Thoughts or advice on better utilising current equipment??

[Kentuckydiesel]

Then you really are werking out of a 60K' shop then. STILL - I hope you don't hafta heat all of that at once with so few of you there! Just turn on a salamander or two on at a press for the day as required?


And I thought that I had a high iron/sqr' to manpower ratio!

You obviously have some good werk, even if it is sparse!

We actually run pretty hard through the spring, summer, and fall. Generally get a couple trucks a day coming in to pick up.

Unfortunately, we are heating all but about 7000 sqft of space due to having a sprinkler system throughout the rest of the buildings. Luckily our biggest tennant took over the heating bill on the smaller (65,000sqft) building as of this week though.

Your machines are nothing spectacular as far as capacity but you have a good assortment and can attract some walk in and job shop work. Let it be known that you will take in simple work with no minimum and can get it done quickly. With decent rates and good work you can still attract work that the CNC shops do not want. Still, you need the right people to do the work.

For the Fab shop you need to utilize the machines that are special and have large capacities. If you are the only shop within 50 miles that can bend real heavy plate then advertise the heck out of that. There are tons of shops that would love to take in a special job but just cannot process the one fat plate on the drawing. These shops can find the work if you let them know you are willing to make just that one piece for them.

Yes you can sell or scrap all your equipment and that is not such a bad idea but not all at once. Just because your equipment is old doesn't mean it can't make money. Make it a point to see what you have that the other shops don't then push that process.

Once you get an idea of direction then get a decent web site. This is what people turn to now when they need something. When you get the site designed don't worry so much about the cute stuff. Just make sure when people search for Rolling or Bending your site is in the top five. During this last recession I survived by reinventing my shop. I did this by changing my web site, pushing what would work and not worrying about what would not.

Walter A.

Those are good thoughts...I believe we do have the ability to do a bit more than others in our area. We had two farmers come in a couple weeks ago...needed a 5'x5' sheet of 14ga rolled at a 2' radius to make a new saddle for a sprayer tank. They had called every shop and manufacturer in the area, but no one had any rollers over 4' wide. We knocked it out in no time and put rolled flanges on the edges just like their original piece. The older of the two said he had thought about us originally but didn't think we'd be willing to do it. These are things that could definitely make a difference to us.
I do plan to work on our website in the near future...to my knowledge, it hasn't been updated since 2003.

Kentuckydiesel

How about the eastern part of your state, Coal is KING, and quite possibly can provide some biz. Just what I'm not sure, but I remembering a company in Beckley WV that was making things for the mining industry...

Find somethng to make, make the best product you can, and sell to those who will profit from using it...then they'l want more of it.

Where in KY are you?

or maybe TVA needs some help with what ever.. you need to put on your Sales Engineer hat and take a road trip...

Good luck

We're outside Louisville...Kind of North-Central.

I think I will be looking for new product lines and contracts much more diligintly once I get the plant cleaned up, organized, and flowing well, just so I know there won't be any stupid things slowing down production.

Thanks, Phillip

 

[77ironhead]

Reading thru all the previous posts, I see not a single mention of repair work. Regarding your machine shop only, you have some fair capacity there, and if there's any heavy industry at all near you, you can make a good living. I used to work in a plant that the bulk of the work (~75%) was repair and replacement parts (mostly shafting) for the paper mills in New England, the balance was job-shop work for customers all the way up to Raytheon. Not a single CNC in the place, and with the exception of a few Acer-built Bridgeport clones and one small engine lathe, all of the machines were 1960 or older with random upgrades (DROs, vertical milling heads retrofitted to the planers, etc). We routinely held tolerances of +/- .015 total indicated runout on shafting made of thin-walled aluminum tube with stainless steel inserts pressed in the ends 22' long and +/- .005 TIR of the bearing journals turned into the SS slugs, so don't automatically believe that if you don't have CNC you can't hold tolerances or make a profit with old machines.
It will come down to your ability to find someone with the ability to make those machines sing to be profitable in that.
Something to look out for (assuming you can find a market, and can find a machinist with the experience) would be a horizontal boring mill to compliment your fab abilities and you can also offer high-tolerance weldments.

If I was local to you, I'd be applying at your shop in a heartbeat for work like that (some of us would rather crank a handle any day of the week over pushing buttons)

Best of luck to you whichever direction you go in, and welcome to PM!

 

[SND]

Well, it sounds like you're well equipped for the sheet metal work and that your main products are in that sector. I say just expand on that, ideally high value items.
Nice tool boxes, work benches, range hoods, you can also get into custom range hoods for restaurants, home, etc. A very basic island range hood made in China costs $1K minimum not installed or anything, a nice high end up is 4-10K+ and that is for a home, not restaurant!!
Custom BBQ's, trailers. Find out who builds custom machines in your area, offer to do their sheet metal enclosures and that you can do some of the machining if required.

With a big building and likely most in your area knowing you have your own product line, its normal they wouldn't expect that you'll take on smaller projects. So you can advertise that, even put a big sign by the road if needed.

One problem of smaller quantity custom stuff is you'll need a few really good fabricators that can run with an idea and make it work.

I wish I had a few bits of equipment and the room to do sheetmetal work


BTW, you mentioned doing your the sheet metal for one of your buildings. There seems to only be 1 maybe 2 companies doing stainless roofing with stamped in patterns, I lost their link but I think it was in Europe. Anyhow, personally I'd like to see stainless siding, but I'm kinda nuts... I'd also really like to see good quality stainless flashing for construction instead of the galvanized or painted steel junk, I didn't find any in stainless when I was building. Chimney cones/flashing also, they're pretty much all galvanized, again I'd pay 3-4X the price to have it in 304 stainless and properly welded around the bottom instead of the weak roll over with a bead of caulking.

Just a few ideas

 

[Kentuckydiesel]

Repair work would be fun and profitable Im sure...but that would definitely require some more skilled people than we have now. Hiring will be a very important part of my next couple months.
Where do you guys seem to get the best response when advertising a job?

As far as the stainless products go...we have made range hoods, countertops, backsplashes, etc in the past, but haven't ever marketed ourselves for those products. We actually do have the equipment to make stove pipe, caps, and other such products, but with stainless being 4-5 times more expensive than galvanized...it's tough to get anyone to go for such expense. Actually did make one stainless steel roof last month tho. All very good ideas anyway...definitely things to seriously consider.

-Phillip

 

[Walter A]

I get the best results for hiring when I advertise on Craigslist. The 2nd best is from my own website.

Walter A.

 

[Toolbert]

As owner of a waterjet shop ... the best value of your old manual equipment is in "second ops" adding value to parts and products primarily made using modern CNC equipment.

It's OK if an old manual machine sits unused 99% of the time, the value is made up when it's used for that one critical step.

It's awful hard to make $$ making products entirely using WW2 vintage equipment, if you're competing with shops paying the same labor rate and using modern CNC.

I disagree with the general dis' of waterjet for stacked sheet metal parts. That is my bread-and-butter, for mild steel, stainless & aluminum sheet, stack up to 5 layers depending on the thickness. Depends on the tolerances required of course, but jeez if you're making sheet metal parts where the tolerance can be even +/-.010", taper is just not an issue.

Waterjet vs. plasma vs. laser, it all depends what you are doing, how much value you add in making the products, what your competition is, what you can easily farm out.

Waterjet is the most universal and also the most expensive. Even owning the machine, it can be cheaper to sub out much steel plate cutting. In general, if I can have the steel supplier do it, it's cheaper to pay them, than to do it in house.

 

[Milacron]

For future reference... "thoughts-advice" is an utterly worthless topic title...tells us NOTHING about what your topic concerns. So, next time give at least some hint of what your topic actually is.

 

[Kentuckydiesel]

Waterjet is the most universal and also the most expensive. Even owning the machine, it can be cheaper to sub out much steel plate cutting. In general, if I can have the steel supplier do it, it's cheaper to pay them, than to do it in house.

Is most of this expense in the abrasive materials or are you speaking about the cost of the machine itself?
In your experience, how many sheets of 16ga 304 stainless could you stack if you kept, say a .016 tolerance? How about 12ga mild?
In steel plate cutting, do you mean cutting to size or cutting out particular parts is less expensive through the supplier?

For future reference... "thoughts-advice" is an utterly worthless topic title...tells us NOTHING about what your topic concerns. So, next time give at least some hint of what your topic actually is.

Sorry about that...Tried to go back and change it but it would only let me change the title on the 1st post itself.

-Phillip

 

[adama]

Why do you have to cut them stacked? A laser/plasma will probably cut the same amount of individual sheets in the time it took the water jet to cut the stack. Especially if you consider you can just throw the sheet on the laser table, the stacks going to have to be clamped and messed with.

Lasers easily going to do 16 thou tolerance, we regularly have bits coming in sub 10 thou from our laser cutting supplier. that's in 40 thou thick mild steel. They can do the same in stainless too.

 

[Kentuckydiesel]

Why do you have to cut them stacked? A laser/plasma will probably cut the same amount of individual sheets in the time it took the water jet to cut the stack. Especially if you consider you can just throw the sheet on the laser table, the stacks going to have to be clamped and messed with.
QUOTE]

Often need 50+ sheets at a time. Can't have any sort of burn marks on them...asthetic reasons. Does a laser cause much slag/charred look?

-Phillip

 

[SND]

Laser will have a little HAZ line all around, and a little burr on the back usually, varies with many factors/material certainly, but I found the burr in the back of thin sheet to actually be better than on the same 316SS sheets cut with waterjet. But, waterjet actually seemed to hold size a bit better because the laser warps the thin (.020") sheet a little as its cutting, must be the heat.

 

[WILLEO6709]

Often need 50+ sheets at a time. Can't have any sort of burn marks on them...asthetic reasons. Does a laser cause much slag/charred look?

Laser in 12 gauge mild steel depends on the laser somewhat. But in general you'll have a bright blueish edge around about 1/8-3/16 wide and an edge surface finish somewhere 125-250 rms. in my experience. They say the new cincinnati sheet lasers really fly but they are priced to match.

 

[Toolbert]

Is most of this expense in the abrasive materials or are you speaking about the cost of the machine itself?
In your experience, how many sheets of 16ga 304 stainless could you stack if you kept, say a .016 tolerance? How about 12ga mild?
In steel plate cutting, do you mean cutting to size or cutting out particular parts is less expensive through the supplier?

Stacking is, at least in a ballpark, for steel/stainless 18ga and thinner, and aluminum 1/16" and thinner. 24ga mild, great, stack 4x to 6x. 12ga mild, no point.

For plate cutting, a good rate from a plasma or laser shop is less $ than the waterjet consumables cost alone.

The folks that do structural cutting on waterjet do it because they need the total avoidance of a HAZ, or because they can justify the capital cost of one machine that does everything, or because it is simply the only one of (waterjet, laser, plasma, oxy fuel) that yields acceptable results.

I think anyone doing structural fab needs a cnc plasma table, its cost simply can't be beat for the kind of work its cut edges are acceptable for.

I think one attraction of waterjet over laser, besides the waterjet machine simply costing far less up front, is it is just so much faster to set up and cut small jobs on than a laser. Waterjet also doesn't just drop off and stop working at some specific thickness. Laser is great for 1/2" plate but if you need to do something fancy to 1" or 2" steel plate, you're SOL. Waterjet cuts any thickness, it just gets slower.

 

[Ranchero50]

I think the best manufacturing comes from your name. Is it somethiing basic like 'Kentuckydiesel manufacturing' or more specific like 'Kentuckydiesel sheetmetal and fab'?

I see selling yourself to architectural firms being a big plus along with some generic signage. I don't like radio or most internet ads, it never seems to get to the right folks. A billboard along the road or on your property that's in plan sight should draw business as well.

Jamie

 

[Ries]

I yield to Bob (Toolbert) on whether or not waterjet can cut stacked material. He owns one, I just pay others to do cutting on em. And yes, I was thinking of thicker materials- I usually work in the range of 1/8" to 1" for waterjet.

I still maintain though, that, for the kind of business I can surmise Kentucky does, plasma would be cheaper and do the job just fine.

I have been running a 4'x8' plasma cutting table in my shop since 92, and it works really well for sheet metal.

 

[Philabuster]

Thoughts or advice on better utilising current equipment??

I would basically need to find someone who could come in, sort through drawers and cabinets full of tooling and whatnot, and know how to put it all to work. Am I imagining the impossible here?

Many times when I tour an old shop, the old iron is good, but the cutting tooling is still stuck in the 40s--read High Speed Steel (HSS) still being manually sharpened on a grinder in the corner.

If you do hire a good machinist and he gives you suggestions on how to upgrade the cutting tooling, listen to him. New perishable tooling is a very inexpensive way to better utilize old equipment. The old iron will likely have the rigidity and speed needed to use better tooling.

It may sound expensive to buy a new carbide tipped, drill, insert, tool, whatever, but remember, time is money. The more time the guy is sitting there taking a slow cut and constantly resharpening the tool (spindle is not cutting while grinding the tool), the more money you waste.

We have many chip making machines that are from the '40s to '70s, and all have benefited from upgrades in tooling. Almost ALL of our manual machines have a Digital Read Out (DRO) sitting on them. This makes the slop in the leadscrews a moot point and holding tolerance very predictable. The $2K spent on the DRO is cheap compared to scrapping a $50K part because of slop in the dial. A good machinist can make good parts on an old beat-up machine, but he can make parts faster and more reliably if the old beat up machine tells him exactly where the tool is at.

We had an old 1950's Monarch engine lathe with about a 18" swing. The cross feed dial had about a quarter turn of slop in it because of the worn leadscrew and nut. The DRO made using the machine a breeze. I would run on average 20-30 parts a night on the machine doing a spot operation with each part worth between $10K-$25K each. Never an issue holding size using 3 separate tools with their own offset input into the DRO. New tooling and a DRO make the 60 year old lathe indispensable for that operation. We would always laugh because the value of the cheapest part I was cutting was still worth 3X more than the lathe itself.

Upgrading the tooling--if necessary--will cost some money up front, but it will make the difference between having the machine shop be a money maker or a loosing proposition.

 

[adammil1]

On your question on looking for good employees, I can't say I've ever hired anyone, nor do I claim it will turn out a lot of applicants but in addition to this site, you have a local live steam club Falls City Live Steamers I think this is near you. Here's a list of the rest in the USA Discover Live Steam Riding Scale Railroads

May want to see if they know anyone looking for a job. Personal experience says that these clubs attract a lot of first rate machinists who liked their jobs so much that they did it in their free time. I would think as an employer that would be something I would want to find. You may also find a lot of retired machinists but they should likely know someone, or know of work in the area. If nothing else it may just be a fun thing to take the family to on the weekend.

One other request, first if you wouldn't mind could you post some pictures of this shop over in the antique machinery part of the forum. I would love to see some pictures. Secondly if you are going to start scrapping out stuff please offer it up to folks here, there are a lot of us here who may be quite happy paying semi decent money for what you do have.


Adam

 

[Kentuckydiesel]

Many times when I tour an old shop, the old iron is good, but the cutting tooling is still stuck in the 40s--read High Speed Steel (HSS) still being manually sharpened on a grinder in the corner.
We have many chip making machines that are from the '40s to '70s, and all have benefited from upgrades in tooling. Almost ALL of our manual machines have a Digital Read Out (DRO) sitting on them. This makes the slop in the leadscrews a moot point and holding tolerance very predictable. The $2K spent on the DRO is cheap compared to scrapping a $50K part because of slop in the dial. A good machinist can make good parts on an old beat-up machine, but he can make parts faster and more reliably if the old beat up machine tells him exactly where the tool is at.

QUOTE]
This is very true...have a bunch of OLD HSS tooling right now, all of which is supposed to be sharpened on an assortment of machines in the corner.
Also have some slop in dials on the machines. DRO would make a world of difference. I had to make some bushings on one of the lathes the other day OD:4.883", ID:4.773"...wanted them to be within a couple thousanths. I couldn't really trust the dial when I got in close to where I wanted to be, so I was continually checking, checking, and checking some more. It would be nice to know exactly where the machine is.

On your question on looking for good employees, I can't say I've ever hired anyone, nor do I claim it will turn out a lot of applicants but in addition to this site, you have a local live steam club Falls City Live Steamers I think this is near you. Here's a list of the rest in the USA Discover Live Steam Riding Scale Railroads

May want to see if they know anyone looking for a job. Personal experience says that these clubs attract a lot of first rate machinists who liked their jobs so much that they did it in their free time. I would think as an employer that would be something I would want to find. You may also find a lot of retired machinists but they should likely know someone, or know of work in the area. If nothing else it may just be a fun thing to take the family to on the weekend.

One other request, first if you wouldn't mind could you post some pictures of this shop over in the antique machinery part of the forum. I would love to see some pictures. Secondly if you are going to start scrapping out stuff please offer it up to folks here, there are a lot of us here who may be quite happy paying semi decent money for what you do have.


Adam

Very good idea on the steam club...and I would like to check it out anyway. I'm a big fan of steam power!

I'll be glad to post some pictures of the equipment. I know I have pics handy of our Pratt and Whitney 3C, our Bliss 8E press, and our 1920s (I think) Automatic Transportation Company platform lift truck...may have some more. About to leave the house, but will try to post them this evening or tomorrow.

Oh, don't worry...none of our machines will be scrapped. If the machine shop is ever upgraded, I'll probably set up a shop at my house with the old stuff.

-Phillip

 

[dkmc]

Automatic Transportation Company platform lift truck

Post some pics of THAT

 

[bryan_machine]

Based mostly on scholarship and observation:

1. A web site that dates from 2003 is almost an announcement you are out of business. Be sure to tweak it fairly regularly just to let people know you are still exist (especially in the current economy.)

Further, I'll bet DBAs (doing business as) are cheap there (like they are here), and domains and simple web sites are cheap too.

So might well want multiple names (all hypothetical):

"Kentucky Farm Trailers"
"North Central Sheet Fabrication Welding and Machining"
"Repair & Refurb Company"

And the like. What the name sounds like and looks like on the web and in the yellow pages matters.



2. Really large machines, and unusual machines, are really costly, whether CNC or not, so the very large machines in your inventory should probably be the last to go if you have use for them, they work, etc. (One way to think about this is to observe what the cost of a quality asian clone of the machine costs. A modern *manual copy* of a monoset tool grinder (your #2?) is $20K and up.... A 20" x 110" lathe will not be cheap, etc.)

3. In any conversation about plasma/laser/waterjet, I always wonder why CNC turret punch isn't considered. (I've never owned any of these, so "bryan you idiot it won't do "x"" is a fair answer.)

BUT - I see (in demos and ads) punch presses whacking lots of holes in stuff with great speed, and some have tooling which at least claims to "sheer with a wheel" on some pattern, and to be able to make flanges.

This would of course require careful study, but a turret punch *might* be a thing to consider rather than plasma/waterjet/laser.

I do note that one sees a lot of laser/punch combo machines in catalogs and at trade shows, there's surely some reason for that...