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Short/Long term future of manual/repair shops?

Companies with the machine or line down don't look at the bill and say "This dude with manual machines is charging me 150$/hr!". The see the problem as "Our cell or production line that runs at $800/hr is down, and I need it back up like yesterday!"
 
Companies with the machine or line down don't look at the bill and say "This dude with manual machines is charging me 150$/hr!". The see the problem as "Our cell or production line that runs at $800/hr is down, and I need it back up like yesterday!"

Just wait till you come close to shutting down an auto plant. $100k per hour chargebacks will make the kid gloves come off pretty damn quick.
 
Don't know auto plants, maybe Tony will chime in, but Westinghouse for sure didn't rely on any repair service - not for anything. They had their own people, who were often smarter than the manufacturer.

Come on, EG, you know better. You've criticized the "Just in Time" system enough times to know how it works, that it doesn't need to be the OEM's problem (or even the Tier 1) at all. $300/hr for a Sunday afternoon's work is well in-bounds to make sure Monday's parts hit the loading dock right on schedule.
 
Come on, EG, you know better. You've criticized the "Just in Time" system enough times to know how it works, that it doesn't need to be the OEM's problem (or even the Tier 1) at all. $300/hr for a Sunday afternoon's work is well in-bounds to make sure Monday's parts hit the loading dock right on schedule.
I don't understand this ? Topic is repair shops, as I said I don't know auto but would expect they are at least as smart as defense ? I know Westinghouse a little, dealt with their on-site guys and they were good. Knew their poop backwards and forwards, wrote new execs for controls, would not let the manufacturer in even under warranty to see how they had improved the machines.

I would expect something similar from an auto plant. No matter the costs, they are not going to be calling some local repair shop to fix their stuff. I hope ?
 
I don't understand this ? Topic is repair shops, as I said I don't know auto but would expect they are at least as smart as defense ? I know Westinghouse a little, dealt with their on-site guys and they were good. Knew their poop backwards and forwards, wrote new execs for controls, would not let the manufacturer in even under warranty to see how they had improved the machines.

I would expect something similar from an auto plant. No matter the costs, they are not going to be calling some local repair shop to fix their stuff. I hope ?

Well, automotive is an interesting mix of quality and cost demands. One such result of that is that once production for a vehicle is finalized, nothing can be changed. Not materials, not supplier, not nothin'* and they aren't very good about ensuring redundant capacity. So, whoever is approved to supply the parts has got to come up with parts. And the automakers really like to beat up the tier suppliers on price, so in some cases you can get some real fly-by-night places in tiers two and three (e.g. Car is OEM, fusebox is T1, fly-by-night stamping place T2 makes busbars for the fuse box). We are tier 4 on some parts. There is no way the automakers can keep tabs on every manufacturing joint in SE Michigan and beyond, so they make sure it's very very punishing to interrupt their production schedule to keep the supply chain in line. Make more sense now?

*Unless you are about to shut down a plant, then if you have a plan B that will work you can use it.
 
Make more sense now?
Ah, you're talking about suppliers to suppliers to big shots.

Not sure that is a big enough group of shops to give many repair places a living ? Sure, maybe a few companies in the country that can fix an old Fadal really fast, but ... I can't see that expanding, what's in place is about as big as its likely to get, seems like ?

I still think, with unrepairable electronics such a vital part of everything these days, that it's not a bright future ahead for repair. Similar to now, maybe a bit worse as things become less and less fixable and overhead goes up and up. A few people in weird niches should do well, but not that many ?
 
I would expect something similar from an auto plant. No matter the costs, they are not going to be calling some local repair shop to fix their stuff. I hope ?
Not sure what you call a auto plant.
Real example. Robot blows out a hyd through a aluminum casting.
Trades takes it apart and no replacement part. Tight delivery schedule and expedite very expensive so I am under heat.
Supervisor meeting. "Trades, I need my machine. It is a hole in the casting"...Matt says"We do not have anyone on 2nd or third that can do this".
I am poking for a solution and then the question from the trades super "Can you do this". Before I can answer the funny from my area manger "Bob can do lots of things". The rest of the room laughed,
As a supervisor one is not allowed to do such so we had wait for first shift. That meant behind the car plant assembly line and real serious money.
Trades have been trimmed to the min that works. In the past huge amount of trades that sat around and did nothing but play cards all day.
The auto world is so strange at times. Going outside or just fixing it is not easy and this is not a union problem.
Big ships have rules.
Bob
 
Nope. 376. Expect a bump-up in about another four hours

Then again, you are probably not running an armoured Unix workstation.


"Windows", mayhap?

That's a whole 'nuther universe.

Like drinking from all the public toilets in the world, all the time, and all at once.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving naif.

"armoured Unix workstation"? Better go snuggle up with it then. Make sure to take a couple of packs of smokes with you. Have a good evening.
 
Not sure what you call a auto plant.
Real example. Robot blows out a hyd through a aluminum casting.
Trades takes it apart and no replacement part. Tight delivery schedule and expedite very expensive so I am under heat.
Supervisor meeting. "Trades, I need my machine. It is a hole in the casting"...Matt says"We do not have anyone on 2nd or third that can do this".
I am poking for a solution and then the question from the trades super "Can you do this". Before I can answer the funny from my area manger "Bob can do lots of things". The rest of the room laughed,
As a supervisor one is not allowed to do such so we had wait for first shift. That meant behind the car plant assembly line and real serious money.
Trades have been trimmed to the min that works. In the past huge amount of trades that sat around and did nothing but play cards all day.
The auto world is so strange at times. Going outside or just fixing it is not easy and this is not a union problem.
Big ships have rules.
Bob

I spent over 30 years in a auto plant. Here's what I can tell you.

1. We didn't wait until Monday morning to get something fixed so that production could be ready to go on Monday morning. I got occasional calls on Sundays or nights to see if I'd come in and make something or install something so that production could be ready to hit the ground running on Monday morning.

2. I remember one supervisor telling me that he didn't exactly like the idea that I was sitting there on call to repair his machines but he "still preferred it to seeing my ass hanging out of one of his machines that was down".
 
Since this supply chain debacle started I've seen a large increase in repair work. I figured that was the root of it and didn't think much further. Sunday I got a breakdown job from a mobile tech I have never met before. After I did the job (paid my mortgage in five hours) he picked it up at 9 at night and couldn't stop expressing how grateful he was that there's somebody left doing this stuff. I have certainly noticed that all the big manual shops around me that I knew about have closed up over the past 5 years, but I figured that equipment went somewhere local and what work is left is still getting done somewhere.

Or is it? This guy made the case that the owners of the last two capable fix anything shops decided to retire during the pandemic and there was no emergency breakdown fix anything kind of shops left within a days drive. There are huge supply chain problems, lots of parts are impossible to get right now, but he didn't think that was the biggest problem. He thinks it's that the demand is about the same, but the supply of good shops is gone.

If you do repair work are you seeing the same balls-to-the-wall don't care about price climate?

If so, is it supply chain based, or as the guy wanted me to believe, is it that so many good old shops have finally closed that there's an abundance of work?

Thanks to those who had non-political things to say in this thread.

The repair work volume is still increasing and I'm doing a good job staying on top of it so far. It's fun, I enjoy it.

This morning, the owner of a logging outfit dropped by some pins and bushings I needed to get the fits right in a large hydraulic cylinder I'm rebuilding for them. He wanted to see what I was working with and have a discussion about how busy he could keep me. It was a great discussion.

The work that was being done by the local machine shops that closed/retired/died is all still there. It's just been piling up or hacked together with welding rod, torches and grinders. That's not how they want to do it.

Apparently I'm busy now because the right people found out my shop exists. The work will be there until lumber prices crash which doesn't look likely anytime soon.

Now to buy a bore welder...
 
What's the difference between a job shop and a repair shop? Seems like we all did repair occasionally in our job shops. I know I did, but only for regular customers.

I suppose a "true" repair shop would need a truck with gas powered welder and air compressor plus O/A torch for field work. Maybe a lifting device to pick up things that needed in-shop work. Do you need special liability insurance for repair work?

So you don't know what a repair shop does, but you lectured me on how much I charged a customer for an emergency breakdown job based on your job shop experience?

I don't think there's a solid universal definition of a repair machine shop. I define it as not doing job shop work and catering to local industries that consume machined parts in day to day operations.

Most of my work is large 1710/1810 drivelines, dirt equipment, logging yarder and harvester parts and hazelnut machine parts.

Today I have the two main boom cylinders off a 2015 Cat 325 to piece back together, a NP205 transfercase from an 80's truck to bore the input out to the big bearing size, and an obsolete front wheel hub off a pretty new Chevy Topkick truck that needs sleeved in two places and the lug and brake rotor surfaces skim cut true.

I don't work on greasy shit. If a customer drops off greasy shit I take it to a place that cleans stuff and add it to the bill. Anything big I ask that it's steam cleaned before it comes here. I've never had anyone complain about that.

I don't have a service truck, but I know most of the mobile mechanics in my area and I know all the diesel/heavy shop owners.

As far as lifting stuff goes I have a 5 ton bridge crane in my building and a 4000 lb air tire forklift that goes outside.

I make a living making products on my CNC machines. I do the repair work for fun. If it stops being fun I'll stop doing it. It's that simple.
 
A little late to this thread, but I hope you don't mind me chiming in with some observations that I have made over my time in the skilled trades camp.

A long time ago, I started doing repair work for a construction company that ran a side machine shop. Now, most of the work we did there, was one off repairs for ourselves and other companies that could not get parts in time to keep operating. Now, my boss at the time, who is one of the reasons I went into the Navy, told me he saw a future where CNC would move on and replace a good portion of the people that were skilled with people who just feed machines or those who feed/program them. I can honestly say, I did see that come.

Now, let's move up a few years and you have people who are part of this throw away culture. Most things do not get repaired and most things just get tossed. Yes, I read above where the Right to Repair was a movement that might come to something other than just throwing things away, but in general, I do/did see less people repairing their things.

Then, a funny thing happened, COVID hit. It was like a door opened and things turned upside down. Over the last few years, I have been "scraping" by with using my hobby to support my hobby. I have been obviously buying tools to start my own hobby business over the last ten years, and honestly, just squeaking by with not bothering the wife too much with demands for funding for my habit, but something changed. I had machine shops contacting me, asking me if I had tool space to fit in a job. I had neighbors that were bringing friends over that had stuff they wanted fixed.

Do I think COVID caused it, maybe. Do I think this new mentality is here to stay, maybe? I do know that I think that this repair mentality will be here for a bit longer than expected due to inflation and people wanting to keep some stuff longer than they originally wanted to. I wish everyone the best of luck that does repair work and please contact me if I am in your area and I am stepping on your toes. I like to work with people, not against them.

P.S. My favorite repair job during COVID, last year, was this nice old lady posted up on Facebook that she was looking for someone to weld a little wire cooking basket back together. My wife saw it and read through the post where everyone said throw it out. She also read where the lady went on to say, that it was a family heirloom and she would like to keep it if possible. My wife saw that my name was mentioned in the post history as the guy to talk to for repairing old stuff and said I had to contact her. Long story short, I repaired it and met a nice old lady that I just couldn't charge.
 
I agree with the repair work that Garwood mentions still being profitable. I also agree with what he said is that it is very fun to do those repairs.

I will say, currently while in the process of moving, I am staying at a hotel down here in Norfolk and there is a trailer/semi repair shop behind this hotel that hasn't stopped since the day I got here. They have trailers lined up down the street and their parking lot is overflowing. I honestly think that repair shops still do exist and can make it, but it's a niche market. I also agree that the employee that is getting paid 25/hr to fix those things is probably underpaid. Would I make it doing small repairs on household items, I don't think so. I do however think that some of those shops might come back in the future because of inflation. Will it last, again, I don't think so. Time will tell...

Sent from my S61 using Tapatalk
 
During the past year I encountered a number of 16-mm. cameras that got converted to Super-16, a standardised wide-screen format of 3:5 aspect ratio. All of them were unusable, be it because the film canal was misaligned, be it that a shutter was loose on its shaft. Common to all conversions I have seen is that the exposure aperture or gate didn’t have the correct dimensions. ISO 5768 obviously unknown

With the latest show, a Paillard-Bolex H-16 RX-5 converted to Super-16 and given a PL-mount front (positive-lock bayonet) the flange focal distance was 0,1 mm too long (0.004"). The mount plate rear surface was convex half a tenth millimetre, anodised aluminium. Images out of focus. After two lappings I had the FFD to spec but it increased by 0,03 mm when I tightened two of the four attaching screws. I had a dial indicator on. The front plate is of an asymmetric form and has a wide center opening, so I understood that the plate was squeezed into a wave. Solution: two screws tightened, the critical two just turned down to zero play and secured with lacquer.

Don’t want to brag but I can say that customers spread word about you, if you return good work. That the products have been designed in a throw-away mentality in the first place needs not be underlined. The twentieth century!
 
A little late to this thread, but I hope you don't mind me chiming in with some observations that I have made over my time in the skilled trades camp.

A long time ago, I started doing repair work for a construction company that ran a side machine shop. Now, most of the work we did there, was one off repairs for ourselves and other companies that could not get parts in time to keep operating. Now, my boss at the time, who is one of the reasons I went into the Navy, told me he saw a future where CNC would move on and replace a good portion of the people that were skilled with people who just feed machines or those who feed/program them. I can honestly say, I did see that come.

Now, let's move up a few years and you have people who are part of this throw away culture. Most things do not get repaired and most things just get tossed. Yes, I read above where the Right to Repair was a movement that might come to something other than just throwing things away, but in general, I do/did see less people repairing their things.

Then, a funny thing happened, COVID hit. It was like a door opened and things turned upside down. Over the last few years, I have been "scraping" by with using my hobby to support my hobby. I have been obviously buying tools to start my own hobby business over the last ten years, and honestly, just squeaking by with not bothering the wife too much with demands for funding for my habit, but something changed. I had machine shops contacting me, asking me if I had tool space to fit in a job. I had neighbors that were bringing friends over that had stuff they wanted fixed.

Do I think COVID caused it, maybe. Do I think this new mentality is here to stay, maybe? I do know that I think that this repair mentality will be here for a bit longer than expected due to inflation and people wanting to keep some stuff longer than they originally wanted to. I wish everyone the best of luck that does repair work and please contact me if I am in your area and I am stepping on your toes. I like to work with people, not against them.

P.S. My favorite repair job during COVID, last year, was this nice old lady posted up on Facebook that she was looking for someone to weld a little wire cooking basket back together. My wife saw it and read through the post where everyone said throw it out. She also read where the lady went on to say, that it was a family heirloom and she would like to keep it if possible. My wife saw that my name was mentioned in the post history as the guy to talk to for repairing old stuff and said I had to contact her. Long story short, I repaired it and met a nice old lady that I just couldn't charge.

That's pretty similar to how my shop got started. I bought a mill and a lathe before I retired and already had a drill press and a cutoff saw as well as welders and torches.
I had no intention of doing any work for anyone but myself but the word got out and pretty soon a friend asked me if I cold fix a piece for an old John Deere tractor that was worn egg shaped. I bored it and bushed it. Next thing he was back with some dozer parts that had the same problem. No problem. Then it was a crankcase for a Panhead Harley had some screw holes stripped out and someone had already tried to fix and screwed up.

Eventually I ran into a guy that worked at a die shop and he asked me if I could help them out of a jam with too much work so I set up an LLC and started ordering materials. Did work for them for a couple of years but when I started going back to Arizona for the winters that kind of stopped that and that was fine with me too.

Now I'm back where I wanted to be when I retired and that is doing work mostly for myself and friends.

No covid involved for me. It was just a matter of the work getting out and most shops don't want to be bothered with small repair jobs, just like the basket that you wrote about.
 
OT - Urgent ! What is this electronic component spec ? (photos)

Nine years old and a really simple dead component, possibly the simplest thing that exists in electronics.

Don is a very talented guy but he's not an electronics guru and he knows we have some on PM so he asked for help.

And by the way droll china troll, it's not as simple as you make out because of the damage and lack of documentation.

And if it so "simple", WHY IS THERE NO HELPFUL POST FROM YOU THERE?
 
Don is a very talented guy but he's not an electronics guru and he knows we have some on PM so he asked for help.

And by the way droll china troll, it's not as simple as you make out because of the damage and lack of documentation.

And if it so "simple", WHY IS THERE NO HELPFUL POST FROM YOU THERE?
That was THE POINT, Mr Unclear On The Concept. Earlier in this thread the termite insisted repairs to electronics were trivial.

Well, without docs, they are NOT and here is a great example. Nine year old forklift, mechanically sound, but without an ignition system the owner is up the creek without a paddle. And a diode is about the simplest electronic component there is. What if it were an fpga ?

Most stuff these days has electronics up the wazoo. Without schematics, repair is going to be very very difficult (btdt).
 








 
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