eelnoraa
Contributor
@scrane it is possible that a smaller backplate consumes more steel than a standard or even a long backplate.
Steel can usually be bought in 4/5/6/7/8ft wide by 8/10/12/20ft long. So we'll use a 4x8 sheet of steel for shits and giggles. If a backplate is 1ft by 2ft, then you can get 16 backplates out of the sheet of steel *4 rows of 4*. If however the backplate is only 1ft by 1.8ft if it was a "short backplate" then you still get 16 backplates out of the sheet, but you have almost a foot of steel that you had to buy and scrap so functionally each plate still "consumes" the same amount of material, the smaller ones just have waste
Now a real backplate is something like 11x15" when flat, and is contoured so there is waste in between the plates and blah blah blah, but when you make a short backplate that is a couple of inches shorter, it is not short enough to allow you to fit an extra row of backplates in there to maximize material consumption.
When DSS was in business, his backplates were all essentially the same price *I think like a $10 per size difference or something pretty negligible*, and Halcyon's short backplates are also the same price as the standard length ones, so it's not like there is any egregious price increase if any at all. The demand for them must not be there if the companies that import their plates from overseas are not producing them. There are MOQ's to contend with, and carrying costs of holding inventory so your cash is tied up, and if there was a significant demand for them, someone like a DGX would be importing them with as large as they are. The fact that they aren't, and Halcyon is one of the only manufacturers that has a short backplate would indicate that the demand is simply not there.
One reason is really the volume or throughput. Plate needs heavy machinery and facilities for fabrication. The capital expenditure is more or less fixed, and large compared to operation cost. The more you can produce, the lower the overall cost. The market for regular size plate is so much bigger, making it less expansive to produce.
Same price at Extreme Exposure at $236.25 for either size. The aluminum is cheaper at $215.25.
I think this has been the pricing structure for H plate for a long time. Both size cost the same. Different material cost difference.