[AT] 1935 JD B Testing progress.

[szabelski at wildblue.net]

I would agree with all the discussion points stated. The virus has probably shut down some shops, resulting in more work for those that remained open. Then if the ones that remained open experienced a shortage of labor due to the virus, a backlog was created. There are also markets, such as the mentioned bicycle market, where there has been an explosion of sales, and bikes are becoming hard to get. The bike shortage was covered on national news a couple of times.

My wife wanted to redo her garden during the pandemic, so she went to the local Menards to get her favorite cedar wood chips. None to be found in any of their local stores. Went to their website and couldn’t find any, except one or two bags here and there, all out of state. Would have had to pay for shipping on twenty bags coming from all over the Midwest. I called the manufacturer who said they couldn’t get the cedar logs to make the chips due to the virus. The logs come from a forest about 300 miles away from them.

She then decide it was a good time to redo our deck, a little over 1200 sq ft. Went to Lowe’s and placed the order for Trex decking and railings. This was in April. Got initial delivery in late August, enough to start the job and get most of it done. Got the last of the material last week and put the final screw in last Saturday. Trex now has a notice on their website that they are experiencing long delay times. They shut down due to the virus for a while and have huge backorders. Started calling the local Trex distributor rep that supplies all the stores in Southeastern Michigan and he told me that Trex was only allowing them to fill 14 orders a month in order to produce enough product to allow them to fill the backorders and any new orders.

While I was at Lowe’s trying to find out when I would be getting any partial Trex shipments, another customer came in looking for pressure treated wood that he had ordered. He was told it wasn’t readily available, and that if he could get it somewhere else, he better go there and get it.

So in summary, the virus has shut down some people and caused labor/material shortages for others. It will probably be late next spring before things get close to being back to normal. And that may only be if the vaccines work and everybody gets vaccinated.


Carl


----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Moffat <rogerkiwi at gmail.com>
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wed, 02 Dec 2020 08:53:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [AT] 1935 JD B Testing progress.



> On Dec 2, 2020, at 8:00 AM, Mark Johnson <markjohnson100 at centurylink.net> wrote:
> 
> I think I might understand the logic...with partial to complete COVID lockdowns, all us old farts are finally starting on those engine rebuild/restoration jobs we've been promising ourselves we'd work on for years & years.
> 
> Engine machine work, especially on old designs not familiar to a machinist under 50, must doubtless take longer to set up and perform than other stuff. So, the backlog gets bigger than it would, say, if a bunch of us were overhauling small-block Chevrolets.
> 
> Anybody else buy my theory? It's entirely possible I could be full of **** :-)
> 

That works for me - I had to wait several months longer than expected for a set of wiring harnesses for my 1931 Franklin Deluxe Coupe car. The delay was 2 fold:

1 - people stuck at home working on projects they’d been putting off for years, so resulting in a large increase in orders
2 - COVID regulations causing a decrease in available workers, particularly for those who worked in close quarters with each other needing to be spread apart - which really meant that the workforce was reduced if the available space couldn’t be increased.

Roger