KeithB
Resident Half Fast Machinist
Been so busy I haven't had time to respond to a couple posts so I thought I would do it right now.
To Pistolero - My carry gun is an Airweight 642-2 S&W with CT lasergrips. The grips have the S&W logo on them, I got the gun used, I believe it was some type of special offering in conjunction with the NRA. The activation button is in the front of the grip under the middle finger. Very convenient and as foolproof as can be had. The grips are harder rubber than Pachmyers but soft enough and with a good feel to the surface.
Someone posted about machining Teflon rod and asked if $150 was a fair price? I will explain what the machinist/shop owner sees and let the poster determine the fairness of the quote.
1. How fast do you want it? I do a lot of jobs for a low cost IF the one-time customer is willing to let me work it in between other jobs. Want it tomorrow? If I have to tear down a setup and switch to a different chuck and change out my tooling you're going to pay.
2. Hanging on to some plastics to machine them is tough. If it is a rod then a collet might work, but remember PTFE (Teflon) is soft and slippery, it doesn't want to be grabbed. If I have to make a special collet or set of soft jaws to hang on to your part without marking it up then you're going to pay.
3. Some shops are tied up with their existing commercial customers and don't have a lot of capacity left over to do one-off jobs for folks that they may never see again. As much as I recognize that old customers were all new customers at one time and that that is how you grow a business when I'm in the middle of running a 1000 piece order worth $4-$5k and somebody I've never seen before and probably will never see again drops in with a small job that they want yesterday - well, you're going to pay.
A machine shop is going to charge $50 -$100/hr or more depending on their equipment base and overhead. Even the simplest on-off job can take an hour or more to set up and run, and any special tools, etc needed add to that.
So was it a fair price? You decide.
To Pistolero - My carry gun is an Airweight 642-2 S&W with CT lasergrips. The grips have the S&W logo on them, I got the gun used, I believe it was some type of special offering in conjunction with the NRA. The activation button is in the front of the grip under the middle finger. Very convenient and as foolproof as can be had. The grips are harder rubber than Pachmyers but soft enough and with a good feel to the surface.
Someone posted about machining Teflon rod and asked if $150 was a fair price? I will explain what the machinist/shop owner sees and let the poster determine the fairness of the quote.
1. How fast do you want it? I do a lot of jobs for a low cost IF the one-time customer is willing to let me work it in between other jobs. Want it tomorrow? If I have to tear down a setup and switch to a different chuck and change out my tooling you're going to pay.
2. Hanging on to some plastics to machine them is tough. If it is a rod then a collet might work, but remember PTFE (Teflon) is soft and slippery, it doesn't want to be grabbed. If I have to make a special collet or set of soft jaws to hang on to your part without marking it up then you're going to pay.
3. Some shops are tied up with their existing commercial customers and don't have a lot of capacity left over to do one-off jobs for folks that they may never see again. As much as I recognize that old customers were all new customers at one time and that that is how you grow a business when I'm in the middle of running a 1000 piece order worth $4-$5k and somebody I've never seen before and probably will never see again drops in with a small job that they want yesterday - well, you're going to pay.
A machine shop is going to charge $50 -$100/hr or more depending on their equipment base and overhead. Even the simplest on-off job can take an hour or more to set up and run, and any special tools, etc needed add to that.
So was it a fair price? You decide.