Shop Time w/T.W. Friends. Where is your wallet…..poll

@phillstill saw your broken 2-56 tap, you a machinist?

 

The man with da power!

 

Tranquility

 

Good morning Shane and fellas. Enjoy your Friday!

I’ve stopped at that rest area many times on the way to New Orleans. They have a lunar module on display that is visible from the interstate. Went to the Science Center a couple of times too. Pretty cool place.

 

Happy Friday Creed and Lime Green Gang. (should be a band name)
Finally get to make some more chips today.

 

Thank you!

Ooof.. nice!

 

Engineer turned wannabe machinist/knife maker. lol. I am a long ways away from calling myself a machinist.
January of 2021 I bought a little 3-1 3D printer/laser engraver/router and the really unleashed my passion for designing and manufacturing. 6 months later I bought a Tormach 440 CNC Mill and Tormach automatic surface grinder. I'm currently building a larger CNC router with a 32"x32" machinable area and a 3hp 24k rpm spindle.

Besides knife making, I've decided to start offering prototyping and small scale manufacturing services. Planning to upgrade to a larger CNC machine in the next year or two. So if anyone here has recommendations, I would love to here them!

 

And annoyed!

 

Got any pics of the 3-1 3D printer/laser engraver/router?

 

I'll have to dig up some photos. It is a Snapmaker 2.0 A350

 

We all know they'll be perfect.

 

Very nice. 2 things that seem to never oversaturate the manufacturing market are knives and firearms imo. We waterjet out the blanks for a couple local knife makers here in Az. Very high end material sheets. Damascus, other interesting patterns and mixes. They seem to always be pumping them out in small, made to order batches... which is why it works, even with so many of them around. you get a design people like and get it out there.. you'll have enough to keep it going for sure.

Little envious for sure.. as I hope to have a couple machines of my own and start knocking out my parts. Mostly Truck and Gun parts, things that I have cataloged over the years.. but would offer my services as well to anyone needing them.

 

Dealership states “This may or may not fix it, but where we think we should start.”

 

Put me on your interested customer list. I've had some ideas knocking around in my head from time to time and no realistic way to fab them since I left my old job at a machine shop with all the goodies.

Miss being able to bribe the fab guys with a case of beer for their troubles, using an offcut for material stock.

 

See.. Honestly.. TW alone would probably be enough to keep me afloat I bet. I dont need/desire to make a ton.. I just want to be able to sustain a (simple) lifestyle that my wife and I enjoy. Remote property... a Shop/Barndominium.. couple machines/3D printers and I'm set. Between the parts I do on the side now (that I could ramp up at that point) and new stuff that I could invest the time into.. I think it would work out with the connections/networking I have currently in place. It's been a real dream/goal of mine for the last probably 6-7 years. My wife has started her own business and is ramping that up while she works full time from home. So her transition, even if it took some time would be easy, and a relocation with more off-grid properties wouldnt impact her at all anyways. So its somewhat in the beginning stages..

 

Nearly $900 to replace tie-rods on ONE side???

 

Well if your future work is anything like your switchpro 3d printed bezels you used to make, I'm sure you'll have a lot of happy customers. I love mine every time I look at it.

 

Yup. I’m going tomorrow morning to another shop, they said $271 for parts/labor/alignment. But we also questioned if it’s really the tie rod ends (the boot is bad on the outer so it will need to be replaced).