First Month at New Shop!

[machinistguy]

After a year of homeshopping it, finally got my own space in the Dallas-FortWorth area. I got a 2006 Okuma MB-46VAE. Any advice on moving from prototyping to production work and finding production clients?

 

[Scruffy887]

Space looks nice. Get the light fixtures set up with LEDs. Maybe cost of $0.00. 20,000 sq ft of space cost me zip in 2020. There are free plans. Desk with laptop not only needs to be on castors, but also needs to be height adjustable. Oh, trash container is over full, and those wall mounted fans will blow all of the papers off your desk. Those papers will only land on spots where coolant has dripped. Never land on dry floor. And the orange extension cord is for too small to be running that mill.

 

[john.k]

Dont have power cords on the floor....someone standing on it with swarf in their bootsoles will cut the cover and flash spectacularly.........and someone will get their feet tangled and fall over...Suspend the cord from the ceiling above head height.

 

[yoke]

If you are going to have a client take a gamble on giving you production you need to make sure that machine is in good enough shape to no blow deadlines. Those are good machines but if something happens and you're down for a few weeks you could blow you shot at more work from that client. I had a spindle blow up on a 1.5 year old Okuma m560v covered under warranty and I just moved that production to one of the other 3 spindles close by for the 2 weeks it was down.

Make a riser for your chip bin and put a small air wand to knock the chips off. The down time of having swarf in the coolant tank always happens when you can't afford it.

I would also take a look at adding a few rolling carts for moving stock and finished parts around.

how is the rest of the space set up? Saw, tumbler, wash tub? There are certainly work around to all of those things but are nice to have.

 

[DBcooper]

What part of DFW are you in? I've got a small shop in Kaufman

 

[machinistguy]

Space looks nice. Get the light fixtures set up with LEDs. Maybe cost of $0.00. 20,000 sq ft of space cost me zip in 2020. There are free plans. Desk with laptop not only needs to be on castors, but also needs to be height adjustable. Oh, trash container is over full, and those wall mounted fans will blow all of the papers off your desk. Those papers will only land on spots where coolant has dripped. Never land on dry floor. And the orange extension cord is for too small to be running that mill.

Yep, already running into some of those problems. Good call. The orange extension cord is for the lighting inside the mill.

 

[machinistguy]

If you are going to have a client take a gamble on giving you production you need to make sure that machine is in good enough shape to no blow deadlines. Those are good machines but if something happens and you're down for a few weeks you could blow you shot at more work from that client. I had a spindle blow up on a 1.5 year old Okuma m560v covered under warranty and I just moved that production to one of the other 3 spindles close by for the 2 weeks it was down.

Make a riser for your chip bin and put a small air wand to knock the chips off. The down time of having swarf in the coolant tank always happens when you can't afford it.

I would also take a look at adding a few rolling carts for moving stock and finished parts around.

how is the rest of the space set up? Saw, tumbler, wash tub? There are certainly work around to all of those things but are nice to have.

Thanks for the advice.
I got a heat treating and a tempering oven for a job I ran earlier, and my automatic bandsaw is coming next week.

 

[machinistguy]

What part of DFW are you in? I've got a small shop in Kaufman

Nice! We're in Arlington.

 

[cnctoolcat]

Just drop by other shops and local factories, be polite, be brief, leave a couple of business cards. Most likely you will come back that evening with prints to quote and possibly even some raw material to run! With record high prices, energy is wide open right now.

Sometimes I would tell a white lie to the guard (if they had one) telling him/her I had a delivery for the receiving department, and would go in at the receiving dock to get a name or two to contact in purchasing/engineering/management up-front....

ToolCat

 

[jatt]

Some good points already raised.

If you can, maybe a catenary wire and cable setup like an overhead crane. Move it where you want it, and gets it off the floor.

Getting production work - Firms downsizing/ closing have yielded some stuff over the years. Naturally your size will help you in some aspects compared to a larger firm.

The usual stuff like going above and beyond never goes astray. Nuthin 4 me to be getting it done on a cust vehicle early morn on way to the shop. Taking time out of my day to cross town to do the same, cuts into my production work big time- obv benefit to them (dont have to bring across town to me), and its getting done faster.

But yeah if your machine goes down.......

 

[machinistguy]

"Finding Clients"....although my place was definitely built with "not what you know but who", whenever I was out, if I saw a business estate I'd drive around it and note the companies that looked interesting.
Then look them up on the interwebs for market sector, size, financials etc....
Try target OEM electronics companies with no machine shop.
If you go for machine shops and overspill, you'll only ever get work that they're already late with (so you'll have no time) and they'll drop you like a rock when they go light.
Also, they still want a margin, so you're working for cheaper parts....

That's a really good point. Thanks!