Finding Work For Milling Machine

[ChandlerJPerry]

Good luck. Since you blurred the contact info on your cards, I can’t tell if you put your city where you are. These days it’s hard to tell when a business is located by phone number anymore. And you never know how far your cards may travel.

It’s always funny to me when I see blacked out license plates on pictures, because what can anyone benefit from it. It’s already out there for everyone who see the car in person anyways. [emoji38]


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I didn't think to put my city, bit of a miss on my part. I agree about the license plate thing, I get a chuckle out of it. The only reason I hid it here is because I am trying to avoid spam. Seems like they scrape basically everywhere for info to send spam to anymore. Ultimately it's probably a futile battle, but since it's a fresh email and phone number, I'm trying to stave it off as long as I can.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

I thought I would consult the brain trust about this.

Currently my lathe is in pieces, it needs spindle bearings, some other repairs to the spindle, and I need to convert it to a VFD as the electrical panel for it is a mess (missing correct contactors etc), parts no longer available.

Not having a lathe is a big handicap, but I'm in the catch 22 situation of needing to make some extra income to get the lathe working.

Does anyone have suggestions for what kind of customers to target that would have mostly mill work? I've run an ad on Facebook marketplace that recently got flagged and taken down. Apparently promoting services is against the rules. Same story on our local Craigslist equivalent. Craigslist is dead in my area, the prevailing platform is a local service called KSL. I did have some small success doing so, I made around $100 over the course of a month prior to ads getting removed.

Possible projects/tchotchkes to sell wouldn't be a bad avenue as well.

The mill in question is fairly capable. It's a 1400~ lb knee mill, dovetail sliding ram with rotation and nod on the head, 9x42 table. Think 3/4 scale Bridgeport.

I'm not exactly looking to go pro here, but making a couple hundred bucks would greatly enhance the war effort, I'm sure many of you can relate.

Talk to local wrecker services and small hot shot companies, those guys are stretching equipment life as much as possible. If you are in a farming area post an ad on the board at the local feed stores and coops. Your lathe being down does represent a problem as I have made money turning special bushings and pins and typically use both machines in concert. Good luck.

 

[ChazzC]

Thought I would give a quick update and show off the business cards I worked up with help from my wife. I drew the logo, she did the overall design using a tool called Canva, they also offered printing that I used.

View attachment 510353
I like the simplicity (and the inspiration!)
View attachment 510355

I'm going to go try and sell myself and hand them out at some local businesses. Wish me luck!

Always carry a stack with you, particular when visiting suppliers: proves you are a business and they see lots of potential customers for you every day. Trade shows are also good, not only foe one-on-one, but drop one in every goldfish bowl you see at the booths – not only might you win something, but these vendors can also be a source of leads. Good luck with the adventure!


Developing logos is often a challenge; I decided earlier this year that I "needed" golf shirts with a logo for a local show and found a local shop that didn't have any minimums and reasonable rates so developed this:

Embroidered in silver on grey shirts.

When I had my full-time consulting business in the 90's I worked up this, which I put on everything:


While I though this was a good idea since Iwas able to deduct the cost of the balls, I sometimes got corned when playing on a hole where there were breakable objects (and people) nearby.