My Biggest Pet Peeve AS A Hobby Machinist

[Bi11Hudson]

This post could generate political content very easily. Both my own, and responses. . . For this I apologize. I am doing my best to avoid any political statement, but such will be an inherent part of what I want to say.

In older days, my father's days,(pre WW2) a local fix-it shop was a common sight. And marginaly profitable. Not a lot but a man that was mechanicly inclined and liked to tinker could "tickle his fancy" and get paid for it. There wasn't enough profit margin to meet today's living standards but in Pop's day, living "standards" weren't so expensive. People walked instead of rode, there was no TV or video, many modern appliances or devices are just that, modern.

Then there was the manufacturing base, every thing was made fairly locally. There was no "off shore" manufacturing, no "Chinese" cheaply made replacement. No plastic this, or pot metal that. Well, there were but mostly for toys. Appliances were repairable, and parts could be acquired. It may be that junk pile of acquired broken devices that provided replacement parts, today folks are culturlly steered away from keeping those "junk piles". Intentionally?, I don't know.

Many (most?) modern appliances are made, engineered from the ground up, to be disposable. You don't fix anything, you run down to the store and buy a new replacement from China. Or VietNam, or India, or whereever. The old one is meant to fail relatively quickly so there would be a replacement market for developing nations that would buy their product.

With the present animosity with mainland China, the source of most of today's cheap appliances, this disposable society is coming to a very abrupt end. "Things" will still be disposable for a long time, engineers have forgotten how to build repairable "things". But to a true tinkerer, even unrepairable items can be repaired. The end result is usually not very pretty, but the device will work. The question is whether the tinkerers of the world will still be around to repair those "disposable" things. Or will they too have become disposable.

I happen to enjoy rebuilding the old, repairable, models I have acquired. And/or "scratch building" something that is not available or replacement parts for something broken. By most modeling "standards", I and my kind am considered to be anomolous, old buzzards that still use the old methods where nothing is "scrap", literally anything can be repurposed. I do trains, called "Model Railroading", there are others that do model airplanes, or model ships, or old (12":1') cars and trucks, or people that do machine work as a hobby.

Those are the people that will become the modern equivilent of the "local fix-it man" of the future. Those that are still alive. . . Their time will become a sellable product, and it will seem expensive to the rest of the world. But as things degenerate, they will find that the price is really necessary if they want to maintain their "standard of living".

.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

This post could generate political content very easily. Both my own, and responses. . . For this I apologize. I am doing my best to avoid any political statement, but such will be an inherent part of what I want to say.

In older days, my father's days,(pre WW2) a local fix-it shop was a common sight. And marginaly profitable. Not a lot but a man that was mechanicly inclined and liked to tinker could "tickle his fancy" and get paid for it. There wasn't enough profit margin to meet today's living standards but in Pop's day, living "standards" weren't so expensive. People walked instead of rode, there was no TV or video, many modern appliances or devices are just that, modern.

Then there was the manufacturing base, every thing was made fairly locally. There was no "off shore" manufacturing, no "Chinese" cheaply made replacement. No plastic this, or pot metal that. Well, there were but mostly for toys. Appliances were repairable, and parts could be acquired. It may be that junk pile of acquired broken devices that provided replacement parts, today folks are culturlly steered away from keeping those "junk piles". Intentionally?, I don't know.

Many (most?) modern appliances are made, engineered from the ground up, to be disposable. You don't fix anything, you run down to the store and buy a new replacement from China. Or VietNam, or India, or whereever. The old one is meant to fail relatively quickly so there would be a replacement market for developing nations that would buy their product.

With the present animosity with mainland China, the source of most of today's cheap appliances, this disposable society is coming to a very abrupt end. "Things" will still be disposable for a long time, engineers have forgotten how to build repairable "things". But to a true tinkerer, even unrepairable items can be repaired. The end result is usually not very pretty, but the device will work. The question is whether the tinkerers of the world will still be around to repair those "disposable" things. Or will they too have become disposable.

I happen to enjoy rebuilding the old, repairable, models I have acquired. And/or "scratch building" something that is not available or replacement parts for something broken. By most modeling "standards", I and my kind am considered to be anomolous, old buzzards that still use the old methods where nothing is "scrap", literally anything can be repurposed. I do trains, called "Model Railroading", there are others that do model airplanes, or model ships, or old (12":1') cars and trucks, or people that do machine work as a hobby.

Those are the people that will become the modern equivilent of the "local fix-it man" of the future. Those that are still alive. . . Their time will become a sellable product, and it will seem expensive to the rest of the world. But as things degenerate, they will find that the price is really necessary if they want to maintain their "standard of living".

.

I will concur that the corporate psychopathy that lead to the disposable economy where nothing is able to be fixed has lead to the demise of the local trades that used to fix all sorts of things.

This failing in large cities at least has led to maker spaces and technical people having nights where anyone can bring in anything to see if it can be fixed for free.

BUT I did want to get back to my original premise. It was not about jack of all trade shops. It was about the inability to get responses from specialists whose entire business model is to be the outsource supplier of some essential service.

I also NEVER say to a potential supplier :Hey dudes, I'm a hobby machinist and I need x, y or z from you"

I always start every new contact with a supplier as if I am a trade seeking to sub out a service like heat treating. I always make a specific request for quotation just as if I expected from my potential clients. I always research as much as possible first to confirm that the company provides the services I'm requesting so as to avoid wasting their time responding to potential customer that they can't service.

IMO so many companies have become so risk adverse that they have doomed their futures. They're the modern day carriage makers.

I should not have to seek services from companies 200 kms away or worse, in another country, but I do far too frequently.

 

[Reddinr]

that junk pile of acquired broken devices

I was raised in Maine. "The pile" was and is still part of the culture there I think. Over the years my pile has gotten smaller and is hidden away because I'm married and can compromise. Just don't try to walk around the attic of my shop.

On topic though: I understand a business turning down some work, but not answering an email is just plain bad manners. It takes just seconds to write a couple of lines.

 

[Aaron_W]

BUT I did want to get back to my original premise. It was not about jack of all trade shops. It was about the inability to get responses from specialists whose entire business model is to be the outsource supplier of some essential service.

I think a lot of this comes down to burn out from but I can buy one for $5 syndrome when they are quoted $65 for a project. You see this everywhere.

I had a friend who was a professionally trained Gardner. He would quote a landscaping project for doing it right, and would often be countered with but I can pay a couple of guys out front of Home Depot to it for $100. They expected him to price match a couple of random laborers working under the table. They didn't understand that going cheap would result in dead trees or a stone walkway coming apart after the first winter.

You see the same on woodworking forums from people that make high end custom furniture. But I can buy a table at Ikea for 10% of your price. So go buy it at Ikea.

People get burned out on this stuff and some will just focus on the bigger clients who understand the worth of what they are buying.

Maybe you do understand this and would pay the prices required, but you are probably 1 in 50, so they don't even bother thinking it a waste of time.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Maybe you do understand this and would pay the prices required, but you are probably 1 in 50, so they don't even bother thinking it a waste of time.

I know of at least 100 companies in North America that make the finest quality goods, stuff they charge a premium for.

What separates those companies from all the others? Because frankly, if there is a will every company could choose to be the best at something and charge premium prices and be sought after.

Two things.

They did not assume, they take the time to ascertain if each potential client was a good fit for their company. Most businesses primary first point of contact is via email rather than a showroom. Online clients don't roll up in a Mercedes so that you can make certain immediate judgements about how much they have to spend.

Secondly, those companies dont get burned out, because they understand their business and what mix of clients they need to be successful without scrambling and scrounging.

example, Goebel Furniture sells custom heirlooom quality furniture, often custom designed for their clients. They have an online presence that sets expectations and gives potential clients an idea of what to expect. So, when they get an introductory email from someone interested in a custom barolo table do you think they ignore it and say nah, this fellow really wants ikea.

Do you think Wisconsin Metal Parts Inc gets many emails from pop down the road asking if they'll custom stamp 5 parts for him after he visited their website where the first thing he learned is that WMP is an ISO certified medium to high volume production stamping facility.

Anyway, I'll end this rant. I can't force people to become better business people.

What I really want to see are a few "bespoke" businesses in the metal working industry... then I'd know right where to go.

 

[RJSakowski]

I spent seven of my last ten working years in a startup company. We were developing a product which eventually was purchased by large pharma and biotech companies.

From a customer point of view, my approach to having job shops do work for us was to provide an RFQ which stated precisely the work to be done and the quantity requested stating that these parts were for prototype evaluation. I also stated what estimated annual production requirements were if/when the prototype went into production. Note that these were honest estimates to the best of our knowledge. This was usually sufficient to get a bid from the supplier.

From the supplier poiunt of view, I worked that side too. In my experience the small customer was far better at paying on time than the larger customers. One tactic that I used was to require a down payment sufficient to cover cost of materials, overhead, and possibly something for time. For customers that were reliable, balance was net 10 days. For new customers or those with a history of late payment, it was cash on delivery. If the product was shipped, it was sent C.O.D. When the customer would ba;lk at the terms, my reply was, "I'm not a bank; if you want credit, go to the bank, not me".

 

[C-Bag]

I guess I should have prefaced my reply with yup, I’ve run into being ignored a LOT. And just about 90% of all big businesses I have to deal with do everything in their power to keep themselves firewalled from everybody. From stupid phone trees to websites that only give you a FAQ that doesn’t apply to email links I can feel my email falling into the black hole round file. It has made me very phobic about dealing with them and I look till I find a responsible, responsive co.

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.

So every estimate you do you charge for that even when they don’t go for it? Must be nice. My customers are the opposite end of the economic spectrum. They are acoustic musicians, not deep pocket corp’s. So they make a hobby machinist look like millionaire in comparison. But they are reliable and I know them and their plight well as I am one. And while many are lawyers and doctors etc, the vast majority are not.

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

Because I want to keep ahead of inflation and cut my labor so I don’t have to spend as much time making them. Less of my labor means I‘d not raised my prices for 12yrs. Not until this last year and then it was a modest $5. Billable hours, what a concept.

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,

Funny, that’s what I did when I had to quit doing custom work.

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

Cool. We are obviously from completely different universes. Just the difference between Canada and the US is vast, and your focus and experience make it further so.

I’ve always just worked with my hands and have no interest in doing what has been done to me and guys like me in the name of business. Like being forced to go through a temp agency for over two years while the company paid the temp agency $5+hr more then I was getting just so they could lay off 40 guys 3 days before Christmas. That was standard practice for the 5yrs I was there. Like so many of the business class they were also convinced they could pick up guys off the street and they could do any job needed. Build machinery and pay them min wage while you had to supply your own tools. The factory was 20mi from nowhere so everybody drove at least 20mi a day.

Sorry for the boring sidetrack, but just wanted to show how different my experience is. And how I’m grateful to be able to make 3x’s what I used to make in literally 1/4 of the time. It’s all very lo tech and pitiably not as profitable as you, but crucial to my working retirement.

 

[7milesup]

engineers have forgotten how to build repairable "things".

That is a completely false statement. Engineers work for companies. Companies are all about profit to pay the shareholders their dividends. They do this by directing engineers and manufacturing to cut costs to target a market audience (price point). "Back in the day," products were designed with the knowledge and materials that were available. Today we have significantly more materials available to integrate into the design process and analysis that can be done by computers vs. slide rule. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is part of our design process that would have taken an inordinate amount of time with a slide rule.
The blame for cheap products lies squarely with us, the consumer. We want cheap, and we want to see our 401k grow. Companies, and more importantly, Wall Street, have met the demands of the consumer.

 

[Shotgun]

My experience backs up what @7milesup has to say.
I worked for 18mos at GE's Appliance Park in Louisville, KY. It has now been sold to a Chinese firm, so I doubt anything has changed. But, engineers would literally fight over how to save a penny per unit. Being able to replace a bolt together component with a solid piece of molded plastic could save a screw. . . that's half a penny plus an assembly operation. . . somebody is looking at a bonus!! Once the engineers were done testing and validating their product, it would go through a "cost out", where accountants would find cheaper suppliers for components. GE was intensely aware that their cooktop would be sitting right next to the competitor's at the big box store, both would look nearly the same and have the same specs, and both would have huge price tag stickers. The customer choice would likely as not boil down to the one that cost a dollar less.
The woman only cares about whether the trim was black or brushed stainless, the man just wants the woman to be happy, and neither of them would know which end of the screwdriver to hold when the thing does break. So they pay for the extra warranty, so that a barely living wage technician can come swap out the Chinese made circuit board when it fries itself, or just go on the assumption that it will be cheaper to replace the whole unit. They cost $300 or so new, and it's going to be over $100 just for the repairman to show up at your door to see what's wrong with it. That cooktop is 5yrs old anyway, and isn't in style anymore, after all.
So GE has a conundrum. Make the appliance reparable, necessarily making it more expensive, and not sell anything -OR- beat their competition in the race to the bottom. The bonus for them in racing to the bottom is that they get to sell another unit. No money in the repair market, after all. Is the problem that the industry has been too good at making so-called durable goods cheap, or that the repairmen should accept a lower standard of living?
Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

 

[Shotgun]

@TorontoBuilder, I note in an earlier post that you talked about working with architects to make custom components. That seems like a B2B transaction. You're talking to people that understand custom work and why it is so expensive. Most people don't understand that, and most small business don't want to deal with explaining it to them. That is called "sales" and requires a particular personality. If you don't have that personality, you find sales to be extremely difficult, tiring, or even repulsive. Many small business people just want to do what they do, so they're looking for a long term contract, and don't want to deal with one-off or even small batch work.