Rate your skimmer
Hello,
That's what I tried last year with a big failure. I thought by making stuff locally would be cheaper. However, as pretty much all material I use are brought up from the US one way or another, it's not that much cheaper. Besides, it's different when you are running a business because you have to consider brokerage charges, shipping damages, insurance, accounting. I'm not saying it's not possible to build a skimmer dirt cheap but usually that's becasue whoever is doing that is already skilled, have the equipment available, etc. When you consider the time they put in, the number of trials, at the end of the day it's in most cases cheaper to buy one from a store. It's one thing when you drive to Home Depot to pick up personal items but it's a different story when you have to factor in gas cost, auto maintenance, blah blah blah. It may sound too exaggerated but that's how it works.
For example, I can do just about anything but for me to build something like the CPR overflows I won't even bother. After factoring in the time to plan out the cutting, bending, re-cutting, cementing, and trimming, on top of setting up the jigs it's much more worthwhile to buy one.
But if you are retired, have all the time in the world, and have your own shop, then by all means go ahead and experiment.
[ 19 March 2002, 21:47: Message edited by: Titus ]
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