Xometry???

[latheman78]

You did claim that heatsink machining allowed you 32 hour cycle times and a lot of lights out machining. You need to start writing down the stories you tell.

 

[LOTT]

Every post out of this guy makes me more convinced it's Darin. Maybe it is someone else with the same exact mental illness, but I doubt it.

Notice he posted one more screenshot just a moment after I pointed out that tic, then read my comment and stopped? Let's take note of the simplistic math (got to love 100% uptime)- want to take bets that stops?

The getting angry and throwing out insults has been observed, but I don't think Mr. Anonymous can control himself there. That will likely continue.

 

[latheman78]

This is great entertainment, hoping the hall monitor from hell doesn't stop this fun thread. I am just shocked from my research why this dude isn't in the can or taking a dirt nap.

 

[nateacox]

I don't need a fake name to cover who I am, or who my shop is. With about 3 minutes of google, you can easily find out who I am and what/where my shop is. I don't really care if Xom reads this stuff, as I don't really have a problem talking about their good and bad points.

But man there are a lot of sharks in the water in here. I'm not sure why everyone is so convinced no one can have good experiences with the Xom platform. My experience is still what I would call positive overall. We still take a lot of work from Xom. There was a hiccup in the job board a few months back, which I complained to them openly on their forums, and in various emails, texts, phone calls. That was all resolved within a few weeks and things on the job board have gotten better. We get 60% or so of our Xom work from their RFQ process , so we quote the parts to Xom and they add their commission and do all of the up front leg work to secure the order and appease the customer. Its a bit more up front work then the job board is, but it nets us better jobs overall. We do still use the job board to take work when we like the profit margin or have open capacity that needs to be filled to keep the wheels turning. Not every job is always a winner, but most have been. I don't think I will eclipse last years dollar amount with them this year, as we have added some other new customers, but we will be close. We do close to 3m per year in sales, and they are close to 50% of that work. I don't know what my exact dollar profit for last year was off the top of my head, but given my operation costs vs my quoted dollars per hour, I target a 10-15% margin. We finished last year in that range. I'm still spending every extra penny I have on equipment/tooling/inspection stuff to get the shop fully stocked while cash is still strong. We also just implemented RealTrac ERP after some bad experiences with other ERP's. I'm hoping the change will help me get better visibility on individual jobs so we can focus in on what we are best at.

As far as the other guy, I guess I don't have the energy to read through everything and determine whether he is truthful or not. When I was a 1 man shop in 2016/2017 I was doing about 400k per year total. I worked 14 plus hours a day, 6 days per week to do that. I don't work much less now but my role/responsibilities have changed a fair amount. I also have 13 machines, 10k sq ft and 10 full time guys keeping everything going. Xom certainly had a large role in being able to expand and as quickly as we did. I've said since the beginning, its not for everyone. I still believe it can be a good fit for shops, and you most likely will get out of it what you put into it. I'm not a sales guy, I am a machinist so Xom has helped fill that sales guy role for me. I also get to choose when or if I use that service, vs having a guy on the staff full time earning commission.

 

[latheman78]

Nate your believable, the other guy is an obvious poser.

 

[Finegrain]

I don't need a fake name to cover who I am, or who my shop is. With about 3 minutes of google, you can easily find out who I am and what/where my shop is. I don't really care if Xom reads this stuff, as I don't really have a problem talking about their good and bad points.

But man there are a lot of sharks in the water in here. I'm not sure why everyone is so convinced no one can have good experiences with the Xom platform. My experience is still what I would call positive overall. We still take a lot of work from Xom. There was a hiccup in the job board a few months back, which I complained to them openly on their forums, and in various emails, texts, phone calls. That was all resolved within a few weeks and things on the job board have gotten better. We get 60% or so of our Xom work from their RFQ process , so we quote the parts to Xom and they add their commission and do all of the up front leg work to secure the order and appease the customer. Its a bit more up front work then the job board is, but it nets us better jobs overall. We do still use the job board to take work when we like the profit margin or have open capacity that needs to be filled to keep the wheels turning. Not every job is always a winner, but most have been. I don't think I will eclipse last years dollar amount with them this year, as we have added some other new customers, but we will be close. We do close to 3m per year in sales, and they are close to 50% of that work. I don't know what my exact dollar profit for last year was off the top of my head, but given my operation costs vs my quoted dollars per hour, I target a 10-15% margin. We finished last year in that range. I'm still spending every extra penny I have on equipment/tooling/inspection stuff to get the shop fully stocked while cash is still strong. We also just implemented RealTrac ERP after some bad experiences with other ERP's. I'm hoping the change will help me get better visibility on individual jobs so we can focus in on what we are best at.

As far as the other guy, I guess I don't have the energy to read through everything and determine whether he is truthful or not. When I was a 1 man shop in 2016/2017 I was doing about 400k per year total. I worked 14 plus hours a day, 6 days per week to do that. I don't work much less now but my role/responsibilities have changed a fair amount. I also have 13 machines, 10k sq ft and 10 full time guys keeping everything going. Xom certainly had a large role in being able to expand and as quickly as we did. I've said since the beginning, its not for everyone. I still believe it can be a good fit for shops, and you most likely will get out of it what you put into it. I'm not a sales guy, I am a machinist so Xom has helped fill that sales guy role for me. I also get to choose when or if I use that service, vs having a guy on the staff full time earning commission.

There are probably 20 guys who had a bad experience for every 1 that has/had a good experience. A friend of mine, local shop ~10x the size of mine, one of the smartest guys I know, tried it and quickly concluded it was a waste of time. I use Xometry (since 01/2020) when I have nothing in my queue + the weather is lousy + I'm OK with working for 1/2 pay instead of watching Youtube videos. But building an actual put-food-on-the-table shop around Xometry? Very, very unlikely. My observation is lots of shops try it out, bust their balls for a few months waiting for "good jobs" to start showing up, then realize that's not going to happen. At least, it hasn't happened for me after 2.5 years, 135 jobs completed, and 100 out of 100 Quality and On Time scores.

So, can you make some money from Xometry? Sure. But these fantastic stories of $400k/year working 40-hour weeks doing Xometry work are, quite frankly, unbelievable.

Maybe the RFQ side is better, as you say. The last time I looked at it, there were very few RFQ opportunities that looked remotely feasible. But, it's been a year or so since I looked. Maybe I'll go look again.

Regards.

Mike

 

[Marvel]

There are probably 20 guys who had a bad experience for every 1 that has/had a good experience. A friend of mine, local shop ~10x the size of mine, one of the smartest guys I know, tried it and quickly concluded it was a waste of time. I use Xometry (since 01/2020) when I have nothing in my queue + the weather is lousy + I'm OK with working for 1/2 pay instead of watching Youtube videos. But building an actual put-food-on-the-table shop around Xometry? Very, very unlikely. My observation is lots of shops try it out, bust their balls for a few months waiting for "good jobs" to start showing up, then realize that's not going to happen. At least, it hasn't happened for me after 2.5 years, 135 jobs completed, and 100 out of 100 Quality and On Time scores.

So, can you make some money from Xometry? Sure. But these fantastic stories of $400k/year working 40-hour weeks doing Xometry work are, quite frankly, unbelievable.

Maybe the RFQ side is better, as you say. The last time I looked at it, there were very few RFQ opportunities that looked remotely feasible. But, it's been a year or so since I looked. Maybe I'll go look again.

Regards.

Mike

It does really seem to be about that 1 out of 20 that has a good experience. I've had a great experience with them since 2018. Not doing $400k/year with Xometry alone though.

Between them and a few other customers, last year was my best year, I hit $500k. On track to do the same this year and I'm by myself in a 1800 sq ft home shop next to my house with a VF2SS, VF3SS and a Bridgeport Ez Trak.

I don't keep track of my hours, most of my hours are day time hours but if the jobs allow for it, I'll set a timer on my phone and keep my machines running for 16-18 hours a day, and on weekends too.

 

[huleo]

For the life of me, I simply can't understand how companies are willing to upload their parts and drawings into the abyss and assume all that stuff is not being stored up on a bunch of servers that if China doesn't have access to today, they will.....

I also find it crazy that businesses are willing to go with 'whoever' to make parts, which apparently is mostly garage shop guys, and you just don't know the quality you are going to get!!!

I will say this, I have a family member that did something like this, needing some fairly tricky lathe parts. I told him I just can't get to them right now. He was excited, the price was super cheap, guy said he was an "ex aerospace guy".....Parts showed up and were so bad that he just had to drive them over to show me..... LMFAO!!! Looked like they were chewed out with beaver teeth. No doubt this dude was trying out his Harbor Freight manual lathe with the 'extra tooling package'...... Yes, I wasted hours of my life remaking those for him.

I don't know how this business model works, but I notice they are a publicly traded company. I think we know who is really making money on parts.

 

[Marvel]

For the life of me, I simply can't understand how companies are willing to upload their parts and drawings into the abyss and assume all that stuff is not being stored up on a bunch of servers that if China doesn't have access to today, they will.....

I also find it crazy that businesses are willing to go with 'whoever' to make parts, which apparently is mostly garage shop guys, and you just don't know the quality you are going to get!!!

I will say this, I have a family member that did something like this, needing some fairly tricky lathe parts. I told him I just can't get to them right now. He was excited, the price was super cheap, guy said he was an "ex aerospace guy".....Parts showed up and were so bad that he just had to drive them over to show me..... LMFAO!!! Looked like they were chewed out with beaver teeth. No doubt this dude was trying out his Harbor Freight manual lathe with the 'extra tooling package'...... Yes, I wasted hours of my life remaking those for him.

I don't know how this business model works, but I notice they are a publicly traded company. I think we know who is really making money on parts.

So you assume just cause it’s a garage shop you don’t know what quality you’ll get and more than likely won’t be good?

I’ve worked for a couple local very large well known shops and watched plenty of “top” machinist cut corners daily cause they are being pushed by upper management that doesn’t know a thing about machining and high percentage of jobs are sent back due to non conformance.

What’s the difference if company XX sends a part to shop X with 25 employees and Jimmy makes the part or they send it to the same Jimmy making the part in his home shop?

Most the guys I know that decided to invest in a machine and go on their own we’re the top machinist for companies that got sick of companies cutting corners and lying to customers and their quality is 10x better than any well known machine shop cause they actually care about their work and aren’t in a race or being forced by someone higher up that knows nothing about machining to push stuff out the door faster and probably irritated they are on hour 55 and just missed their kids football game cause the company has no respect for their bottom line so the underpaid employees start losing care.

I am a home machine shop, you can check out my work on Instagram @ MarvelMachining. I can’t post a majority of my work due to ITAR but I’ve made parts for very well known aerospace, medical and defense companies.

I probably encounter 2-3 RMA’s a year and typically it’s something simply looked past, a thread not deep enough or plating build up took a tight tolerance hole out of tolerance, simple same day fixes.

Xometry is a public company and you can look at their financials, it is very clear THEY are the ones losing money.

 

[huleo]

So you assume just cause it’s a garage shop you don’t know what quality you’ll get and more than likely won’t be good?

I’ve worked for a couple local very large well known shops and watched plenty of “top” machinist cut corners daily cause they are being pushed by upper management that doesn’t know a thing about machining and high percentage of jobs are sent back due to non conformance.

What’s the difference if company XX sends a part to shop X with 25 employees and Jimmy makes the part or they send it to the same Jimmy making the part in his home shop?

Most the guys I know that decided to invest in a machine and go on their own we’re the top machinist for companies that got sick of companies cutting corners and lying to customers and their quality is 10x better than any well known machine shop cause they actually care about their work and aren’t in a race or being forced by someone higher up that knows nothing about machining to push stuff out the door faster and probably irritated they are on hour 55 and just missed their kids football game cause the company has no respect for their bottom line so the underpaid employees start losing care.

I am a home machine shop, you can check out my work on Instagram @ MarvelMachining. I can’t post a majority of my work due to ITAR but I’ve made parts for very well known aerospace, medical and defense companies.

I probably encounter 2-3 RMA’s a year and typically it’s something simply looked past, a thread not deep enough or plating build up took a tight tolerance hole out of tolerance, simple same day fixes.

Xometry is a public company and you can look at their financials, it is very clear THEY are the ones losing money.

Obviously you took offense to what I said. I have been in plenty of other big shops that are really good at making scrap!!! I also know tiny shops that do things right. But my point is unless someone walks in that shop to see how things are getting done, for all buyer knows, someone is trying to hack parts with a 1980s Haas with .010" backlash in all axis, and uses a $5 Harbor Freight caliper to check parts.

It's a roll of the dice. It is just a hope that a larger shop would have the proper tools and budget to get a job done right, but we all know that sometimes is not the case. I know of a top aerospace shop that has sent parts to very top customers missing features! Like, supposedly went through an FAI on a CMM, provide the documents, yet the parts are wrong! I would be embarrassed!!

 

[Marvel]

Obviously you took offense to what I said. I have been in plenty of other big shops that are really good at making scrap!!! I also know tiny shops that do things right. But my point is unless someone walks in that shop to see how things are getting done, for all buyer knows, someone is trying to hack parts with a 1980s Haas with .010" backlash in all axis, and uses a $5 Harbor Freight caliper to check parts.

It's a roll of the dice. It is just a hope that a larger shop would have the proper tools and budget to get a job done right, but we all know that sometimes is not the case. I know of a top aerospace shop that has sent parts to very top customers missing features! Like, supposedly went through an FAI on a CMM, provide the documents, yet the parts are wrong! I would be embarrassed!!

No offense taken at all. I just see a lot of comments about home shops not being able to produce quality parts for whatever reasons. It’s just in my opinion that home shop guy that invested in some cases $100k + in equipment can make a higher quality part on a 10 year old machine than the top employee running a $500k machine. That home shop guy has pride in his work, his part, his name, his business. That embarrassment for that home shop guy is his sole embarrassment whereas that employee that cut a corner and missed a feature goes back to his machine and says oh well.

But of course I think we can agree this isn’t all cases, you do get them guys that have machines at home and are nothing more than a hobbyist that shouldn’t be making parts for anyone but themselves.

The job title “Machinist” has such a wide range of skills you never do really know what you are going to get unless like you said, you walk in and actually see or the shop has pictures posted on a website or social media of some sort as a “shop resume”

I will say though, I have not had a single customer come visit my shop and have thought to myself, they put a lot of trust in seeing images via social media and through email conversations. I have had a couple request a visit after a while of doing work for them and have been more than willing to allow a visit but let them know my operation size and have typically received a surprised response with a good for you, keep doing what you are doing.

 

[Marvel]

Obviously you took offense to what I said. I have been in plenty of other big shops that are really good at making scrap!!! I also know tiny shops that do things right. But my point is unless someone walks in that shop to see how things are getting done, for all buyer knows, someone is trying to hack parts with a 1980s Haas with .010" backlash in all axis, and uses a $5 Harbor Freight caliper to check parts.

It's a roll of the dice. It is just a hope that a larger shop would have the proper tools and budget to get a job done right, but we all know that sometimes is not the case. I know of a top aerospace shop that has sent parts to very top customers missing features! Like, supposedly went through an FAI on a CMM, provide the documents, yet the parts are wrong! I would be embarrassed!!

There is also the fact that we are an industry that machine shops can do work for customers across the US, so sometimes shop visits just don’t happen.

15-20 years ago, home shops were there but they weren’t as common as they are now. With the networking options available to everyone, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. doors are being opened for anyone willing to put forth the time to find the work.

My steel delivery guy said over the last 5 years he’s been delivering to a lot of shops on home properties, not all are sole 1 man operations but are small home property operations.

I believe theres customers that have realized they don’t need to go to that large well known machine shop to get quality parts, in some cases they take months, they can get the same quality at the small shop in half the time.

 

[Stubo]

I see jobs over a meter wide in stainless with stupid detail and precision with holes in the edge etc. All these crazy parts!! 5th axis stuff even EDM. Most are priced at the same as I can buy material. How do they manage to sub this crazy work? Who has these machines that can do the fantasy work and not busy? The shipping on this stuff is more than the job price. Ive been watching and even quoting my best price of 4x what they suggest and get rejected. And believe me Im risking a loss at 4x. Im bewildered! Very bewildered.

 

[Miller846]

I see jobs over a meter wide in stainless with stupid detail and precision with holes in the edge etc. All these crazy parts!! 5th axis stuff even EDM. Most are priced at the same as I can buy material. How do they manage to sub this crazy work? Who has these machines that can do the fantasy work and not busy? The shipping on this stuff is more than the job price. Ive been watching and even quoting my best price of 4x what they suggest and get rejected. And believe me Im risking a loss at 4x. Im bewildered! Very bewildered.

I’ve done quite a bit of work for Xometry this year and their jobs were ok prices up until about September it seems. They’ve always had a lot of jobs that are just way under priced but it definitely seems like around September, nearly 100% of the jobs are priced at what material costs. I believe this is a combination of outsourcing as well as Xometry increasing their cut to please shareholders. I don’t think this will be sustainable for them as I just don’t see how any US shops are going to take the work they are offering at their current prices! Hopefully larger companies will start opting for domestic parts rather than the “economy” option (overseas). I think it’s going to take all the shops here to put their foot down and turn down all the trash prices for Xometry to “feel the pressure” of what they’re doing.

 

[mhajicek]

The only way I can see it being useful to do work for Xometry is if you have idle machine time that needs filling, the parts fit in scrap material you have laying around, and you have all the requisite finishing processes in house and not fully booked.

 

[the average Joe]

Has anyone here ever got a repeat job or client from Xometry? I get the feeling that most of their customers besides the a list ones are startups.

 

[nateacox]

We get repeat work every month on various Xom jobs. Its never guaranteed though.

 

[shinyhead3]

Interesting read y'all!
I'm just now embarking on this journey of Xometry or similar since the local guys that feed my shop are slowing down due to the holiday season.
We're a small one-man operation (2 sometimes when we get a big enough order) and looking for other streams of workflow to keep us going. Never tried any of these online venues so doing some research before signing up with anybody. Good info here. Thanks

 

[Miller846]

Has anyone here ever got a repeat job or client from Xometry? I get the feeling that most of their customers besides the a list ones are startups.

We have gotten a handful of repeat jobs. Funny enough, they pay about twice as much for a repeat as they pay the first time you do it. My biggest months with Xometry were full of repeat jobs.

 

[Simon93]

Hi,

I'm just starting a one man garage shop in the UK, reading majority of responses I'm seeing it's hard to make money with xometry however I'm wondering if it's feasible with low overheads to make some profit enough to help cover machine payments? Atleast till I build a customer base.

Also can anyone tell me how you become a supplier, is there criteria I would need to meet ?

Thanks in advance.