22 december 2013 - BBT Travels
Saturday morning we met with our very first Taiwan contact ever … Mike. As it was 15 years ago since we did come to check out the factories we cooperate with it was about time for another round of Taipei…
Taipei changed a lot, as did the whole Taiwan, the last 15 years, very livable now, wowh! good quality of life!
On the way to our bumper plant we passed the airport, and guess what? Ron Fleming and Greg Aaronson the creators of the “Cal Look” and owners of “FAT performance” in California must be here too, with there own airplane! These guys doing good I suppose….
Or those unfamiliar, that was joke off course, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a BBT airplane one day…
We thought the local Tyre shop was cool too! All these crazy Chinese signs…
Welcome to the bumper chroming plant, yes they have some “rotating stocks”.
The polishing shop… these guys makes 20 to 30% more salary as average, but it’s a heavy job too! To all youngsters, maybe better to study well and find a nice job. The guys working here never had the change to study mainly, well then this is your destiny! Thanks God there is still people that wants to do it!
Stainless bumpers need to be polished as well before electrolysed, the process is about the same as chroming, the BBT bumpers besides a perfect pressing make here the big difference, our bumpers are electrolysed to the very best norms… Yellow chrome, dull chrome, cheap chrome or all other stupid terms chrome we love to leave to our competition. BBT Stainless bumpers been made by and for BBT to OUR standards and that’s final!
Quality inspection nr 1, after polishing… Here the guy most to the left finds flaws on EVERY bumper, his eyes are better as an eagle, unbelievable…
The chief of the chroming plant show how little flaws been corrected on a big machine..
After polishing, ready for some second quality control, before some electronic treatment…
Unfortunately the electrolysis process was a “no camera” zone, so we couldn’t picture, but I was blown of my socks what they did invest in the last 15 years, its a complete computer controlled process now, no workers anymore, only to hang up and take off, but bath after bath all goes automatically, our bumpers have a cycle of about 2,5 hours…; There was none of our bumpers being done at this stage so no pictures from end control, paint and packing neither…
After the visit we went for lunch, but first the picture with the lucky cat, known for bringing fortune and luck… typical Asian, we love it!
After lunch we went to the pressing plant, yes more bumpers….
A 1000 ton press, to press bumpers, only bumpers, many for US market… but this press do press the final stage from our stainless bumpers as well, the first stage is rolled…
After seventeen years and over 5000 pair of stainless bumpers our tooling getting used, but we’ve been assured they’re not tired yet… so maybe we will let re-check them one of the years, and “clean them up”… If somebody claims they press bumpers ask pictures of tooling, we have our own tooling, and are pretty proud to them, seventeen years already!
A demonstration of a bumper beeing 3D plasma cut, this was impressive, and was fast too!
HOT….???… no it was cold! we weren’t lucky with the weather…
Evening dinner with Japanese food specialist Jason (owner of our trading partner in Taipei) and our trusty Mike… If you like Sashimi, man this was heaven believe me! Good food keep us going… up to the next!
21 december 2013 - BBT Travels
Yesterday morning we got a telephone call from the foundry people, the owner was not avialable, Called away for an emergency…. so bummer, we stayed in the hotel and worked on our computers, we don’t picture this as that’s no fun… Kevin picked us up little before noon for a brief lunch….
On the parking lot we’ve got some Chinese for beginners….
The lunch was something traditional, and tasty as well, only ordering was quiet a challenge… Thanks God we had pictures… and Kevin…
Basic, very basic, some sesam seed we had to stamp ourselves, cool, at least we had something to do…. and mandatory Chinese Tea….
Ok enough about food, back to work… Early afternoon we had an appointment with a local car hero and artist alike… Besides our external quality controls we always try to find local people who knows cars in and out, who breath our brands, know how to wrench and are self containing enough to just give their straight idea’s (that describe Pascal in BBT office perfectly!) ok that these guys don’t live in the most organised places you have to take along….
Welcome, welcome…
Daily transport, a VW bus look-a-like, aren’t they cute?
Beside VW’s this guy has tons of Mini’s… we liked this psychedelic one….
His little shop is a collection of automotive, scale toys, and everything with a “interesting smell”… kind a cool hang out place…
His main thing is being an artist, making robot statues from old car parts…
Find the Voodoo and the Horse with the burning tail….
Flamingo? or Ostrich? look at the toes…
Another weird creature… A mini with beetle engine conversion, the first good mini on the Globe? Or just another movie car for Mr Bean…
Some more creatures, a bird….
And a Dog…
After all creativity and to learn our Mr Tester in person, we headed more North for an early dinner with some larger traders we work with for a while, it was good to learn Mr Benjamin in person, and we talked a lot, huge manufacturer of modern car parts, but still a weak heart for what him started to grow, the VW beetle parts… Definitely a guy with his heart in the right place… one of our buddies for live…
Heading more North to the Capital of Taipei… Crazy traffic on a rainy (and COLD!) Friday evening in rush hour, but still I managed to get you this shot about the typical Asian neon signs…
If you ever been to Taipei you remember the scooters, they’re just EVERYWHERE! unbelievable, they’ve hoards of them…
After three days with Kevin we had to say Goodbye, and this way we like to extremely thank Kevin so much! He was the perfect host and made this trip one of our most easy trips ever so far….
Today we will be back in time, and been guided by our first and most important Taiwanese business partner Mike, but first after all this travel, meeting and visits….
See you at the bar!
20 december 2013 - BBT Travels
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…
Single operation presses line up, plus a deep throat press, together with the plasma cutter its the basic lay out of any press shop…
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!
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…
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….
Next stop is a polishing shop….
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!
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….
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!
Time for lunch, this looked like a perfect cafe to stop by! It’s a share holder of the pressing works as well…
One of the new things from the pressing company, dinner cafe furniture, all you see is real steel!
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!
In this mountain area resort the garden was beautiful, wowh…
Sad about the grey cold weather…
But when we see palm tree’s we do think the sun along for free…
OK, enough relaxed and lunched and enjoyed, back to work…
Next stop was the pressing works HQ… another 1000 ton press!
And another bunch of plasma cutters, standard equipment remember?
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…
Single operation press line up, pretty impressive huh?
This is a 2D plasma cutter at work…
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!
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!
Alain is checking out the details on some parts, we have to know possibilities…
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!
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…
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….
Tuna with fresh seasonal salad, yammie…
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…
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…