I appreciate your response Dg vt!
Couple quick things.
It is a business standard that Miltner paid in full and upfront for the molds. This is actually the first 2 LQMT sales for this product. Even though Miltner owns the molds they will be kept and warehoused by LQMT. Standard industry practice. It is also a separate contact.
I was told by Julie when I ordered mine that the knives will be laser etched with the Liquidmetal logo and a simplified steer skull Miltner logo. Who knew LQMT could be lasered???
The price to Miltner has got to be less than $100 a piece; there is no margin left in it for them. If Miltner was charged $50 per piece; then I roughly calculate about a 25-30% profit margin. Just the roughest calculation. That seems to be more in-line. Could be right/could be wrong.
I think the green mystery machine in Rancho San Margarita is used as machine that works up prototypes for customers. And dabbled with by engineering. There are also environmental issues that come into play with machining. And it doesn't appear to me that Rancho San Margarita is the type of city that allows manufacturing. Warehousing yes, corporate offices yes, making anything other than Subway sandwich? No.
I mentioned potential problems to "sober up" those who might think Willy Wonka is just going to have the Ompaa Lompa's do it. And that the operation of the Liquidfantasy Machine Shoppe is really quite a departure from this new innovative technology from CalTech that potentially can be used for many wonderful things; the story that all us investors have bought into.
I wonder if Watts can reference for us what is actually involved inside the green mystery machine. It just isn't injection molding. I think it is supposed to take raw LQMT ingots, melt them down, inject them while being surrounded by a special gas, and then immediately cool the whole business down. All within some very specific time parameters or the product that comes out is bad.
