strikeeagle
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2001
- Messages
- 3,326
OK, as the latest issue of HRM confirmed to me yesterday, a billet crank is a crank machined from a single hunk of alloy steel. Nothing new here...
Billet cranks have several advantages over cast or forged cranks. For example, stronger, lighter - depending upon application, and so on. And no obvious disadvantages.
Unlike forged cranks, billet cranks don't require "huge, expensive machines and dies with about 3,000 tons of pressure". Again, nothing new here...
What a billet crank does require is "affordable, modern CNC-controlled machining stations", and a program. Once the program is written and refined for, for example, a TR billet crank, it's done, for all time...
So, the problem then becomes fitting TR cranks into the machines' schedules. Nothing else. A billet is a billet. Machines are machines. A program is a program. The necessary investments have been "sunk".
So, to my simple mind, short of greed, TR billet cranks should not be more expensive than any other billet crank. That is, X hours of time to produce Y cranks equals Z dollars per crank...
So, come on boys, give us our cranks!!!
Billet cranks have several advantages over cast or forged cranks. For example, stronger, lighter - depending upon application, and so on. And no obvious disadvantages.
Unlike forged cranks, billet cranks don't require "huge, expensive machines and dies with about 3,000 tons of pressure". Again, nothing new here...
What a billet crank does require is "affordable, modern CNC-controlled machining stations", and a program. Once the program is written and refined for, for example, a TR billet crank, it's done, for all time...
So, the problem then becomes fitting TR cranks into the machines' schedules. Nothing else. A billet is a billet. Machines are machines. A program is a program. The necessary investments have been "sunk".
So, to my simple mind, short of greed, TR billet cranks should not be more expensive than any other billet crank. That is, X hours of time to produce Y cranks equals Z dollars per crank...
So, come on boys, give us our cranks!!!