The Dish
Part 4

Drawing of the rear element

The set of rails I used on my first build were made at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, CA. I was working on a film on the lot and it was convenient to have them do it and I knew they would not have a problem making only one set of parts. In the 'real' world, it's often difficult to find a manufacturer to do a one off. Most company's second question is, how many 100's do you want. Warner charged $650.00 to do all the bending/welding and cover the cost of material. This was in the early 90's. I was told if I came back it would cost more for a another set,

When it came time to do another set, around 2012 I think, I began to look for another vendor, not so much about cost but Warner
could only work with 1 5/8" steel tubing and I really wanted 1 1/2" as was the original machine. I came across a company Azusa Pipe and Tube Bending. From their web site it was obvious they could do the job. They had a client list and Jay Leno was one of their clients. This sounded good as I know Jay was probably having one off parts made for his stable of cars. I contacted them and I hired them for my project. Cost this time was $1250.00 for the bending/welding and material. Oh, and if there's a next time the price will be higher.

So. now along comes Covid and inflation. I contact Azusa Pipe and Tube Bending to have three sets of rails made. One for my client, one for me and one for a friend who found out what I was doing and wants to build his own machine. I was expecting the cost to be double to say around $2500.00 per set. Well, it was over $4000 per set. The total for all three sets was over $13,000.00. Oh, and if you want more the price will be higher. I assured them that would not be a problem.. this is the last set I'm doing.

The total budget for the original machine built at M.G.M. was .... $3750.00 in 1959. I hope my machine actually works!