looking for local CNC shop los angeles

hello, new to the forum and needing advice on a good cnc hobbyist or even small shop preferably in LA, but am also happy with expanding my search to anywhere US, that i can work with for small parts (aluminum and mild steel) that require tight tolerances. alot of my stuff may be one offs or small batches (dozen to 50). i have designs ready for manufacturing so am looking for someone who can help me produce these.

thank you in advance for any advice or guidance!

minhollywood said:

hello, new to the forum and needing advice on a good cnc hobbyist or even small shop in LA that i can work with for small parts (aluminum and mild steel) that require tight tolerances. alot of my stuff may be one offs or small batches (dozen to 50). i have designs ready for manufacturing so am looking for someone who can help me produce these.

thank you in advance for any advice or guidance!

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Why do you want a Hobbyist? If you are looking for a discount, that is probably the way to go. BUT you specifically say "tight tolerance", while that means exactly F-all to anyone here, it may not be what you are looking for in a Hobbyist. I would refine your Google search in the LA area to Job Shop. Then you will need to pick from about 20M shops. There are plenty of PM members in LA. We also have a commerce sub-forum that is better geared toward your needs.

Robert

yep discount :-) i've had quotes from here from shops that were exceptionally high / can't afford. my understanding of some job shops is that they are not all geared to cnc specifically... i've seen many hobbyist posts by enthusiasts who make some pretty cool and complex stuff, so was hoping to attract that crowd.
i will look at the commerce sub-forum too thank you.

minhollywood said:

yep discount :-) i've had quotes from here from shops that were exceptionally high / can't afford. my understanding of some job shops is that they are not all geared to cnc specifically... i've seen many hobbyist posts by enthusiasts who make some pretty cool and complex stuff, so was hoping to attract that crowd.
i will look at the commerce sub-forum too thank you.

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There was a guy here that bought an Okuma lathe (LB3000 Ex II ) maybe/If memeory serves me right ? by the handle of Plutoniumsalmon.

I think his business has a similar name, he/ they do some design oriented fabrications I believe.

And... I think He/they are in LA.

Don't know if that helps.

Ta.

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...guys-get-jobs-how-did-you-get-started-294804/

^^^That will tie you into AtomicMackrel's threads and do a search, I remember he did post some photos of his machine/machines and premises and company name etc. … Happy data mining.

Thank you - I will check these out. I appreciate the replies :-)

minhollywood said:

yep discount :-) i've had quotes from here from shops that were exceptionally high / can't afford. my understanding of some job shops is that they are not all geared to cnc specifically... i've seen many hobbyist posts by enthusiasts who make some pretty cool and complex stuff, so was hoping to attract that crowd.
i will look at the commerce sub-forum too thank you.

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Just because some hobbiest made something once doesn't mean they can do it 50 times lol. Most of us are professional machinists, we do this for real.

i didn't mean to imply otherwise. i think i used the wrong term. i meant i need someone who is skilled and has the equipment but not the overhead of a large shop and might enjoy working with me on these parts. i probably won't be needing 50+ of anything in the short term and have found people to charge alot of money for one offs. however, i'll try to be more succinct in my requests/posts :-)

thank you again!

I sent you a PM prototype and tight tolerance is in our wheelhouse the only catch is we are in CT.

minhollywood said:

i didn't mean to imply otherwise. i think i used the wrong term. i meant i need someone who is skilled and has the equipment but not the overhead of a large shop and might enjoy working with me on these parts. i probably won't be needing 50+ of anything in the short term and have found people to charge alot of money for one offs. however, i'll try to be more succinct in my requests/posts :-)

thank you again!

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For Shits and Giggles. Post up a part with a "Target Price".. We get those threads once in a while and
they are always fun.. Might not be fun for you... BUT.. We all have fun.. (Put your Big Boy britches on,
you will get some razzing.)

Bonus to doing that.. There are some REALLY smart sumnabitches here, probably 10's of thousands of years of
experience (REAL WORLD) in all different aspects of design and manufacturing. You WILL find out why you are
getting high quotes.. It could be your expectations are un-realistic, or you could just be contacting assholes,
or (most likely) there are things in your design and print that are adding a lot of cost to your parts that aren't
necessary.

There are also a lot of other ways to get lower prices, and HIGHER prices.. Assholes and arrogant pricks ALWAYS get
higher prices... There are ways to get LOWER prices out of a job shop, and they don't teach those things
in engineering school...

minhollywood said:

i meant i need someone who is skilled and has the equipment but not the overhead of a large shop

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No, what you mean to say is that you're looking for a sucker who's put in the grind time to gain the skills and equipment, but is either too confident and will take your work at below market rate, or isn't confident enough to take on your work at market rates.

You have a "bunch" of "tight tolerance" parts that you need in one-off or ~50 quantities, and you wanna pay pity work rates?

Welcome to the fuckin' hustle dude. The best outcome for your soul here would be that you don't find a sucker, and put a new Tormach on your credit card so you can do the thing like the rest of us.

gkoenig said:

No, what you mean to say is that you're looking for a sucker who's put in the grind time to gain the skills and equipment, but is either too confident and will take your work at below market rate, or isn't confident enough to take on your work at market rates.

You have a "bunch" of "tight tolerance" parts that you need in one-off or ~50 quantities, and you wanna pay pity work rates?

Welcome to the fuckin' hustle dude. The best outcome for your soul here would be that you don't find a sucker, and put a new Tormach on your credit card so you can do the thing like the rest of us.

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Damn dude!
I didn't read that. He does have a point about 'overhead of a large shop'. I'm not the guy paying the bills by quoting work, but I have seen plenty of posts here about the merits of keeping a machine busy at "no profit" vs letting it sit there doing nothing. Not agreeing or disagreeing with that, just putting it out there...

Mike1974 said:

Damn dude!
I didn't read that. He does have a point about 'overhead of a large shop'. I'm not the guy paying the bills by quoting work, but I have seen plenty of posts here about the merits of keeping a machine busy at "no profit" vs letting it sit there doing nothing. Not agreeing or disagreeing with that, just putting it out there...

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Good point, everyone has a right to do whatever they want with their machinery and time and skills.

I wouldn’t consider myself a sucker for offering services. It’s just what our shop specializes in and we can provide a fast turn on this sort of stuff at reasonable costs because we’ve been doing this for 45 years. I see your point but I think your assuming a little too much. Just my .02

true - i guess the art of negotiation can be refined and implemented. i guess in my preliminary search i have only found what i consider unreasonable starting prices making me leery of trying to negotiate... but thank you :-)

gkoenig said:

No, what you mean to say is that you're looking for a sucker who's put in the grind time to gain the skills and equipment, but is either too confident and will take your work at below market rate, or isn't confident enough to take on your work at market rates.

You have a "bunch" of "tight tolerance" parts that you need in one-off or ~50 quantities, and you wanna pay pity work rates?

Welcome to the fuckin' hustle dude. The best outcome for your soul here would be that you don't find a sucker, and put a new Tormach on your credit card so you can do the thing like the rest of us.

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Hmmm... not really. I'm an engineer by trade so understand design, cost and production. I've worked in manufacturing and have experience working with shops in the past. When I moved to LA specifically I was shell shocked at the quotes I would get. In New England I guess I had a network that was reasonable. And although i can turn a few parts myself, I just don't do this kind of work easily or with the finesse someone with decades of experience can do.

Rather than look at it as me trolling, maybe take it in the spirit it was delivered: I figured on a forum like this I might be able to find someone who was skilled enough to do the work (and there are a ton of skilled machinists here), didn't have the overhead of a shop necessarily (and again there are many who are) and was interested in the kind of work I was doing (moot for now) and we could take it from there. I'm not an unreasonable person really once you get to know me :-)

Oh, and p.s. not everyone on here is a dude ;-) but ya, I can take some razzing. MechEng 9T0.

minhollywood said:

hello, new to the forum and needing advice on a good cnc hobbyist or even small shop preferably in LA, but am also happy with expanding my search to anywhere US, that i can work with for small parts (aluminum and mild steel) that require tight tolerances. alot of my stuff may be one offs or small batches (dozen to 50). i have designs ready for manufacturing so am looking for someone who can help me produce these.

thank you in advance for any advice or guidance!

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If you post pics of the types of parts you want , you might get response. Also via skype + FEDEX and stuff these days maybe there's someone with a bit of "Downtime" that would work with you in a different state like East Coast (even).

Without prints/CAD models and $ expectations nothing is defined here ?

What is expensive to one … Can be very reasonable to another.

_____________________________________________________________


What tolerances,

What materials,

some indication of likely processes... Like Mill-turn... Grinding? Five axis ? 4th axis, 3 axis...

contoured prismatic ??? Blah blah blah … Prints :-)


________

I'm curious as to what minhollywood thinks is expensive/cheap, easy not easy... High tolerance not so high tolerance.


Seems there is key element that may be making this a LOT more expensive than what it might need to be? [Like what BobW in NM is say'n]. One of the cool things about PM forum you know it can be a team effort... I always say two heads are better than one even if one of those heads is full of saw dust... Not saying I don't have saw dust between my ears.


At least @minhollywood you get to find out whether you are smoking crack or not?

^^^ PM forum is very good for that and sometimes on stuff I'm not very sure about I'll post something in the hope that someone will kick the crap out of it YKWIM ? Better to get it right than "Be" right (I think).


Someone out there might already (coincidently) have a set up in place to run your parts... [The inter-webs one would think would be good for that ? ?? (shrugging shoulders mwehhmeerouhhh <---- Scooby Doo noises ).


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Point of reference: Around the 2008 crash I was able to get a lot of stuff done as some fairly sophisticated shops were hit hard in some cases. I was always super flexible on time frames and scheduling and allowed then to fit any of my jobs around down-time. The logic being better to have a skilled machinist actually machine stuff and make some $ rather than having a very skilled guy just push a broom around for weeks at a time.


Sadly things have changed for the worst (after that period), and a LOT of shops closed I think... So the shops that are good and still in business are really really busy. In part I think that has pushed many a CAD jockey to roll their sleeves up and put in the time (YEARS) to get a half decent handle on "In-house" manufacturing (for smaller and newer businesses) ... That's what Gkeonig is getting at I think (Tormach being the gateway drug to extreme machine purchases in the future).

minhollywood said:

.....I figured on a forum like this I might be able to find someone who was skilled enough to do the work (and there are a ton of skilled machinists here), didn't have the overhead of a shop necessarily (and again there are many who are) and was interested in the kind of work I was doing (moot for now) and we could take it from there.

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You should be able to. I fit most of your points, except for being interested in your parts. Don't know what they are, even so much as, bigger, or smaller, than a breadbox (a clue as to my generation).

As a retired guy that happens to have a shop behind the house, I have flexibility in what work I do and what I charge. Beside my own tiny "product line", I only do work for folks with unique needs in machined parts that appeal to me. If someone asks me to quote 50 of some mundane widget, I'll point them to other shops where folks are looking to make money.

plastikdreams said:

Just because some hobbiest made something once doesn't mean they can do it 50 times lol. Most of us are professional machinists, we do this for real.

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He wants cheap....really cheap, but not chinese cheap....

digger doug said:

He wants cheap....really cheap, but not chinese cheap....

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Is there a difference?

Thank you - that would be helpful. I can PM you...