What are your current shop hurdles, and how will you beat them?

[LOTT]

Regarding the miter ability on a band saw- check out a cold saw. We have two and I couldn't live without them.

 

[kustomizer]

Mine is, "do I dare ramp up and rehire employees after our state governor shut us down with the stroke of a pen?" Our can't understand normal thinking of a governor shut down my customers, and basically my shop, with the stroke of a pen because of muh covid. It cost me hundreds of thousands of lost business and hundreds of thousands trying to keep the lights on and the crew working. All for nothing. Do I try to rebuild when it was so easy to just shut down the state??? No. It is not. Moving to a different state is not really an option since the customer base happens to be local. But we'll see what happens.

Are you in the part of Oregon that wants to move the lines and put yourself in Idaho?

 

[Freedommachine]

I know it's late but... My #1 issue is a lack of permanent organization. I could have $20k in brand new lista cabinets and benches delivered, yet my mind would still be totally blank on deciding what goes where. I love to be organized, I'm just terrible at doing it.

I also have way too much "stuff" stored in the shop. I bought a 40' container and filled it with shelving to start working that out. Electrical conduit & fittings, spare machine parts, motors, pumps, belts, pulleys, ect. - all the stuff that comes in handy when you build things and maintain your own property.

I'll probably build another out building this fall for storing larger items. My shop is 30×50 and the goal is to have an 8x8 designated office space and the rest 100% designated for machining and fab work with specific "departments" for welding, turning, milling, and inspection.

Ox, I really like what you have going on with those Durham storage rack things. I'll have to dig around here for more threads on shop organization.

I have a Wells 8M as well as an Ellis miter band saw. The Ellis is small and easy to move around. It is a great time saver for cutting angles.

 

[boosted]

Mine is, "do I dare ramp up and rehire employees after our state governor shut us down with the stroke of a pen?" Our can't understand normal thinking of a governor shut down my customers, and basically my shop, with the stroke of a pen because of muh covid. It cost me hundreds of thousands of lost business and hundreds of thousands trying to keep the lights on and the crew working. All for nothing. Do I try to rebuild when it was so easy to just shut down the state??? No. It is not. Moving to a different state is not really an option since the customer base happens to be local. But we'll see what happens.

Really??? You got shut down? How did that work?

My shop ran essentially unaffected all through COVID, as well as every other shop I know of in the area. Saw about two months of touch-and-go shutdowns (which appeared to be happening everywhere), then it was basically full tilt with masks on. We all just masked up and moved on with life.

Can you please elaborate how the governor "shut you down" but left the rest of us alone?

 

[dkmc]

I know it's late but... My #1 issue is a lack of permanent organization. I could have $20k in brand new lista cabinets and benches delivered, yet my mind would still be totally blank on deciding what goes where. I love to be organized, I'm just terrible at doing it.

I also have way too much "stuff" stored in the shop. I bought a 40' container and filled it with shelving to start working that out. Electrical conduit & fittings, spare machine parts, motors, pumps, belts, pulleys, ect. - all the stuff that comes in handy when you build things and maintain your own property.

You're describing my challenges exactly. Plenty of cabinets and storage bins. My mind goes blank when I try to -organize- it all and make a -place- for it. The result is cabinets and bins filled with misc 'tossed salad'. Pretty frustrating. I do want to get a container.....or 2.

 

[Thunderjet]

Really??? You got shut down? How did that work?

IDK about that guy, but around here in March of 2020 the governors of both Mo. and KS used executive orders to "flatten the curve". Essentially closing most businesses. Restaurants, barber shops, most retail, (except for groceries and pharmacies) including repair shops and machine shops.

I driver past Arrowhead and Royals stadium every day to work. there were days, early in the lockdowns there was a large muster of National Guard in those parking lots. It only lasted for a few days, but they were there.

My wife works for a local retirement community, and she worked from home for months.

We were lucky to get an exemption because of some work we do for government contractors. I had to carry papers to prove I was going to work at an approved workplace. I still have them in my wallet.

That's how it worked around here.

Just curious, do you think he's making it up?

 

[boosted]

Just curious, do you think he's making it up?

As somebody who owns a machine shop in the same state as him - I'm quite certain he's exaggerating. We literally did not miss a single day, and neither did any of the larger shops that I'm friendly with.

I don't care much about our governor one way or the other, but I think so many people are dying to get excited about government overreach that they have wildly inflated their memories of how much "the governor" interfered with their business over the last couple years. Hospitality and air transportation are totally messed up, but that was happening regardless of political agendas.

 

[Cole2534]

I know it's late but... My #1 issue is a lack of permanent organization. I could have $20k in brand new lista cabinets and benches delivered, yet my mind would still be totally blank on deciding what goes where. I love to be organized, I'm just terrible at doing it.



...snip

THAT IS ME.

I'd love to have someone spend a couple days helping me organize shit.

 

[Cole2534]

As somebody who owns a machine shop in the same state as him - I'm quite certain he's exaggerating. We literally did not miss a single day, and neither did any of the larger shops that I'm friendly with.

I don't care much about our governor one way or the other, but I think so many people are dying to get excited about government overreach that they have wildly inflated their memories of how much "the governor" interfered with their business over the last couple years. Hospitality and air transportation are totally messed up, but that was happening regardless of political agendas.

I never really participated in the 'lock down'. Fuck 'em, I got a life to live.

 

[Thunderjet]

I think so many people are dying to get excited about government overreach that they have wildly inflated their memories of how much "the governor" interfered with their business over the last couple years.

So, he is making it all up.

So, all of the folks around here that were forced to not drive, except for essential travel are just bullshitting......Got it.

My wife didn't really have to work from home for almost a year.......Got that too.

You guys were really lucky out there, congrats.

BTW, it wasn't the governor. It was St Fauci INSTRUCTING the Governors to lockdown.

But, apparently that too was wildly inflated.

 

[dkmc]

THAT IS ME.

I'd love to have someone spend a couple days helping me organize shit.

A couple days? Your shop must be small or not that disorganized? I'm thinking mine would take a couple months minimum.

 

[mhajicek]

We had shutdowns for "non-essential" businesses around here for a while. I was working at a medical device company, so we could keep going.

 

[kustomizer]

During that time we were moving from California to Idaho, when we started the project we were working in Ca for 3 weeks and 1 week in Id, when we got more machines in Id we were there 3 weeks and 1 in Ca. I don't recall anyone at either end nor along the way asking us to quit working, though we would have kept on keeping on anyhow, I do not know what they could do about it, whomever they are.

 

[Ox]

A wee bit difference in a shop with a few souls, compared to one with 25, 50, or more.

We ran a fair amount of work for bigger shops in '20 simply b/c they were running with 1/2 crew for only "essential" werk.

I am really not sure what '21's claim was, but we didn't have time to sit down last year....
Possibly the same thing as '20, but in stead of running the work for bigger shops, maybe the end users found their own sources? I'm really not sure...

"Normal" this year, whatever that is....


------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[boosted]

So, he is making it all up.

So, all of the folks around here that were forced to not drive, except for essential travel are just bullshitting......Got it.

My wife didn't really have to work from home for almost a year.......Got that too.

You guys were really lucky out there, congrats.

BTW, it wasn't the governor. It was St Fauci INSTRUCTING the Governors to lockdown.

But, apparently that too was wildly inflated.

I think you are making my point about looking for a reason to get upset about it. And yes, I think it is abundantly clear I was calling BS.

I cannot vouch for your experience. I can only tell you that machine shops in Oregon -even big ones- were essentially unaffected outside of mask mandates. I only mentioned the governor, because according to Plane Parts, that is who shut down his business.

Again I call BS. Plenty of shitty things about the pandemic and how it was (or wasn’t) handled, but the governor of Oregon didn’t mandate any shut down of machine shops due to COVID.

 

[RedRider]

My first post of opinion...be gentle:

I have been a 1 man shop for almost 20 years. I think my biggest skill is how to think out of the box:
Some thoughts..
I can cut anything on my band saw with a little thought. Nothing cant be fixed with a little "jerry" rig of some sort. My saw makes gussets all the time and its a fixed 90 cut saw and just cheap Enco.

I found if its not one step from the front of my machine I wont put it away, so all my machines have a large tool box and work bench to store all my cutting tools near a machine. Harbor freight make great tool box draw organizers for cheap. make a bin or a box of a can to store everything. Once you get started it will become automatic!

If you buy 1 or 2 taps why not three or 4? Dont remove them from their little plastic container unless you are putting them in a machine.

Now if I can just clean off my desk!! That I havent figured out yet.

I only posted because we all struggle with something. But cutting metal is a blast!

 

[Plane Parts]

My biggest hurdle? A c#nt governor who can shut down the entire state's economy with a stroke of her pen.

 

[mhajicek]

Not enough hours in the day...