes a lot of sense to take this approach. If you ever want to sell for real, you need to get it right - once the product is in the hands of strangers and not just a circle of friends and colleagues close to you, you will be judged and compared to the best out there so best to wait until your guns look and shoot just as well or better:-)

A lot of the builders here have worked for years to gain and develop their skills. The best of them have developed uncanny abilities to pick good wood from substandard wood. How to prepare it, how to glue up blanks, to shape it, etc. Like everything else, do it with passion for long enough and chances are you will become good at it.

As for the surface treatment, I guess it depends on the wood and personal preferences. But it seems like there are about three standard treatments; tung oil treatments or epoxy or polyurethane coatings. I would think if you follow the guidelines and use good products you should have a good outcome. But nothing in this is particularly new - if you have any good woodworkers (especially furniture makers or boat builders) around you, go and make some friends. Listen, watch and learn;-) You can also glue up some test pieces and coat them in different ways and then subject them to the elements. Dunk them in a bucket of salt water, leave them in the sun to dry and repeat many times for a long time and see what happens.

On another note, I can see in your gun builds that you are super eager to learn and try out many things. It's cool to have that energy but might I suggest a different approach? I, myself, am guilty of spending a lot of time to try many different things but the risk is losing focus and just wasting a lot of energy. I would, humbly, suggest you pick one type of gun to start with and then work to improve it the most you can. Put all you energy into that one design. You will progress much faster and eventually have one great design which will then, also, work as a benchmark for when you branch out to other designs and want to know if they are improvements or not.

It's cool if you are setting out on this path and hope it works out. If you keep working your butt off and improve on the guns, I don't see why it couldn't work for you:-)

Last edited by Diving Gecko; 04-22-2018 at 07:25 AM.
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Old 04-22-2018, 07:55 AM   #3
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Re: tests before selling wood

Quote:
Originally Posted by doyenofcastle View Post
.... how to test your waterproof coating ?wood protection ? scratch resistance ?etc... any Ideas ?
If you don't know how to test for quality then you can't know how to build 'quality' and you are just reacting to product failures as told by your customers.
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Old 04-22-2018, 09:40 AM   #4
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Re: tests before selling wood

As for quality testing, its very hard to test a product 100% that is intended to be sold. I am sure a lot of items you have purchased are "updated", "tweeked", or tossed away when the quality is in question.

This is something that I had posted long ago on a far off thread, but I believe it is relevant.

First: I wish you the best of luck with where ever your investment goes, and truly hope you are the next Bill Gates of your field.

Now for the 2 cents worth:

Many people can make a gun that their buddies think are very nice, and they can sell a couple. They may even have a great idea that is very innovative, and also feel they have quality, and price controlled very well.

Lets look at something very simple that everyone can relate to. Tie your shoe into the most perfect knot that you can imagine. Now do it 10 more times, is it still entertaining? Now do it 1000 times, has the quality changed? Can you guarantee that each knot will hold the same amount of time? Even if 1% fail in the first hour which ones will it be? Also how many times will someone ask you to tie their shoes into the perfect knot, and unless you have a lot of kids its not a job that will be very high profile.

So; If you can make the best product in the world then best of luck is sent your way, but.... if for a moment you are wanting to compromise your name by using questionable quality to save yourself a few dollars in manufacturing then maybe step back, and think if the product fails, and hurts, or kills someone was it worth it? So the question is? Is that good priced carbon fiber, handle, etc... really a good price? Is it worth the risk? Imagine the support if you can say you make the safest, longest lasting, most accurate product.

There is a great quote From the Sea Sniper interview on their website:

Mario: (laughs) Right. So recently I saw another custom speargun builder had hung up his tools and given up. I’ve seen a lot of guys try to get into building custom spearguns and, either due to bad product or how they deal with people, they get out of the business. How are you still able to stay in business?

Chris: I think I’ve been around as long as I have because I believe so strongly in the product. I really care and I think it shows in my work. I feel bad for those guys. They build one or two guns, post them on a forum, get a few compliments, and immediately start a website and call themselves custom builders. A year later, the poor craftsmanship and bad design have been exposed by the very same market that had previously lauded them as the next best thing. The result is a saturated custom market and a lot of pissed off people too sour to try again with a legitimate builder.

Mario: So are you saying these other guys don’t have good products?

Chris: That’s not quite what I’m saying. There are some great builders out there. I’m just saying that with the majority, there’s no thought given to the possibilities that could occur in the future. Poorly designed, untested guns have pretty good odds for failure. It’s only natural that a guy is going to be pissed that he paid $1,000 to be a guinea pig.
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Old 04-22-2018, 11:04 AM   #5
Gary H
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Re: tests before selling wood

Effective Quality Inspections have to be performed beginning with incoming inspection of all purchased material, in process inspections, and final product inspections. Inspections fall into additional categories such as visual, dimensional, safety, and performance.

I know a builder in Hawaii that has many piece parts and assemblies built by a machine shop. He personally does dimensional measurements of every machined part. He has built trigger test fixture(s) and performs tests on 100% of his trigger mechanisms to verify the sear nor any other part will not fail at a shaft load that far exceeds any band load that trigger could ever conceivably be stressed to by a user.

I am not a retail builder, but I personally get in the water with completed guns, load them, shoot them, and probably the most important test to me is the bump test. It is somewhat subjective because I do not have a calibrated bump, but I load the gun, point it in a safe direction and bump it hard from multiple angles to be sure it will not misfire.

The bottom line is a builder's Quality Tests and Inspections should be a written procedure that is printed out and checked off for every gun to ensure that no steps are overlooked.
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Old 04-25-2018, 07:14 AM   #6
doyenofcastle
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Re: tests before selling wood

thank u for sharing your advises and ideas ,I ll do my best to improve my skill ,I used to do carpentry and wood carving since I was in high school ,I added to that my study of welding and painting inspection specially for CS /SS /duplex SS and CNC programming ,now I am combining all skills together and follow all advises to improve .
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