I think that there is "Demand" for your products ; now that you have done the pre-production (actually production) molds , companies will be more willing to market them. This Forum is an excellent "sounding board", if the companies already producing your designs became Sponsoring Vendors, their sales would take off.
The number of Subscribers to this thread, plus the casual drop-ins, should be an ignition point for Sales.
This forum has 60,000 members ? That's Sales waiting to happen.

 

Since you'll have the mold done, if you sell the fiberglass portion and provide a list of parts needed, I'm sure we'd have no problem doing our own assembly. We can always buy the glass, hardware, etc, but we can't make our own fiberglass parts. You could have a good little side business with minimal work involved

 

I just design this stuff and build prototype of my designs as a hobby. I'm not in business, and have no plans to be.

The only way the fiberglass upper doors could be available for sale is if some company decides there's enough demand for them that they could make a profit selling them.

There is a company that's planning to market the half door slider retrofit kit I've designed, that kit consists of slider windows and the necessary hardware and other materials to replace the zippered vinyl windows in factory, Bestop or Rugged Ridge soft uppers with glass sliders. It'll be a very affordable option for people who don't like the hassle of the zippered vinyl windows. If that company decides there's enough demand to make the investment in getting the fiberglass uppers to market as well, I'll be happy to help them do it.

In the meantime I do plan to continue my work on the prototype fiberglass uppers, today I finished the molds for the rear uppers so tomorrow I plan to mold the first set of parts. Hopefully by this weekend I'll have a first prototype assembled.

 

I think people are surprised because it seems as if you are doing 99% of r&d and buildup, and then stopping at easy part. I would personally be working on licensing it to a company, or finding a manufacturer that would make to my specs and drop ship.

Yes more work, but it would be nothing compared to the work you have already done.

With a good product the hard part is what you are doing. Once teamed up with a good manufacturer it shouldn't be too bad.

 

This morning I popped the molds for the rear uppers off the mold master, here they are just after trimming and washing. There are two molds - an inner shell mold and an outer skin mold.



Today I'll make a set of parts in these molds.

BTW typically molds wouldn't be made in white, but that's the color of gelcoat I had on hand so I used it because I don't intend these molds to be used for more than a half dozen or so parts each.

 

The part I enjoy is the design phase and then building the first prototypes to see my designs become reality. I'm not interested in being in business, that would take all the fun out of it for me. I guess people find that hard to understand, but designing is what interests me, not selling.

But I'm always willing to talk to companies that might be interested in marketing my designs - to date more than a dozen of my Jeep and off-road designs have been licensed by companies and are either on the market now or just about to be. If someone believes one of my designs is worth marketing, I'll be happy to explore that with them. In the meantime I'll keep designing new things .

 

I got a set of rear half door parts molded today, tomorrow they'll be cured and I'll pop them out of the molds and assemble them. If you're wondering why there's a "hole" in the middle of both parts, the window opening will be cut out of there anyway, so there's no need to waste fiberglass, resin, gelcoat or work time making the part solid there.



In between the work this week on the half door upper molding project, I've been trying to make a little progress on the Safari Cab roof. I've begun putting the skin on the framework, in these photos I've laid down the bottom of the roof ribs. My design for the roof has four recessed ribs running from front to back on the roof.





I did the same rib design on the LJ Safari Cab roof:



Once the half door project is done I'll make much faster progress on the roof work.

 

This morning I popped the half door upper parts out of the molds, trimmed them, bonded them together and shot them with a quick coat of rattle can paint.



Tomorrow I'll install the slider window and weatherstrip and post a few more photos.

 

Those look just incredible. HUGE thumbs up!

 

Thank you. I just installed the window frame and weatherstrip installed, here are a couple more photos.





The weatherstrip is standard factory weatherstrip, so these will seal as well as the factory uppers. They may even seal better, because they're stiffer than the factory uppers so they'll exert more consistent pressure on the weatherstrip.

The window is just a prototype frame - the glass isn't in it yet. Also I don't yet have the correct window clamp ring, so it's just held in place with 4 corner clips for the moment.

Also not installed yet are the stakes to attach it to the lower door. I've worked out a "universal" stake design which allows the uppers to have different types of stakes installed. So factory style stakes could be installed, or Rugged Ridge style stakes could be installed instead so the uppers could be installed on Rugged Ridge half doors.