Any interest in custom stainless steel wico sticks.

[VESUVIUS]

Hello all,

I have been making some custom 303 stainless steel joystick shafts with 38mm to 35mm ball tops in my home shop and was wondering if there would be any interest in me producing some of these for sale.

Currently I am making them with polyester pearl ball tops that are turned from a cylinder on a lathe and then epoxyed to the shaft. I know other companies make stainless steel shafts but none I have found are specific to the leaf switch style wico base.

I also plan on making some new shafts for my Nintendo Vs cabinet. 

I have also made shafts out of 360 brass and grade 5 titanium. Custom ball top shafts can be made for most any joystick I would imagine.

Anyway I don't have anything ready for sale at the moment, but I would as I said earlier just like to see if there is any interest.

One last thing I would like to mention is that I have sent a series of emails to billiard ball companies to see if I can get ball top size eight balls ordered. Let me know if there is any interest in that because I would assume the more I ordered the cheaper it would be. Also bare in mind that I have a day job and do this on the weekends.

Thanks for your time.

I will be putting some stuff up for auction on ebay, so if you see custom joys from the seller silrik, thats me.

Thanks again.

[CheffoJeffo]

I also plan on making some new shafts for my Nintendo Vs cabinet. 

Did the original shafts break ?

[ChadTower]

The shafts don't work anymore.  They're all limp and hard to manage.

[shardian]

Considering the readily available NOS wico parts market is drying up RAPIDLY, there should be a market. It will be interesting to see what you can do in picture form, and also a rough price expectancy.

[CheffoJeffo]

Considering the readily available NOS wico parts market is drying up RAPIDLY, there should be a market.

True, but most of the demand I see is for bases and grommets ... I have dozens of Wico shafts, but only a few bases and grommets left.

Having said that, I think there is a market for some exotic shafts (just waiting for the mangle!) that fit Wico sticks. Perfect market for someone turning these things himself.

[XtraSmiley]

They look great, but do you have a price?  I would be interested in maybe 8 if the price was good.  Also, do these resist rusting better than the original Wicos?

[shardian]

Dude, are those ball tops made of the fiber-optic stuff??? I would SOOO buy one or two off of you if that was the case.

[SodaPopinksi]

Sticks look really nice, I especially like the brass ones.

Those fiber optic spheres I believe are made out of glass. Would that work ok for a balltop?

[shardian]

Sticks look really nice, I especially like the brass ones.

Those fiber optic spheres I believe are made out of glass. Would that work ok for a balltop?

I thought it was more of a hard acrylic myself, but you are probably right. I have a fiberoptic ball at home, I'll mess with it tonight to non-destructively test its durability.

[Havok]

You might want to see if you can do something like the Slikstik lit handles, that would be cool...

[ChadTower]

Afraid they don't ground properly?   

C'mon, man, barely any amps going through a CP.  Touch it.

[SodaPopinksi]

I thought it was more of a hard acrylic myself, but you are probably right. I have a fiberoptic ball at home, I'll mess with it tonight to non-destructively test its durability.

All I have to go by are a few sites I found with them, some with the exact same picture you posted, most sites say nothing but a few said glass with fiber optic strands running through it. Found another saying its "Ulexite"... so I dunno. They would make very cool balltops if possible!

[VESUVIUS]

Hello,

I'm not sure if you could use a fiber optic sphere on one of these. One, I think it is made of glass and I don't have a way to drill it. Two, from the description it seems like light passes through the sphere. So even if I were able to mount it on a shaft the, the shaft itself may change the optic quality. I suppose I could place a small flange or pedestal on top of a shaft and epoxy the sphere on top, but I don't know how that would hold up to the rigors of game play.

Anyway the price for the standard stick with a polished 303 or 316 stainless steel shaft (no rusting) with a polyester balltop will be $20 per stick or $35 for a pair plus shipping. Now for those of you who think that this is too expensive please consider a few things. Firstly the material cost as I am not a factory dealing in bulk is about 7 dollars per stick. Secondly the time involved to make one stick is about 2.5 to 3.5 hours. So you can see that I'm working here for less than minimum wage plus I have power and bandaid costs to consider. I'm not trying to make a living at this or get rich but I have to cover the cost of the hobby. So I think it is a good deal considering it is a custom piece, and not readily available from any major manufacture.

My main plan here since I mainly do this on the weekends is to make these as time permits and sell them on ebay. However I wanted to get some feedback from you guys and let you know that I was part of this message board and was willing to take special requests as time permits.

Remember I can do more than just Wico size sticks so you can ask about others, but you have to have accurate dimensions for me to build any thing. The web site I buy the polyester pearl rod from is masecraft.com so check it out for the colors I am currently using.

Thanks for you interest, I plan on making a few more variations and posting picture later in the week so check back if interested

[XtraSmiley]

At those prices I would take one red one for now that would fit into a Wico base.  Also, I think prefer the larger balltop.

[SodaPopinksi]

I wanted to show off the awesome balltops and 360 brass Wico shaft VESUVIUS created for me. If I didn't know any better I'd swear the balltops came straight from Sanwa, they are perfect right down to the little flat area around the thread. The Wico shaft is also perfect and its the taller variety for wood cp's. The top of it is threaded to accept Sanwa/Seimitsu balltops as well! The second pic shows the shaft in a NOS Wico 4 way I managed to get on eBay with an Antique Green balltop he also made. The third is with a purple LB39 bubble top. I'm extremely happy with the results, VESUVIUS does amazing work 

[XtraSmiley]

Dude I need a long handled Wico SS one.  How do I buy?

[VESUVIUS]

Hello all,

First off let me say thanks to Sodapopinksi for his gracious praise. A pleasure to business with.


Now for anyone interested in some custom ball top shafts be it Wico or other manufactures, here is the information I gave to XtraSmiley

(Note the below pricing is for a shaft to fit the Wico base only, others may require a larger and longer pieice of stainless steel stock.) 

The cost is $20 plus shipping for a polished 303 stainless steel shaft with a thermo set resin ball top. I'm now  threading the shafts to screw the ball top on instead of using epoxy. The threads are 6mm with a 1mm thread pitch so you can also use Sanwa/Seimitsu and similar ball tops on the shaft. I can currently make 1 1/2" ball tops in the following solid colors: red, cobalt blue, dark forest green, deep purple, black, brown, burgundy, orange, hot pink and yellow. I can also make the following pearl colors but at about 36mm max diameter: cobalt blue, sea blue, antique green, pewter, copper and a gold-orange color. I also have an artificial jade for a 36mm ball or I have black canvas Micarta which can be 1 1/2 inch diameter. You may view the color of the pearls at masecraftsupply.com. Also note that the pearls and artificial jade are polyester resin as described by the manufacturer. The Micarta is a phenolic thermo set resin and will cost an additional $1.50 since this material is more costly.

Let me please reiterate that I'm not a machine shop and I primarily do this on the weekends. It takes me about a day to make one complete shaft and ball top so depending on orders if there are any of course, it might take a little time to process an order.

Let me know if anyone is interested or if there are any questions and I will give a quote.

At this time I will except paypal, money order or even a personal check. (payment must clear before shipping of course)

Thank you for your time.

[XtraSmiley]

OK, so I have a few questions.  What are the colors above that Soda got?  That blue looks cool, but so does the red one as well as the blue in his third pic.  How do I order them?

Also does the SS rust?  What if I use it in a Wico base which has a little rust in it do to the old joystick?  What about the brass?  That looks nice with the green.  Thanks.

[VESUVIUS]

Hello,

Soda has sea blue pearl and copper pearl. The blue/purple ball is either from Sanwa or maybe ponyboy. The Stainless will not rust even if you put it in a base that had a rusty shaft previously. The brass will not rust either but it will tarnish so you will have to shine it up once in a while. The brass is also a softer material so if your not careful it could be more easily scratched.  I have to shrink my pics to post the solid colors for you still. It will be just a moment.

Thanks.

[NoOne=NBA=]

Another option you might consider would be hollow shafts.
That would let people create their own lighted sticks, or top-fire sticks.
RayB had a nice thing going for awhile machining down Wico top-fire shafts until he ran out.