Rockfish, time to start knocking on some different doors.
Last month was a record for us, and on the 18th of this month we have already surpassed last month, so this is going to be a really good month. Backlog is enough that if parts, castings and material shows up we will be quite healthy for the next 6 months if nothing new shows up.
The POs keep rolling in, the quotes keep rolling in and our two main customers(clients) are getting slammed with some big orders. We actually had a walk in trying to salvage a cement mixer and knew it wouldn't be cheap, that was nice, and it was fun, it was a section of a plastic gear, made a silicone mold off of an existing piece and poured it. We've been working with an artist, and he just got a business loan the other day to run out a bunch of prototypes (fancy furniture) so that should be a good little chunk right there.
One customer is prototyping some equipment for the oil industry and already is guaranteed 20 something units. We helped them out a lot with the engineering on it (for free because they are a good customer, and they don't even bother going elsewhere for quotes anymore, we just keep our prices fair, and always deliver) that should be more money.
The department of defense stuff is rolling right along, and the government seems to be buying all kinds of stuff.
Another customer who never did a lot of business, seems to be ramping up also, I think his stuff is mostly going overseas.
So the work is out there, you just have to go find it. If I were you RockFish, I would go seriously looking for some small government contractors, the ones that don't actually make anything, but buy and sell and make up repair kits. There are at least four that I know of in my area, and it is a very small population area. They use tons of bushings, spacers, pins, screws(stuff that is up your alley), and the government is always looking for that stuff. Where I used to work, the boss was always trying to get me to quote piles of little round things, say on average about 20 quotes a day of that kind of thing. I would tell you who it is, but you would never get paid, 4 months on a $100 invoice
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Good luck, you'll get there.