Where's the chassis

$20 of Korean sheet metal shaped and drilled by a firm in Africa, see
recent post

knobs

Digikey

tuning caps

4-gang soviet surplus from EBay, see recent post

IF cans

toroids

Tube sockets

PC mount sockets, 50 cents each.

Xtal filter

$1 each, $5 total, see recent post

cabinet

more sheet metal

dial

stenciled plastic, negl cost

power xfrmr

$5 stack of carbon steel made in Africa, see recent post

Using your figure of 20 hours I calculate that you'll clear an
income of $40 per week on 2 rigs, $60 if you work nites, if you do it
all yourself.

No, I'll be using Mexican labor for final assembly

If I could build a Galaxy 5 equivalent in 20 hours...never mind...

No, this is not a Galaxy 5. This is a 21rst century transciever
topology
in glass that may deliver multiband audio/cw contacts at less cost.

Okay. Paying shipping for one single returned rig in this scenario will
have you WISHING you hadn't eaten last week's can of cat food for dinner.

Clearly I would have to reduce mass where I can. I interpret a
boatanchor
as meaning tubes as active units and mechanical tuning with a planetary
drive... I don't intepret that as meaning I have to use 50's-70's era
parts for
anything else or even point to poiint wiring. Maybe I can get the
weight
down to 15 pounds if I use aluminum for chassis and fiberglass or
carbon
composite for case.

You couldn't do this for less than $500 per rig (sans
labour and profit)....

Only I use parts from US and attempt to exactly duplicate a mid-60's
rig. If instead I can outsource nearly everything and never buy
retail,
and if I simply make a FET rig in glass, this might be less.

and thats why there isn't the market that you imagine.

What I have to find out is determine how much someone is willing
to buy a glass rig for that delivers similar functionality as a 60's
rig,
and then determine how many people would buy for that price. At
that point, I have to work backwards to see if I can make parts,
labor, intermediate freight, and customs fees work inside the
interpolated wholesale figure.

So let me ask you... if you had the ability to buy a rig, in glass,
capable of 4 band operation where you could manually tune
and dip the amplifier, that gave you an operating range of 2000
miles on a reference dipole, AND it was built new, HOW MUCH
would you pay for that?

The Eternal Squire