It costs absolutely nothing to make a post like this and requires absolutely no backing up with action. As soon as you are selling a comparable stand to the RJ for 50% of the cost let me know.
Hear hear.
I was going to do exactly that for a one-off for myself, but since I have only limited tooling available these days it was going to take a serious investment, much more than $350, to get my stand. Not to mention the time spent designing, prototyping, testing, redesigning, etc. With a growing family and a decent (but high-hour) job my time is much better spent either working or being with my family and using the proceeds to pay the guy who already figured that stuff out for his time.
I certainly pondered the idea of tooling up and going into business. Frankly, I think Val should start collaborating with a frame builder or machine shop (I believe the steel bits of the RJ are already being outsourced to a frame builder) who has some experience in manufacturing process optimization. I think the price could be brought down significantly even while keeping it stateside if the amount of handwork was cut down.
Joe Ahearne may be someone Val would want to talk to. He does very impressive things with steel, has some experience managing subcontractors (his Cycle Truck is made by Co-Motion), and really wants better centerstands out there. In fact he's importing the
Ursus stands because he couldn't find a reasonable one readily available on the market. I'd love to see Val and Joe put together a made-in-USA wing-type center stand (like the Ursus, Pletcher, etc.) for short-chainstay bikes and work out manufacturing issues on the RJ and offer them both at ~$150-200/ea.
Seattle-Portland collaboration ahoy!
-Dave