My Biggest Pet Peeve AS A Hobby Machinist

[Chips O'Toole]

Well, it worked in Mayberry. Are you saying TV isn't realistic?

 

[Braeden P]

Professional machining is full of rude people. Have you been to Practical Machinist? Unbelievable manners. All sorts of filthy insults flying around. When I go there, I behave as though I were dealing with mental patients.

I belong to a bunch of forums. I've learned people with certain interests are nicer than others. Bodybuilders, fishermen, and gun people tend to be astoundingly conceited and rude. Woodworkers are okay. DIY people are okay. I haven't had any problems on tractor websites. Electronics people can be trying, but that's the nature of the breed. I don't think they can help it.

Habitual tourists are really rude. If you want to be insulted, try Tripadvisor. Food forums are full of, well, I won't use the word.

Religious forums are amazingly unpleasant.

Some of the worst treatment I've gotten was on an Alzheimer's forum when I was looking after my dad. Bunch of real jewels over there.

I assume the way certain types of people behave on the web is in line with the way they act in the actual world, except some tone it down in real life because they don't want to eat fists all day.

It all depends on the fisherman, bass fisherman are ruder than a trout fly fisherman, salt guys almost always hate on freshwater fish. For me it’s way easier to meet nice people in a fly shop compared to a tackle shop and there is way more tackle shops and spin fisherman than fly fisherman. Same goes for most things, there will be rude people and some nice people. When it comes to machining companies hardinge is a hit or miss, sent 3 emails about the paint on my lathe with no response after a week and then sent another and they finally got back to me after a week.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Seems like there is no such thing as a fix-it shop any more. I used to think it would be fun to open a place and offer simple repairs for people who can't machine, weld, do wiring, or work with wood. So many things get thrown out when a quick weld or a couple of new wires would put them back in business for decades.

I remember way back in the 1980s in western Canada hick town of less than 40,000 people I had no trouble getting the only machine shop to turn a new spindle for my granddads monkey ward wood lathe.

In Toronto in the present day it's an impossibility unless you advertise in craigslist or the equivalent for a home based amateur to do you a solid.

 

[mmcmdl]

The day I set my lathes and mills back up are the day I'll be back in business . 2 of 3 things get you in the door for business . Price , quality and turn around . If you don't provide 2 out of the 3 , you're out of business . As far as making 0nesies / twoseies ? One's a prototype , two is a matched pair . 3 is production , send it out to a cnc shop .

My company will be keeping me busy long after I retire this March .

Edit ..... I just returned from Toronto . I didn't see a place I would ever be able to afford to live , let alone start up a shop .

 

[mmcmdl]

Professional machining is full of rude people.

I resemble that . Rude just because people don't understand I can't work 8 hrs. for a bag of tomatoes any longer . I become very nice and agreeable when someone wants and CAN/WILL pay a decent hourly rate . Not many hobbiest are willing to do just that . They save money re-using wire ties and such .

 

[TorontoBuilder]

The day I set my lathes and mills back up are the day I'll be back in business . 2 of 3 things get you in the door for business . Price , quality and turn around . If you don't provide 2 out of the 3 , you're out of business . As far as making 0nesies / twoseies ? One's a prototype , two is a matched pair . 3 is production , send it out to a cnc shop .

My company will be keeping me busy long after I retire this March .

Edit ..... I just returned from Toronto . I didn't see a place I would ever be able to afford to live , let alone start up a shop .

Oh yeah, housing in TO is unobtainium.

you can rent out storage lockers as mini shops... ours is too large to afford the rent on, so it's in brother's 400 ft2 two car garage and overflows into his basement and mine.

Back in the day I almost purchased a 2000 ft2 industrial condominium with a mezzanine converted to illegal apartment. It was for sale for under $200K CAD. Kicking myself now. But wife was worried that the mezzanine level violated zoning and the condo board making a fuss

 

[westerner]

Small shops that will do that kind of work are a rarity these days and most are either out of business or on their way out…

This is me, and has been for quite some time. Thankfully, I am retired and no longer care about 'the business'

 

[C-Bag]

i guess it just depends on the shop. My bottom line keeps growing just staying with my standard line. Custom work for me was a time sink that cost me more in time and headaches.

My slack time is better spent upgrading my production line which has increased efficiency and sped up production. Every time I’ve done that it has paid for itself. Building custom equipment I can put aside for later if there is an order instead of getting tangled in customer project works for me.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

i guess it just depends on the shop. My bottom line keeps growing just staying with my standard line. Custom work for me was a time sink that cost me more in time and headaches.

My slack time is better spent upgrading my production line which has increased efficiency and sped up production. Every time I’ve done that it has paid for itself. Building custom equipment I can put aside for later if there is an order instead of getting tangled in customer project works for me.

The fallacy again... time does not cost you money, it's a billable item. The more time you have to bill the greater the profits. Just ask lawyers. It's why the bill down to the minute. If you're not billing for every minute you're producing product for a client you're doing it wrong.

Why upgrade if it's not to be able to improve efficiency in order to bill more hours?

The only excuse that holds up is when you have more work than the ability to perform it, and in that case you fail if you dont winnow out the customers that who make you the lowest profit margin, usually this is the semi-regular medium volume customer who demands pricing that should be reserved for steady high volume customers only. There are so many potential low volume customers that are happy to pay high premiums just to be able to get a part it is fool hardy to ignore them entirely. At least toss out a very high price to assess profit potential.

Fear keeps businesses bound to the clients they have and know.

When I started HVAC design work my client roster was entirely low volume high demand heating contractors who needed jobs done asap, at the lowest price point. I worked full time and had two part time employees. I started gaining interest from architects and initially turned them away because I was too busy struggling to meet the demands of existing clients who were keeping me poor. My competition was a bunch of part timers who worked at HVAC contractors and who were happy to under cut my prices because they were getting paid cash under the table.

Had I not taken business courses, I'd have never learned and applied business cost analysis for various client models, and never have been able to grow into a vertically integrated company providing a broad spectrum of consulting and inspection services for high end clientele

 

[projectnut]

I resemble that . Rude just because people don't understand I can't work 8 hrs. for a bag of tomatoes any longer . I become very nice and agreeable when someone wants and CAN/WILL pay a decent hourly rate . Not many hobbiest are willing to do just that . They save money re-using wire ties and such .

Unfortunately, that's all too common today. Most hobbyists I've dealt with are as cheap as they come. As a result, I no longer do anything other than my own projects or occasionally help a friend who runs a commercial shop. I've seen "customers" come in with a job that would take a minimum of 4 hours to do correctly and start the conversation with "I've got this 10-minute job I'd like you to look at". Not only that they show up unannounced and think you should drop everything to start on their job immediately.

The other side of the coin is when the job is done, they want to pay you next week. Sometimes the week stretches into a month or more, and as the time goes on their memory starts to diminish. They can't remember the agreed upon price or come up with something that's a small fraction of what they were quoted.

These are some of the main reasons commercial shops aren't in a hurry to do business with hobbyists. Commercial customers have established lines of credit, by in large don't negotiate prices, and pay on time. You can only get burned so many times before you learn not to stick your fingers in the fire.