Hourly Rate for Contract Scraping

Does anyone have an idea what the going rate for a contract scraper is? Are is it bid by the job?Job is 18" dove tail slide with a gib.Any help would be nice.

Back when my boss used to rent me out for $126 an hour. Along with me came all the scraped tooling, squares, levels, my whole range of skills for scraper prep work on a planer including the planer tooling, alignment etc. That was a hefty pick-up load of stuff. Part of the deal was the customer did all the grunt work and gave me on request a helper.

Last time I peddled my scraping talent in 2000 I asked for and got $35 (actually, they lept at it) an hour providing from my own equipment inventory pretty much what I used working for my old boss. They wanted the slides and clapper-boxes rebuilt on an old G A Gray open-side planer; a looooong skinny one they used for making press brake dies.

There's a story attached I won't go into unless requested.

So scraping talant is scarce but seldom needed. That makes it hard to base a rate. Contract rates are typically higher than employees and there's travel and per deim on top of that. It's skilled work so I suggest 1 1/2 times the toolmaker's or mold maker's hourly rate in your area plus extras, consumables, etc as separate charges to be determined oncompletion.

Use this rate as a basis for a fixed price quote but be sure that you include a clause for additional charges for unplanned and emergent work clause in your agreement and the use of a customer helper at company expense as needed for wrenching, clean-up, watching levels, etc. Let the customer know that the work needs to be done and that nut and bolt mechanic work can be done as well in-house as it can by an expensive contractor but it will cost less. Offer to train one of their guys. This sounds like a good deal to the cutomer and it makes you seem benevolent but it's a cyncal ploy, it will lead to future work fixing their screw-ups.

Forrest Addy said:

There's a story attached I won't go into unless requested.

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OK Forrest, you spilled the beans.. tell us the story! You know we want to hear it!

I pay $90.00/hr per person to some now retired GM guys who bring in their own equipment.
They have been doing it for me for over 25 years and are worth every penny.

I'm having them train one of my people as they say they are gonna quit doing it in the next couple of years. Not much demand for machine rebuilding in my area and they really don't care about the money anymore.

Real hard to find good people at this. Flat is one thing, square in all three axis on a grinder is whole nother animal.
Maybe in 10 years my guy will be decent at it.
Bob

BWE001 said:

Does anyone have an idea what the going rate for a contract scraper is? Are is it bid by the job?Job is 18" dove tail slide with a gib.Any help would be nice.

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You might want to try to send a message to this fella, who is a member here and machine rebuilder/scraper

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/members/sidecar580/

Hm. 18" slide? Is it portable so you can ship it?

I got a buddy in Utah, who partners with me teaching my scraping classes.

Thanks Forrest, always looking for work ;-) most of the jobs I quote as a comeplete job not by the hour but im shooting for 15 - 20 bucks more per hour then the local shops are getting for machine work. if I have something ugly likke the machines been apart for 3 years sitting in peaces I have no idea whats out of alinement then its by the hour. as anyone that will tell you the cost of collecting all the required gages, tools, machines and everything you need to do a good job of it can be a bit more then duanting :-) after doing scraping on the side for almost 20 years I feel like I can do a fair job of it and now have most of the gages and tools I need, im still missing a good sized surface grinder
( something around 15 ft) and perhaps a planer mill. I have a pretty good sized Devlieg that I can do most things on. Cheers Don

Forrest Addy said:

B.........They wanted the slides and clapper-boxes rebuilt on an old G A Gray open-side planer; a looooong skinny one they used for making press brake dies.

There's a story attached I won't go into unless requested.

.

Click to expand...

x 2 on plse consider this a formal story request, PO in the mail...

X3 on the story request my friend .... I dont think I've heard this one ;-)

would like to here story as sender BWE001

Add me ...


Nick

OK. Reconditioning clapper boxes.

This was on a Gray openside planer of 16 ft stroke with a 2 ft wide table. It had seen several generations of press brake die work. It started as almost a beater but it was level, the bed and table way were in pretty good shape. Someone had rebuilt the rail and saddles. The slide and the clapper boxes were the final step.

The thing that made this tricky was it was supposed to be a lick and a promise fix and there was plenty of wear. I HATE lick and a promise jobs. Do it right. However, funds were tight and time was short. All through the job I was endlessly heckled by the suprintendent: "Are you done yet?"

We've done dovetail slides here before so I won't go into detail. The lick and a promise fix I did on the slide didn't do them justice but there was significant improvement. I reduced the 0.020" hourglass in the slide to about 0.002" and took all the rocking chair out of the female dovetail. Everything blued more or less. Needless to say the fit and the bearing left somethng to be desired.

I wanted to replace the leadscrews and nuts too but I was over-ruled by the customer. I barely got to make an eccentric bushing to restore the slide lead screws to center in their nuts. I performed most of the slide work on a borrowed planer down the street. This greatly shortened the work compared to doing itall with a scraper.

There's only one way to fix a worn clapper and that is to make a new clapper to fit a re-conditioned box. You can't shim it. I ordered DuraBar for new clappers so it could ship while the work on the slides was in progress. While I was on the planer I skimmed all the surfaces of the clapper boxes to prep for scraping and doctored up the radiused slot (I call it the "bail") that clamps the tilt of the clapper box. OK that was the slides. When they went back on they worked pretty well. At least you could traverse them and they wouldn't bind on the ends or flop loose in the middle.

When the material for the clapper came in I had my helper jump on the mill and rough them to my sketch. Meanwhile I scraped and doctored the boxes so the backs were flat and the bottom, sides and ledge were square. The clappers weren't that big a deal but you have to remember the clearance with the cheeks of the box had to be held to a bit less than 0.001". Any more and the tool will side shift, any less and they won't close reliably from their own weight.

It took a couple of times back and forth on the mill to get both clappers rough fitted and drilled for their studs and wear plates. Then I had to scrape the clapper width to suit the width of the box cheeks, then fit the clapper to the bottom of the box and the ledge. This has to be carefully done because the tool lift and thrust force is transmitted to the box by means of the ledge, the bottom flat and the cheeks. The pin remains unloaded except for the moment that wants to roll the clapper out of the box. So all fitting has to be done first before the pin is fitted.

The final step was almost a jig boring task: bore the clapper and box for the clapper pin as an assembly. This is a tapered hole about 1/4" per ft. If the hole was not dead square the clapper when raised would skew and bind. I had my helper make a couple of new HT pins about 5" too long. I had a couple of whopping big taper pin reamers in the range of the overized pin I would be making. It happens my helper was a good lathe hand and he knew how to make the pins to duplicate the reamer dimensions.

So with the clapper and box securely clamped in registry we bored a stepped hole to take the reamer. The corners of the step would guide the reamer so it wouldn't wander. But by bit we drove the reamer into the stepped hole stopping short to try the pin - which naturally needed some adjustment. As it happened the customer had a good cylndrical grinder and my helper made it his job to doctor the pin's taper. At last we had a fit on the first one. It blued full length almost but the pin seemed a little barrel shaped. A little polishing fixed that. Lastly we had to ream just a couple tenths from the clapper so the pin when snugged up wouldn't bind it.

After that, mark the pins, cut them to length, and thread for the retainer nuts.

I should say something about my helper, Jim Short. He was machinist of long experience. Instead of resenting working for an outside guy he jumped right to it and helped me intelligently using his whole skill. He also carefully watched what I was doing, asked sensible quetions, and asked to be taught which I did. I have a hunch next time that outfit needed fancy scraping, Jim would get the first try.

I omitted many details like tuning up the tool lifters, re-fitting the clapper swivels, adding clamping plates for the bail, new strongbacks and wear-plates etc, but that's mostly make and mechanic work. Detailing it would triple the length of this post, bore most people to tears, tax my typing (my legs are going to sleep), and detract from the lesson which is how to overhaul a planer (or shaper) clapper box.

Thanks for that, Mr A, worth every virtual cent as usual!

There's only one way to fix a worn clapper and that is to make a new clapper to fit a re-conditioned box. You can't shim it.

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Forrest, you gotta think outside the (clapper) box

I detest seeing a machine with a (usually ill fitting, sometimes brass) shim screwed on the side of the clapper. But have always wondered why clappers were not made with wedge gibs so they could be adjusted. And more easily rebuilt. With a properly made hardened wedge gib, the entire clapper box can be maintained with a close fit for a longer accurate service life, and can more readily be rebuilt with minimal tools. Re-face the wedge on a surface grinder with sine chuck, rescrape the mating faces of clapper & box, align the parts and bore & ream, put it back to work.










Scroll down the page about 1/2 way for narrative:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...ner-reciprocal-machination-194069/index3.html

smt

Nice work Steven. I thought about bonded liner plates, chrome plating (works surprisingly well), and an endwise stepped gib, but a vertical gib? Hm. I got to think on that. Obviously it wworking well for you. Got a report?

Forrest Addy said:

Last time I peddled my scraping talent in 2000 I asked for and got $35 (actually, they lept at it) an hour ...

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Forrest, did you by chance mean $135 per hour?

Nice work Steven. I thought about bonded liner plates, chrome plating (works surprisingly well), and an endwise stepped gib, but a vertical gib? Hm. I got to think on that. Obviously it wworking well for you. Got a report?

Click to expand...

Thanks, Forrest.

I didn't have the option of chroming, they closed the hard plating shop at the foot of the hill a few years ago. I probably considered most of the gib options, including dovetailing one in the side, to work endways on a long taper. (At the extreme, a gibbed gib?) The parameters seemed to be to keep the gib as thin as possible at the bottom in order not to weaken the box cheeks. But it had to be thick enough to be non-distorting when bolted, and thick enough to take effective bolts albeit with reduced heads. The rest fell out of that.

I've also puzzled over this for years, and really feel the adjustability is a useful attribute, certainly at no more effort (probably much less) than making and fitting a new clapper, considering a clapper like this style with integral bolts will "age" and distort a bit in use. Preferable to have one with 80 yrs of "settling" on it, rather than a new one.

Regarding a use report, it's one of those nifty things that works so well with no effort that it is a visceral pleasure to use the machine from that aspect. It's hard to imagine there is enough force to ever hint at moving the wedge under side loads commensurate with the planer size. As far as wearing it out, I should hope to live so long

I do keep meaning to get around to scraping the tool head slide, but the wood shop is too busy to take time.

smt

That's a nifty piece of work Stephen. Regards Tyrone.