i need to vent for a minute...........not sure what the story is with the true blox and what they are or what they are made of. looks like a piece of "T" bar steel with a piece of plastic or foam glued to the bottom. if they work then thats fine and i have no issue with these. in any case first time i heard of this guy was when a buddy of mine bought a set of clearcoat sanding blocks and he sent me a picture of them. so this douche bag gets some acrylic or polycarb he has laying around, cuts them into squares then cons people into buying them at $50 set and makes them out to be the best invention ever while painters and body guys have been already doing this for 30 years. the guy actually responded to my questions and says it includes his book of trix and his knowledge in this book is worth 10 times what he charges. so he is telling me that i need to spend 50 bucks on 25 cents worth of scrap acrylic and a book telling me how to wrap a piece of sandpaper around them and wetsand the clearcoat....really? . if he actually invented something or had some design and engineering into something special then absolutely i would have no problem with this but to just hack up some squares of plex that you can go into home depot and buy then try and sell it at a 5000% markup to unsuspecting people because his name is on it burns me up. guy is a friggin con man as far as im concerned. no different than me selling you empty water bottles full of oxygen for $20 ea.
Sorry you’re so frustrated. To address your biggest concern; they are marked up, however not quite as much as you’re assuming. But, it’s a product that takes a lot of time and money to make, despite them being little pieces of plastic.
The larger blocks are neoprene rubber handles that I have custom extruded just for these, and all the plastic is cnc saw cut, all the edges are polished on a diamond polishing machine (they can’t be flame polished as most plastic is) and then finally the edges are knocked down with a router. There are 9 different thicknesses of plastic, which is polycarbonate and acrylic. There’s a whole lot of time that goes into assembling each set.
Aside from my time and material costs, there’s a tremendous amount of value with these. They really do work, and work very well. The beauty is that you don’t have to buy them.
Also, I very freely give out a ton of information. There’s about 200 tips on my website, and I explain absolutely everything. Folks are more than welcome to read all of it, and ask as many questions as they like, and never give me a penny.
My goal is to make a positive difference in our industry. My hope is that some day I’ll have this grown big enough so the blocks can be manufactured, and I won’t have to assemble them on my nights and weekends and between all the other work.
I hope this helps a little bit.
Best wishes,
Tyler Krause