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My New Shop

Microshaped

Aluminum
Joined
Jul 19, 2014
Location
USA, IL
I first want to Thank A good Friend/Business colleague for helping me the last 2 years make this all happen I will leave him anonymous unless he wishes to come forward.

I start by saying it was a long haul to get where I am today. with my machines pretty much in storage the first year I owned them because I didn't have a suitable space to setup shop and wasn't sure if I could make it in my own as a machine shop.

I started to find work for my machines end of 2015 which lead me to get serious about find space. So I Started talking to family about acquiring my grandparents property which has a roughly 1000 Sq Ft Morton building on the rear of the property but was also a junk yard of years of collecting from my grandpas Inventions and truck driving.

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This is what I was up against which I know would take months of clean up

Speed up to last few months

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This is as of yesterday
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I now have both my machines in my new shop But I still have a lot to do. Building a small office, and loft storage (Buildings roughly 25 Feet tall), Electrical, ETC so I keep you all updated as I make progress
 
At this point it's all on you. How hard are you willing to work, how badly do you want this. If you work hard and are willing to sacrifice everything then you have a chance to make it in the machine shop business. If you can get in with a few steady customers and deliver as promised you then have a start.

It's all up to you. Don't spend a dime you don't have to spend, Don't take on a job that you can't do and that means a job you can't check/inspect properly.

Right now the only advantage you have over any other guy with a lathe and mill is your price/Shop rate and your ability to deliver faster than him. Ask yourself why would XYZ company come to me instead of ABC machine down the block. The answer is your overhead is lower, you can charge less. Your shop does not have a six week backlog of work that's always on the edge of late so you can deliver quicker.

This is your competitive advantage for now use it wisely. Find a way to figure out what shops in your area are charging per hour and charge just under that. Once you have landed that first good job DELIVER IT !!! Blow them away with the delivery time.

Your parts have to be every bit as good as the guys down the street.

Find out what your customer needs, then commit to doing it and over perform.

Good luck keep us posted.

Make Chips Boys !

Ron
 
At this point it's all on you. How hard are you willing to work, how badly do you want this. If you work hard and are willing to sacrifice everything then you have a chance to make it in the machine shop business. If you can get in with a few steady customers and deliver as promised you then have a start.

It's all up to you. Don't spend a dime you don't have to spend, Don't take on a job that you can't do and that means a job you can't check/inspect properly.

Right now the only advantage you have over any other guy with a lathe and mill is your price/Shop rate and your ability to deliver faster than him. Ask yourself why would XYZ company come to me instead of ABC machine down the block. The answer is your overhead is lower, you can charge less. Your shop does not have a six week backlog of work that's always on the edge of late so you can deliver quicker.

This is your competitive advantage for now use it wisely. Find a way to figure out what shops in your area are charging per hour and charge just under that. Once you have landed that first good job DELIVER IT !!! Blow them away with the delivery time.

Your parts have to be every bit as good as the guys down the street.

Find out what your customer needs, then commit to doing it and over perform.

Good luck keep us posted.

Make Chips Boys !

Ron

I agree with everything you posted except for the charging less part. That just continues the race to the bottom and benefits nobody. As he grows his business, charging more to the same customer (to cover more overhead) will seem like a negative and likely make the customer look elsewhere.

Biggest advantage is lead time. Again, lots of shops are booked up solid, so a new customer is willing to pay more to get his stuff done RIGHT NOW! New customers look around to local shops because of the backlog of current suppliers. If they want cheap, they go to China.
 
Its been 16 Months Since my last post... A lot has happened Landed few repeat customers added a band saw and built a over head office/Storage loft in shop, finally started building up a perishable Cabinet where I could pull open a drawer and the drill or Tap I needed was actually there(didn't have to run to my computer to order one to run the job) Things where good then Seems like customers went else were for cheaper prices and I started to head Down hill so instead of scrounging for beer money jobs and running what I work so hard to get into the ground, I decided to let the shop sit idle for few months and take a regular jobs somewhere to clear my head which brings me to present day.

So now things are starting to look up again and I am ready to jump back in the game I get some pictures posted of the shop in the next few day(as I blow dust of the machines and do some PM) and try to continue to blog weekly on here.

Until then thanks everyone on this forum for the motivation and Support.
 
Its been 16 Months Since my last post... A lot has happened Landed few repeat customers added a band saw and built a over head office/Storage loft in shop, finally started building up a perishable Cabinet where I could pull open a drawer and the drill or Tap I needed was actually there(didn't have to run to my computer to order one to run the job) Things where good then Seems like customers went else were for cheaper prices and I started to head Down hill so instead of scrounging for beer money jobs and running what I work so hard to get into the ground, I decided to let the shop sit idle for few months and take a regular jobs somewhere to clear my head which brings me to present day.

So now things are starting to look up again and I am ready to jump back in the game I get some pictures posted of the shop in the next few day(as I blow dust of the machines and do some PM) and try to continue to blog weekly on here.

Until then thanks everyone on this forum for the motivation and Support.

Chin up! This is a tough business, and you never know if that light at the end of the tunnel is the train or not. I just took a 40 hour a week job after 12 years on my own. It was the only way I could get health insurance. I tell you what though it sure is nice to just make stuff and not have to worry about all it takes to run the shop. I still do weekends and evenings out here though.
 
Well my last post being in August of 2017 and a lot going on once again would like to thank the support of this forum as I work through some personal medical matters with my daughter which is looking good. I am ready to start my shop up once again only because I am not ready to give up at this point.
At this point I have:
CNC Journeyman 325 fully tooled with cat 40 holders
tree UP1000 CNC lathe fully tooled and running with Full set of 3J collets
Kick ass wilton 3 HP semi auto bandsaw
30 ton dake hydraulic press with a custom made 24" Brake press die
80 gal industrial air compressor
Millermatic 250 MP welder with spool gun
syncrowave 250 tig welder
cutting torch
and 2 plasma cutters

so i think i have a decent setup to get some work with (will See)

2018 upgrades as of now
I purchased 4 acres of land for future Shop
All my machines are still on drop cords (LOL) I purchase THHN wire in spools and EMT conduit to rewire my entire shop.

More Updates to come
Few pictures made some finger dies to bend this sheet metal on my 30 ton press Fun learning experiance
 

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