US Manufactured Astronomy Products

[FLO]

Indications suggest sourcing US manufactured astronomy products might become more difficult, and more expensive. 

Recent US tariffs on aluminium has caused a rush of orders from US companies (buying before tariffs were applied) for Chinese raw aluminium. This has put significant pressure on the US mills that extrude aluminium, which is causing long wait times. And, when the pre-tariff aluminium has been used, the cost of aluminium in the US is likely to increase significantly. So we are expecting price increases. Edit: Some are saying the cost of raw aluminium is a relatively small part of a product's overall cost so perhaps retail prices won't be affected. 

If you are planning to buy a US-made astronomy product (i.e brands like ADM, Moonlite, Starlight Instruments & Hotech) then we recommend you place your order soon. But please be prepared to wait several weeks (wait times are often long for US-sourced products and we suspect they will become longer). 

Please note this is only our interpretation of the situation. We might be wrong ? 

HTH, 

Steve 

[FLO]

It took three attempts to write that without mentioning politics! ?

[Davey-T]

I wonder if this will affect Chinese production or if they get first dibs on aluminium ?

On the bright side it should push the scrap ally price up much like the previous explosion in copper prices, I've got loads of ally offcuts, maybe I'll get enough to buy a scope 

Dave

[PhotoGav]

Do you mean aloominum?!? 

[Davey-T]

1 minute ago, PhotoGav said:

Do you mean aloominum

It turns into allooominum when it arrives in the USA 

Dave

[wimvb]

One more argument in favo(u)r of carbon fibre scopes.

[Carbon Brush]

Methinks someone in equipment manufacturing might be using this as an excuse to fund their next yacht or ferrari.

Looking at an ADM dual mount assembly I have, there has to be a less than a tenner of aluminium (or aluminum for those in our former colony to the west) to make a £200 finished product.
So even if the raw material cost doubles, the impact on product price is minimal.

Historically the Japanese imported small quantities of of aluminium to make very expensive camera bodies. Scopes are no different.

Now an aluminium car body, other products that have a lot of pound weight of aluminium for pounds sterling are a different situation.

[Davey-T]

18 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Looking at an ADM dual mount assembly I have, there has to be a less than a tenner of aluminium (or aluminum for those in our former colony to the west) to make a £200 finished product.
So even if the raw material cost doubles, the impact on product price is minimal.

Someone has to pay for all those CNC machines 

Must be an opening for an enterprising UK small business to set up in competition post the B word.

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

My workshop will be gutted if a load of cheap Chinese 6082 gets dumped in the European market - NOT! ?

[Stub Mandrel]

4 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Someone has to pay for all those CNC machines 

Must be an opening for an enterprising UK small business to set up in competition post the B word.

Dave

The thought crossed my mind ... come to think of it I know a couple of chaps with enough CNC to build a small Airbus (I may be exaggerating).

@FLO is there a market for top quality UK-made accessories, given the inevitable competition from the East?

[Whirlwind]

8 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Someone has to pay for all those CNC machines 

Must be an opening for an enterprising UK small business to set up in competition post the B word.

Dave

Probably not if there are free trade deals with everyone as it will be difficult to compete against, even cheaper, manufactured imports.

The only area would be to find a real niche area but how long until it is copied?  If there was a larger market and less cloudy skies then possibly.

[Hallingskies]

With an economic death cloud on its way next March, there may well be an awful lot of secondhand equipment hitting the market late next year...???

[FLO]

2 hours ago, Hallingskies said:

With an economic death cloud on its way next March... 

I am not losing sleep ?

Steve

[bottletopburly]

39 minutes ago, FLO said:

I am not losing sleep ?

Steve

Me neither sun rises in the east sets in the west same as any other day 

[Alien 13]

I agree with others in that the raw material prices should in reality have little or no overall impact on the manufactured price and we still have the Chinese products which will soon overtake the quality of any astro product that the US or anyone else can produce.

Alan

[Galen Gilmore]

On 04/10/2018 at 07:00, Davey-T said:

It turns into allooominum when it arrives in the USA 

Dave

As an American, I can confirm that this is true.

[FLO]

On 04/10/2018 at 13:25, Carbon Brush said:

So even if the raw material cost doubles, the impact on product price is minimal.

Very good to hear. Thank-you ??

[FLO]

On 04/10/2018 at 18:15, Stub Mandrel said:

@FLO is there a market for top quality UK-made accessories, given the inevitable competition from the East?

We hope so because for a while now we have been quietly investing time, money and energy into developing a new range of accessories that will be manufactured here in the U.K. and sold under our Lynx Astro brand. We plan to release the first of them later this month. 

When able we do support U.K. companies and manufacturing. 

Steve 

[Stu]

1 minute ago, FLO said:

We hope so because for a while now we have been quietly investing our time, money and energy into developing a new range of accessories that will be manufactured here in the U.K. and sold under our Lynx Astro brand. We plan to release the first of them later this month. 

When able we do support U.K. companies and manufacturing. 

Steve 

That's great news Steve. Lynx Astro is a nice brand to use, it works well 

[FLO]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

That's great news Steve. Lynx Astro is a nice brand to use, it works well 

Thank-you ?

Without giving too much away, products that are genuinely new and/or quantifiably better than existing products will be sold as Lynx Astro and, we hope, be manufactured here in the U.K. 

[saac]

On 04/10/2018 at 13:25, Carbon Brush said:

 

Looking at an ADM dual mount assembly I have, there has to be a less than a tenner of aluminium (or aluminum for those in our former colony to the west) to make a £200 finished product.
So even if the raw material cost doubles, the impact on product price is minimal.

 

Somebody has to pay the machinist (£40/hour)  capital depreciation on machine tools, etc.  I think you may be right any marginal increase in material cost may not hit the retail price much . 

Jim

[Demonperformer]

3 hours ago, FLO said:

When able we do support U.K. companies and manufacturing.

Glad to hear it.