Hello, my name is Jayson and I have been in Aerospace Manufacturing for the past 11years. I have always dreamed of opening my own machine shop. Last year I was given an incredible opportunity to work with some truly amazing people for a weapons manufacturing startup company. During my time at this startup I realized they suffered from the same issue many other shops suffer from burrs. Every part that came my way as the quality manager I had to reject and put on hold for burrs. I decided to take a chance and offer my skill set to the owner. I sat down and had an honest conversation and told the owner that if these parts don’t get fixed and have the burrs removed everything from this point on is going to be a disappointment. I explained how I had been mentored for years by numerous handfinishers none of which had anything less than 20 years of experience. I told him how much I hated doing deburr but I’ve always been gifted with the talent and the right training to do it the right way. My proposal was send me home with all of your deburr work and you won’t ever have to worry about burrs being an issue in your shop again. He accepted and I quickly started a business to support this need. After completing all of the parts for the first contract and wrapping up all my quality manager responsibilities I was excited to finally be paid for all my hard work. The operations manager came out into the quality department and for the first time noticed not a single job on the racks. I was expecting him to be as excited as I was, but he was expressionless and asked me to meet him in his office. We sit down on the Wednesday morning that I have delivered all parts and finished all inspections on every job in the shop. He has 2 checks in his hands. He tells me to have a seat and I’m thinking sweet I’m finally getting paid. He tells me while holding the checks that unfortunately they have to let me go. After over a year of driving an hour and a half to work, always being the first in the shop, and literally starting a business to support this business I now find myself instantly with no business and no job. I tell the ops manager I know this isn’t your call but I thought I would be getting paid today not fired. He said it’s not my decision but it’s my job to let you go. So I expressed how much I loved the business and the people I worked with. I told the ops manager thank you for giving me my checks and asked him if there is anything you can do to help me as I did not see this coming and I will be completely fd to say the least. I’m the only provider for both my wife Katherine and our recently added son Asher during the COVID pandemic. He offered his and our weapons experts network as help. I go to shake his hand he says f that and gives me a hug. I’m now heading home blindsided fired with my dream of starting a business now the least of my concerns. On top of this the check that I finally got over $1,000 of it belongs to my sister for all her hard work she did supporting my business. Not wanting to throw a pity party and being as driven as I am to provide for my family, I call up one of my closest machine shop buddies the one that’s gotten me my last 3 jobs and he tells me you already have a business you just need to find the customers. He helped make some connections and I started doing regular work for a large aerospace and defense machine shop. But, they are net 30 so I’m doing all this work with no income and no job still trying to find another job. Magically a quality manager job popped up at an airport that oddly enough matched my experience almost like it was written for me. I apply for the job and get a call the day after I applying. I go into the interview and right away I notice the office is so similar to the weapons company I just came from. I start speaking with the hiring manager and there isn’t a single question asked relevant to the position. His only concern was the company I just came from. I instantly know this guy is way too similar to the owner that just fired me. But he seems to be a great guy and offers me the job. After months of being at this new job I finally decide to write the ops manager that fired me. I said I get a weird feeling that the reason I got this job was because of you and if you had anything to do with that I just want to express my thanks. He writes back “it’s a small community we’ve got to stick together buddy.” So now it’s been a few months I still have a job and a customer. But the one big question I still have is how do you get more customers? Any advice, connections, or stories are always appreciated.
Thank You,
Jayson Owner @ ARIZONA DEBUR
How to find customers, is the big question including me
machine shop work is insane, brutal competition, every body have a 3 axis mill and a lathe
the good thing you haven't gone and get expensive machines, gages, cmm etc.
2 blocks away a guy doing same as you deburring
he co-share space with a machinist, but he works like
2 days a weeks, rest chasing work, since you are young, diversify in other areas, like automobile
related, powdercoat for example, you paint old car chassis or ornamental metal door.
change colors in alu wheels and make good money, and will be thousand of potential customers
me i am too old and tired to re-invent myself, but if i had the widsom 23 yrs ago, outcome should
have been different, in machine shop spend tons of money in tooling, machines, repairs, even taxes when machines are not using street pavement, i have been paying tax just for having machines in warehouse, city scam tax, go figure.
