Company history and ownership:

Steel Silhouettes was established in 1992. It is a business operation of GLE, Inc. GLE, Inc., a Washington State corporation, is wholly owned by me, Tim Dunn and my wife, Merry-Rae Dunn. Steel Silhouettes has sold to Costco, Sam's Club (a division of Wal-Mart,) Wal-Mart, various small business, and retail, both in shopping malls and on the internet.

Steel Silhouettes has grossed as much as $500,000 a year, and netted about 25%, but I haven't been able to do it justice in recent years. The company is inactive, and it's time for me to turn it over to someone with the health and energy to make use of the opportunity that the company provides.

Company products:

See www.steelsilhouettes.com for a sampling of our most successful products.

Reason for selling the company:

Owner's poor health. I have gout, anklyosing spondylitis, a fused ankle, high blood pressure, traumatic arthritis, and hypoglycaemia.

Steel Silhouettes' Assets:

Equipment:

An industrial-grade plasma cutting table with two 50 amp plasma torches that make it possible to cut two identical patterns at the same time, a computer and all necessary items to interface with the table control system, a 30" Timesaver widebelt sander, a 50 amp mig welder, a couple of spot welders, an oxyacetelyne torch, a hand slip roll, a finger brake (hand, a 2000# electric forklift (walkie style,) some big steel racks and other warehousing storage units, 2 pallet jacks, two compressors, 1-5hp. rotary and 1-10 hp. reciprocal, a phase adder (makes 3 phase out of one phase power,) a couple of bench sanders, and programs to create and translate patterns. Also included, a 30" x 24" skin packing machine, a 30" polybag sealer, a 14' box cube van with lift gate, and several sets of displays used for Costco shows. All equipment is industrial grade. Most of our products are powdercoated, and this is the only process that we outsource, and the only process for which we do not have equipment. This equipment is valued at $100,000 or more, based on cost minus depreciation.*

Good Will:

Steel Silhouettes' biggest customer is Costco, and that business relationship is among the company's most valuable assets. We have also done business with Sam's Club and Wal-Mart, which of course are both part of the same company.

Copyrights:

We also have thousands of patterns on disc, which can be converted to .dxf format, and records about their relative popularity, based on geography. These patterns consist of actual instructions for the machine to cut, already translated into instructions for the cutting machine to follow. These patterns are copyright Tim Dunn, 1992 through the present, and are included as assets of the business.

Website:

An established and well-linked website with shopping cart system, www.steelsilhouettes.com. This website places well in the major search engines.

Training:

Offer includes complete training in all aspects of running the business, including running the equipment, using the software, and in dealing with Costco and Wal-Mart.

Inventory:

Steel Silhouettes has about $150,000 of inventory, valued at cost.

Price: $350,000

Contact:

If you would like details, please e-mail me, Tim Dunn, or call me at 360-652-4703.

* I have been asked to supply more information about Steel Silhouettes' equipment: One spot welder is a heavy duty one that we don't use. I doubt if it has any application in finish work. It has a provision for water cooling, but no pump is attached to it currently. The other is a light duty one that is adequate to weld what we used it on, 22 gauge steel parts. Both are foot operated.

The Timesaver is ancient, vintage 1970 something, but it just keeps on going. There is nothing expensive in it to break-it has no electronic parts at all in the control system that keeps the belt tracking. It has 30" wide belts, and it can grind all of our stock items that are no wider than that in their least dimension. It can de-slag our 23" x 46" parts, for example. It has a 20 hp three phase motor for grinding, and a small motor for the conveyor. I use 24 grit Zirconium belts to remove the slag from my 16 gauge products. Most of my producs are made of 16 gauge cold-rolled mild steel.

The Lockformer Vulcan table is first rate, vintage 2001 or so, with two Hypertherm 50 amp torches. Any old Windows computer, such as a 386, or any computer that can run DOS programs will interact with the table. The bending brake and slip roll are hand powered, and I think Lockformer brand.

My CAD-CAM software is no longer made, but I have plenty of backups. It is by ScanVek. My files are in their proprietary format, but can be easily converted to .DXF. I have done so and seen my files cut on other cutting systems.

The Phase-Adder produces plenty of three phase power from single phase power to run the Timesaver, which has a 30" belt width. The Timesaver and the forklift charger are the only equipment that requires three phase power. The Hypertherm torches run on single phase 220v, and the table control system is 110v. The compressors are a 10hp Champion reciprocal with a large tank, and a 5 hp. Champion rotary screw with a medium size tank. Either one alone is adequate to run the table and the Timesaver. The Hypertherms use air rather than gas, and the air is dried with two Speedaire regrigeration systems-one with a built in precooler. The other doesn't need a precooler because there is one on the reciprocal compressor.

I'd be happy to keep the compressors, air drying systems, and forklift, as I am using them in a boatbuilding project. If you client have three phase power on tap, you wouldn't need a Phase Adder, which consists of a bank of condensors and an electric generator. If you don't have one, he will need it to power the (or a) Timesaver, which is necessary to remove the slag from the cut parts. I also have a couple of hand grinding tables, using six inch wide belts for hand finishing some parts. One is a Jet, and the other is a more expensive American brand.

The truck is the ubiquitous Mitsubishi with a 14' long high-cube box, capable of carrying 7000 pounds. It has a turbo, an automatic tranny, and power steering. It should be good for another 100,000 miles or so. It has a lift gate, but I prefer to use forklifts to load and unload it. I wouldn't mind keeping it, either. It is pretty eye-catching, as I have bolted oval plaques blown up from my 23" x 46" designs, to almost 4' x 8' to the sides of the box, and my website url in letters about a foot high to each side of the box.