Buckin gets a ported 288..

[mettee]

Gotta get that dude on as special guest again! I'm tryin!

I need one of your bearing/crank install tools...

 

[Mattyo]

I need one of your bearing/crank install tools...

I got stock...but I'm running a tad low.

 

[Moparmyway]

@Stump Shot weighed one...

1lb 2 oz....I think. ? Wouldn't hurt to double check @Moparmyway

Work got in the way of my plans ........... I'll have a picture up in the next day or two. My apologies

 

[Duke Thieroff]

Ok, @Mattyo I think I'm going to offer a dissenting opinion here for a number of reasons.

First let me start off, the 288 looks great and so do the covers. Looks like a great product, but it's pretty damn "niche" and I think that's why you find yourself in the pickle you're in. The parts business is a tough one and although I make my living with it I don't often look at myself as a "Pro" or "Expert" in it. I'm just a guy trying to squeak by as best I can and try to treat people right in the process. One conundrum I have found with parts is that you can never convince someone to purchase a part for a machine they don't have. You can't suggestively sell a 288 cover to a guy who has no 288s. It's just the way that it is.

Anything requiring special tooling is prohibitively expensive for a lot of things, as you're finding out. Small market and high tooling costs also tied in with limited reach is a recipe for the disappointment you are now finding yourself mired in related to actual sales. Another issue, and I think this is apparent with the situation is that you are simply listening to people cheer lead you too much and not looking at the raw facts of it. You've sold a handful of covers but had hundreds of people cheering you on. The enthusiast market is worlds different than the regular Joe market. Most guys don't know or care about what make or model machine it is, let alone what type of cover it has on it that have all been getting overbid on eBay by the same 6 guys with stimulus money in their pocket.

Where are they at when it comes time to pony up the cash for the covers?
Where are they at when you're investing your savings into it?

If you want to do more projects, do it, but crowdfund/group buy it and make people put up in the beginning and then orchestrate the behind the scenes stuff. That'll give you a realistic view of the demand for these niche items people so easily demand but purchase reluctantly. If you could extract the initial tooling cost for something like plastics/cylinder molds then you probably make something of it as long as you could control your minimum order quantities. If tooling is $10k and you could get 200 guys to pony up $50 each you could make a go of it. Then after the first run you could retail them for a little more, you gotta put the bean counter on it to figure it out.

The mindset of "This has to work because of ____________" won't bear fruit if the market doesn't exist for something. It doesn't matter how many BBR vids there are out there, if there's no saws to put this on out there, there's no market. Why don't we spend a few thousand getting some BP-1 pistons made or some other arcane stuff? There's a reason for it. I had a guy the other day call me about Echo 600EVL ignitions, told him the same story of cost and quantity. He said "well, why doesn't someone do that! They could make a lot of money" I told him he could take his $8,000 and try it, I know a few companies and he said "well no, not me!" When you gotta put the skin in the game it's a whole lot different that a comment section on YouTube.


Some of it is a labor of love, and I get that! I certainly made some mistakes and had regrets about stuff, but I also have a couple thousand other parts bringing in regular revenue. Maybe try to find some of those things first...


In regards to sending BBR the saw....
(Disclaimer: I don't know the guy at all, but I'm not really a social media guy)
Also, I don't really know a damn thing about the Iron Horse deal. I'm looking at this situation with the 288 in a vacuum as a one off.

I don't know man, I don't think he owes you nothing. I mean, yeah, if you had some type of agreement for him to do that for you but in the way you've described it that doesn't seem like that was the case at all. You just send him a saw that he DIDN'T ask for and expected him to do stuff he DIDN'T agree to. Then you thought he should send it back to you.

Sounds a little odd, man. The whole premise is bizarre man.


Maybe I'm off the wall ( I'm open to hearing something to help me better understand if I am) but I don't think he did ya wrong at all and the people telling you so are maybe just grinding an axe, no pun intended, with the guy and his cohorts.

A suggestion, find ways to market yourself, network, build relationships and develop products there's a market for instead of hoping that some guy 3500 miles away that you barely know will use his platform that he built up himself (love it or hate it) to plug your stuff without having an agreement up front.

Regardless, any hating on the guy isn't selling any covers for you or helping you move on the next project.


The Chinese 288s coming to market, if they are complete saws, will be a GREAT opportunity for you to sell those covers for them and you can likely seize that opportunity if you do some things correctly. You may even be able to reach out to guys who deal in those saws stateside when they become available and work some things out OR start doing your own things to them including the covers.

Dookie

 

[jakethesnake]

Ok, @Mattyo I think I'm going to offer a dissenting opinion here for a number of reasons.

First let me start off, the 288 looks great and so do the covers. Looks like a great product, but it's pretty damn "niche" and I think that's why you find yourself in the pickle you're in. The parts business is a tough one and although I make my living with it I don't often look at myself as a "Pro" or "Expert" in it. I'm just a guy trying to squeak by as best I can and try to treat people right in the process. One conundrum I have found with parts is that you can never convince someone to purchase a part for a machine they don't have. You can't suggestively sell a 288 cover to a guy who has no 288s. It's just the way that it is.

Anything requiring special tooling is prohibitively expensive for a lot of things, as you're finding out. Small market and high tooling costs also tied in with limited reach is a recipe for the disappointment you are now finding yourself mired in related to actual sales. Another issue, and I think this is apparent with the situation is that you are simply listening to people cheer lead you too much and not looking at the raw facts of it. You've sold a handful of covers but had hundreds of people cheering you on. The enthusiast market is worlds different than the regular Joe market. Most guys don't know or care about what make or model machine it is, let alone what type of cover it has on it that have all been getting overbid on eBay by the same 6 guys with stimulus money in their pocket.

Where are they at when it comes time to pony up the cash for the covers?
Where are they at when you're investing your savings into it?

If you want to do more projects, do it, but crowdfund/group buy it and make people put up in the beginning and then orchestrate the behind the scenes stuff. That'll give you a realistic view of the demand for these niche items people so easily demand but purchase reluctantly. If you could extract the initial tooling cost for something like plastics/cylinder molds then you probably make something of it as long as you could control your minimum order quantities. If tooling is $10k and you could get 200 guys to pony up $50 each you could make a go of it. Then after the first run you could retail them for a little more, you gotta put the bean counter on it to figure it out.

The mindset of "This has to work because of ____________" won't bear fruit if the market doesn't exist for something. It doesn't matter how many BBR vids there are out there, if there's no saws to put this on out there, there's no market. Why don't we spend a few thousand getting some BP-1 pistons made or some other arcane stuff? There's a reason for it. I had a guy the other day call me about Echo 600EVL ignitions, told him the same story of cost and quantity. He said "well, why doesn't someone do that! They could make a lot of money" I told him he could take his $8,000 and try it, I know a few companies and he said "well no, not me!" When you gotta put the skin in the game it's a whole lot different that a comment section on YouTube.


Some of it is a labor of love, and I get that! I certainly made some mistakes and had regrets about stuff, but I also have a couple thousand other parts bringing in regular revenue. Maybe try to find some of those things first...


In regards to sending BBR the saw....
(Disclaimer: I don't know the guy at all, but I'm not really a social media guy)
Also, I don't really know a damn thing about the Iron Horse deal. I'm looking at this situation with the 288 in a vacuum as a one off.

I don't know man, I don't think he owes you nothing. I mean, yeah, if you had some type of agreement for him to do that for you but in the way you've described it that doesn't seem like that was the case at all. You just send him a saw that he DIDN'T ask for and expected him to do stuff he DIDN'T agree to. Then you thought he should send it back to you.

Sounds a little odd, man. The whole premise is bizarre man.


Maybe I'm off the wall ( I'm open to hearing something to help me better understand if I am) but I don't think he did ya wrong at all and the people telling you so are maybe just grinding an axe, no pun intended, with the guy and his cohorts.

A suggestion, find ways to market yourself, network, build relationships and develop products there's a market for instead of hoping that some guy 3500 miles away that you barely know will use his platform that he built up himself (love it or hate it) to plug your stuff without having an agreement up front.

Regardless, any hating on the guy isn't selling any covers for you or helping you move on the next project.


The Chinese 288s coming to market, if they are complete saws, will be a GREAT opportunity for you to sell those covers for them and you can likely seize that opportunity if you do some things correctly. You may even be able to reach out to guys who deal in those saws stateside when they become available and work some things out OR start doing your own things to them including the covers.

Dookie

Well said man. No bashing on anyone but I’ve been trying to figure this whole thread out. Bashing bbr certainly isn’t likely to improve things on his channel for that matter.

I dig the heck out of your top covers. Seriously I do.

if you built me a saw I probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the cover. I’d be more interested in what’s under the cover.

all that said. I don’t watch too much chainsaw related videos but if I do / did I might watch one of your bolt by bolt videos because I have a 346 I took apart that I honestly don’t think I remember how to put it together

oh and @sawmikaze im one of your other subscribers. I dig twisted stuff. Keep up the good work lol

 

[Mattyo]

@Duke Thieroff ... i don't think your opinion here is as dissenting as you think it is lol. all good.

I'll say this ... any cash, "superchats" or stuff thrown at BBR or really any yt channel is a promo stunt. this was a promo stunt, but it definitely didn't go in any particular direction I would have expected. 2 things I expected, .... one, he would open the saw live and love it ... or two, he'd open the saw live and not love it. I don't think having those as expectations is unreasonable considering he gets a saw out of it whether he loves it or not lol. but, since it kinda went in the opposite direction i'm more than a little dissappointed. I think the IH stuff somehow got in the way here for sure... but I knew that might be an issue and figured that if I did a nice enough saw he might be able to focus less on the "who" and more on the "what" and the future of vintage saws. Ultimately i was wrong, and I should have listened to you, or at least taken the hint that the covers may not be worth it... and you are in the biz.

in regards to the chinese and 288s, Manny has said they are making high top covers with their clones. this was announced 2 days after I brought my covers to market. this whole thing has been one big pile of dissappointment for me but at the end of the day its on me.

my hope was for the 288 to be a good enough stunt to sell a few covers and build up from there and eventually make covers or whatever else for vintage saws to help keep em going.

i've briefly looked into the crowdfunding thing already... its a fair idea for sure

@jakethesnake thanks for the comment, and i use my own vids to help remember put stuff back together lol

 

[sawmikaze]

My opinions aren't too popular with these kind of subjects...but..I look at it like this :

How many guys are out there working with a 288 ?..I'll answer that for you - not too many.

Then, how many of them are looking to restore that saw to a nicer condition...I'll answer that one too...even less.

I think some of you lose sight of the real world sometimes.

 

[USMC615]

My opinions aren't too popular with these kind of subjects...but..I look at it like this :

How many guys are out there working with a 288 ?..I'll answer that for you - not too many.

Then, how many of them are looking to restore that saw to a nicer condition...I'll answer that one too...even less.

I think some of you lose sight of the real world sometimes.

I think crazy ass here has a pretty good point!

 

[sawmikaze]

I think crazy ass here has a pretty good point!

I never make any cents.

 

[Mattyo]

All I do is read forums and yt lol... so yep...my view is skewed significantly....though I tend to think there's more 288 guys out there than we know about. You know what they say about hope. Ugh

 

[mettee]

I got stock...but I'm running a tad low.

I think they are way too rich for my single dad blood

 

[Stump Shot]

....though I tend to think there's more 288 guys out there than we know about.

Maybe in a long haul way of looking at things, there probably is. Maybe it's the perspective needs adjusting.

 

[Mattyo]

There are over 500 kits now all over the world. Maybe midget marine will let u borrow and try before u buy

 

[Maintenance Chief]

YouTube is a business model for people like BBR and its understood that oldsaws are his gimmicks.
Matto brings a product to the niche market and asks 1 business man (loose term) to promote it, probably should have gotten it in written agreement but if there's any doubt about how "niche" this market is just buy a Pro Mac 10-10 off ebay. Theres 100s and they are crazy priced ! 2 minutes of online cruising will confirm that Matto wasn't insane for venturing out into the vintage saw market, bidders have proven that fact.
His only mistake I saw was trusting one unemployed businessman helping him out in the same field ,and not having the for knowledge that the clones were coming to market.
I personally bought oem products from the[ Duke ]that had lower cost options but thats me.

 

[Egg Shooter]

All I do is read forums and yt lol... so yep...my view is skewed significantly....though I tend to think there's more 288 guys out there than we know about. You know what they say about hope. Ugh

I don't know you or BBR. I do know what went down with Iron horse.
I have a question about this BBR deal. If you knew there could be an issue because of the Iron horse fiasco, why not present yourself as a fellow YouTuber, which you are, and that you were trying to get this project off the ground? Not an ope guy. This without the "this saw will eat your saws lunch" comment. I'm not sticking up for BBR but that challenge you presented, even meant as normal ball busting, appeared to rub BBR the wrong way. Even his body language shows it in that last vid you linked here. Another thing to consider, he's friends with this iron horse fellow. He knows none of us left here on ope most likely. I firmly believe IH is a lying thief and many of us helped that fella get a properly built saw after IH ruined his saw and stole the Master Mind ported cylinder off of it. Unfortunately the people in his circle believe him, BBR included. The BBR well is poisoned against any ope members because he had / has people reporting to him. To IH as well. Kensie was one of those people. It's a bummer it went sideways but as a guy on the outside looking in, it could have turned out differently if presented in a different manner.

 

[cus_deluxe]

I don't know you or BBR. I do know what went down with Iron horse.
I have a question about this BBR deal. If you knew there could be an issue because of the Iron horse fiasco, why not present yourself as a fellow YouTuber, which you are, and that you were trying to get this project off the ground? Not an ope guy. This without the "this saw will eat your saws lunch" comment. I'm not sticking up for BBR but that challenge you presented, even meant as normal ball busting, appeared to rub BBR the wrong way. Even his body language shows it in that last vid you linked here. Another thing to consider, he's friends with this iron horse fellow. He knows none of us left here on ope most likely. I firmly believe IH is a lying thief and many of us helped that fella get a properly built saw after IH ruined his saw and stole the Master Mind ported cylinder off of it. Unfortunately the people in his circle believe him, BBR included. The BBR well is poisoned against any ope members because he had / has people reporting to him. To IH as well. Kensie was one of those people. It's a bummer it went sideways but as a guy on the outside looking in, it could have turned out differently if presented in a different manner.

he probly though bbr would behave like he tells his "flock" to behave. turns out hes a cynical prick like the rest of us

 

[mettee]

There are over 500 kits now all over the world. Maybe midget marine will let u borrow and try before u buy

You know what he said that. He's stingy though. Won't even share a yuengling.

@usmcbuckwild

 

[Egg Shooter]

he probly though bbr would behave like he tells his "flock" to behave. turns out hes a cynical prick like the rest of us

Lol. Probably so. He was practically squirming with is arms crossed in that vid trying not to unmask his true self. By true I mean he's a dick like the rest of us at times. I used to watch his vids. Found him researching mcculloch. Then all that positive messaging flashing up on the screen started happening. Nothing wrong with wanting the world to be a better place but saw vids, for me, are not the place to preach that message. The other thing he is all over the place with multiple topics mangled together. Can't stand that *s-worde.

 

[Mattyo]

Maybe in a long haul way of looking at things, there probably is. Maybe it's the perspective needs adjusting.

That was my perspective. Totally fine with sitting on this for a while. If I had 200 orders at 100 each I would have been fine. But since manny announced the 288 with the high top from China coming here in Sept? ... odds are im gonna get stuck.... so I dropped the price to 50...and now I've sold maybe 50 of them?

So I threw a hail Mary at buckin.

I hope this is a long haul but now I'm not so sure.

Thanks for the comments and thoughts guys.

 

[Mastermind]

Ok, @Mattyo I think I'm going to offer a dissenting opinion here for a number of reasons.

First let me start off, the 288 looks great and so do the covers. Looks like a great product, but it's pretty damn "niche" and I think that's why you find yourself in the pickle you're in. The parts business is a tough one and although I make my living with it I don't often look at myself as a "Pro" or "Expert" in it. I'm just a guy trying to squeak by as best I can and try to treat people right in the process. One conundrum I have found with parts is that you can never convince someone to purchase a part for a machine they don't have. You can't suggestively sell a 288 cover to a guy who has no 288s. It's just the way that it is.

Anything requiring special tooling is prohibitively expensive for a lot of things, as you're finding out. Small market and high tooling costs also tied in with limited reach is a recipe for the disappointment you are now finding yourself mired in related to actual sales. Another issue, and I think this is apparent with the situation is that you are simply listening to people cheer lead you too much and not looking at the raw facts of it. You've sold a handful of covers but had hundreds of people cheering you on. The enthusiast market is worlds different than the regular Joe market. Most guys don't know or care about what make or model machine it is, let alone what type of cover it has on it that have all been getting overbid on eBay by the same 6 guys with stimulus money in their pocket.

Where are they at when it comes time to pony up the cash for the covers?
Where are they at when you're investing your savings into it?

If you want to do more projects, do it, but crowdfund/group buy it and make people put up in the beginning and then orchestrate the behind the scenes stuff. That'll give you a realistic view of the demand for these niche items people so easily demand but purchase reluctantly. If you could extract the initial tooling cost for something like plastics/cylinder molds then you probably make something of it as long as you could control your minimum order quantities. If tooling is $10k and you could get 200 guys to pony up $50 each you could make a go of it. Then after the first run you could retail them for a little more, you gotta put the bean counter on it to figure it out.

The mindset of "This has to work because of ____________" won't bear fruit if the market doesn't exist for something. It doesn't matter how many BBR vids there are out there, if there's no saws to put this on out there, there's no market. Why don't we spend a few thousand getting some BP-1 pistons made or some other arcane stuff? There's a reason for it. I had a guy the other day call me about Echo 600EVL ignitions, told him the same story of cost and quantity. He said "well, why doesn't someone do that! They could make a lot of money" I told him he could take his $8,000 and try it, I know a few companies and he said "well no, not me!" When you gotta put the skin in the game it's a whole lot different that a comment section on YouTube.


Some of it is a labor of love, and I get that! I certainly made some mistakes and had regrets about stuff, but I also have a couple thousand other parts bringing in regular revenue. Maybe try to find some of those things first...


In regards to sending BBR the saw....
(Disclaimer: I don't know the guy at all, but I'm not really a social media guy)
Also, I don't really know a damn thing about the Iron Horse deal. I'm looking at this situation with the 288 in a vacuum as a one off.

I don't know man, I don't think he owes you nothing. I mean, yeah, if you had some type of agreement for him to do that for you but in the way you've described it that doesn't seem like that was the case at all. You just send him a saw that he DIDN'T ask for and expected him to do stuff he DIDN'T agree to. Then you thought he should send it back to you.

Sounds a little odd, man. The whole premise is bizarre man.


Maybe I'm off the wall ( I'm open to hearing something to help me better understand if I am) but I don't think he did ya wrong at all and the people telling you so are maybe just grinding an axe, no pun intended, with the guy and his cohorts.

A suggestion, find ways to market yourself, network, build relationships and develop products there's a market for instead of hoping that some guy 3500 miles away that you barely know will use his platform that he built up himself (love it or hate it) to plug your stuff without having an agreement up front.

Regardless, any hating on the guy isn't selling any covers for you or helping you move on the next project.


The Chinese 288s coming to market, if they are complete saws, will be a GREAT opportunity for you to sell those covers for them and you can likely seize that opportunity if you do some things correctly. You may even be able to reach out to guys who deal in those saws stateside when they become available and work some things out OR start doing your own things to them including the covers.

Dookie

This is one hell of a good post.

Love you Dookie.