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Running a shop with old, low end machines

converterking

Stainless
Joined
Apr 17, 2004
Location
Kolding Denmark
This is more of a spin off of the work hours thread. How much of a difference does the quality and type of machines you have affect your work load. I remember when Bob Wolcott compared his Hass to his Makino, http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/redirect-to/?redirect=https://youtu.be/J1jvt1A4_Uk . If shop A had a 1997 Haas and started a job at 7:00 am and finished at 7:00 pm would shop B with a new Brother Speedio be finished with the job at noon and have the rest of his day to do something he enjoys? The fastest machine I have right now has a 6000 rpm spindle and 350 ipm axis speeds with slow accel and decel. I make my own products and often run lights out for operations that nothing bad would happen if a tool broke. People ask me if I am looking for any other machining work which I tell them no because my machines are too slow and I couldn't charge enough an hour to make it worth my time. But I come on this forum and listen to shop owners complain of all the hours they have to work and how little they are making and I wonder if they are taking the wrong type of jobs for the type of machinery they have.
 
I am up to seven Speedios now, so obviously i like them, but working with slower, paid off tools is much less risky for a small job shop. This industry is very boom and bust. If your plan is work crazy hours during the boom times, you have minimal overhead to cover in the bust times. If you scale up with new employees and new equipment during the boom times, you're laying people off and selling equipment during the bust times.

The danger isn't one strategy or the other, the danger is taking either too far. If you look at the bankruptcy auctiobs, it is one of two things. The ultra-conservative shops that have a prototrak, a 1983 turning centers and a drill press. Too little investment and you can't stay cost competitive when everyone else is running shiny new stuff.

Or it is the ultra-aggressive shops that have three of everything, all the same year, all bought new, typically three or four years old. They got a big contract, loaded up with debt, the contract went away and poof, bankruptcy.

Success lies in the middle. Besides, most of us are going to be in the shop 12 hours per day anyway. So a faster machine may lead to more throughput, but it probably won't lead to less hours.
 
...I make my own products and often run lights out for operations that nothing bad would happen if a tool broke. People ask me if I am looking for any other machining work which I tell them no because my machines are too slow and I couldn't charge enough an hour to make it worth my time. But I come on this forum and listen to shop owners complain of all the hours they have to work and how little they are making and I wonder if they are taking the wrong type of jobs for the type of machinery they have.

JOB SHOP owners complain, because they are continually under pressure from customers and do not have design freedom. Product manufacturers optimize what they make and how they make it, and then wait for somebody to buy it. In the first case, the business you can attract depends largely on the equipment and process capabilities you can claim, and the more state-of-the-art the better. In the latter case, your production equipment only has to be good enough to make YOU happy with the product.

Mix the two situations by taking on job work, and watch your stress level rise.
 
The two mistakes you can make in this business are not having the capacity][speed] to get work done when it needs to be done and overspending on shiny new equipment

When you figure out the exact balance, you let us all know...............
 
sometimes have 2-3 old beaters can outproduce 1 shainy whizbang... plus if one is broken you can still make parts.

everybody likes shiny new but unless it does something you can sell it can be difficult to justify
 
This is more of a spin off of the work hours thread. How much of a difference does the quality and type of machines you have affect your work load. I remember when Bob Wolcott compared his Hass to his Makino, http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/redirect-to/?redirect=https://youtu.be/J1jvt1A4_Uk . If shop A had a 1997 Haas and started a job at 7:00 am and finished at 7:00 pm would shop B with a new Brother Speedio be finished with the job at noon and have the rest of his day to do something he enjoys? The fastest machine I have right now has a 6000 rpm spindle and 350 ipm axis speeds with slow accel and decel. I make my own products and often run lights out for operations that nothing bad would happen if a tool broke. People ask me if I am looking for any other machining work which I tell them no because my machines are too slow and I couldn't charge enough an hour to make it worth my time. But I come on this forum and listen to shop owners complain of all the hours they have to work and how little they are making and I wonder if they are taking the wrong type of jobs for the type of machinery they have.
.
depends what metal you are machining of course. obviously and easily thousands of times i have seen a higher hp machine remove metal faster because it has the horsepower. horsepower is more a issue with cast iron and steel than with aluminum and plastic. also with steel it is rare to be over 5000 rpm anyway where with aluminum that can be slow
 
More seriously tho, as someone who ran multiple cnc kneemills for over a decade and did just fine, you may be underestimating the productivity increase when upgrading. When moving from my knee mills to a big very fast[read not a Haas] VMC, and much increasing volume, what in real time would take me a week to run is now done in an hour and a half. In a week we run several months of output, and have all that time to make more money

OR drink beer

OK, mostly drink beer
 
If you are completely honest with yourself you have to consider what I call machine hour rate versus production output, so if you have a new machine it will cost you more per hour than the elderly one, hut will make more work in that hour.
I find that the shop with flexibile simple to set kit can start to get parts made faster than the shop with leading edge machines.
The former can give fast and expensive service to his customers, the latter is after long term production to amortise the machine, he is only a winner until the next machine on the market is bought by his competitor.
So I say to the OP, go for top up work, give good service and charge for it After all this is only bonus work to you.
Peter
 
The other thing not mentioned is that depending on where you are starting you don't necessarily have to buy new to upgrade. There are a lot of deals on used equipment out there. I don't have confidence in my earning potential yet since I am just starting out so I bought a 10 year old brother tc-s2a. Had to put a little sweat equity into it (they are easy to work on). But as far as I can tell the difference between my machine, which is scary fast, and the the new ones is an incremental increase.
 
sometimes have 2-3 old beaters can outproduce 1 shainy whizbang... plus if one is broken you can still make parts.

everybody likes shiny new but unless it does something you can sell it can be difficult to justify


The problem I see with this thinking is you are using 3 times the square footage,3 times the heat, 3 times the air conditioning and being beater machines, much more than 3 times the maintenance. I see this as very expensive.
 
The other thing not mentioned is that depending on where you are starting you don't necessarily have to buy new to upgrade. There are a lot of deals on used equipment out there. I don't have confidence in my earning potential yet since I am just starting out so I bought a 10 year old brother tc-s2a. Had to put a little sweat equity into it (they are easy to work on). But as far as I can tell the difference between my machine, which is scary fast, and the the new ones is an incremental increase.

If your competition is running an old Haas or Fadal, you will be the one leaving at noon while your competition is working into the evening. And it really didn't cost you more to buy the machine.
 
Ex father in law ran a fairly successful shop using nothing but old machines. He knew how to maintain them, knew how to run them, and knew (it seemed) every trick in the book. He was able to support himself just fine with some occasional help from me and/or his son'. In his situation it would have not only changed the nature of his shop to buy a new piece of machinery, it would have changed the clients and work he would have to chase to keep paying on a new machine. I think alot depends on the goals you set for yourself.......are you happy supporting yourself, being your own boss, setting your own hours (to some degree). Or do you want to chase the almighty dollar. I dont think you can do both.
 
If your competition is running an old Haas or Fadal, you will be the one leaving at noon while your competition is working into the evening. And it really didn't cost you more to buy the machine.



From what I understand, for only a few bucks more then a Haas or Fadal you can buy a machine that will cut machine time down by nearly 50% on all jobs across the board.

I think someone is sipping the Cool-Aid.
 
The problem I see with this thinking is you are using 3 times the square footage,3 times the heat, 3 times the air conditioning and being beater machines, much more than 3 times the maintenance. I see this as very expensive.

3 times the square footage, yup.

3 times the heat and A/C? Really? Is this a one room shop we are talking about?

Beater machines are 3 time the maintenance?...again really?
Maybe don't Beat them and run as they were meant to be run...I am assuming as to Beater machine we are talking Haas...my oldest Haas Beater has been running 8hr days since 1991 and still running strong. Maintenance consists of period cleaning, grease slides, waylube, a tech call every few years gets her up and running in a day or so.

Have a pile of heavy roughing with tickle finish with a pile behind it and another pile behind that...Haas is not your best choice in my mind. Will you get it done, yup, I'm sure of that...but the extra time needed on a Haas will work against you.
 
A factor not being considered here is the profit per widget, which has to do more with production engineering/part design than with whatever theoretical rapids your high-dollar machine would accelerate to if it had room. If your parts are fixtured two inches apart, and you can do something else while they're running, AND the machine is paid for, then your direct overhead consists mostly of the material cost plus whatever time it took to saw the stock. Like they say in a Mexican flea market, almost free!

Now picture yourself doing the same thing--only this time the machine that's running those parts while you do something else has a $5,000/month payment. All other things being equal, it is extremely unrealistic to expect more profit than with your current clunker.

There are infinite steps between these two extremes but you have to consider the extremes in order for a comparison to make sense. Note I used old vs new CNC in the example. If you're asking whether you can compete successfully with three Bridgeports against even a 1990s Haas, the answer is no.
 
but at the end of the day you can't always cut machining time by 50%. Sometimes.... most times.... not always. I have had fairly new equipment at one time and less of it. I now have the same 20 year old machines and more of them. I don't have much payment except real estate.....last new cnc I bought was a 38mm swiss.
I may have chosen poorly on beater machines. My definition:
1. relaible
2. easy/ cheap to fix
3. bought used
4. reasonably modern
If you can't fix the machine yourself a busted machine is worthless. That goes for new or old. Imagine paying $2000.00 a month for a brand new 5 axis with linear motors and have it down for 3 months..... how much are you making? Take the same 2k per month and buy 3 5 year old haas vmc's. I bet you get the same revenue with much less chance of them all being down at once.
 
This is not necessarily why you were asking this but I have come to the following as a philosophy. Say you're making certain widgets. If the price you charge for the widgets cannot justify "current technology" equipment (assuming that it's you making the widgets, not just buying them), then you likely have a bad business model. That's not saying you can't make more money by buying good used machinery and keeping it well maintained. But it is saying that if the only way you can make money is by buying old machines and you struggle to maintain them then you do have a bad business model. Maybe you're better off just fixing old machinery if that's what you're good at. Now, if you're getting old machines, rebuilding them to suit your specific needs and taking huge sums of cash to the bank on a regular basis, you are gold baby!

The Dude
 








 
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