4 ms·

What did you charge for the work? How long did it take for you to do this? Was the price higher or lower because it was for Apple?

by gist 9y ago

abakker 9y ago
I charge around $70/hour for that kind of work, which tends to be a mix of CAD, CAM, Setup, Lifting/moving crap, packaging, and cleanup. Usually 1 hour minimum. I charge more for work in MDF because of the mess and because the dust is harder to clean up/get rid of and it is heavier. More again for aluminum. If I need to make whole assemblies with glue, finishing, etc, I tend to just go fixed bid. It's not super scientific, and I have to turn down certain types of work due to garage constraints, etc. Most of the work I end up getting that follows through are from contractors wanting one-off cuts, jigs, or templates. I get 2x inquiries from people, but they usually don't want to follow through with actually paying money for things.
- abakker 9y ago
  I didn't answer your full question - I didn't charge more based on the client. Just standard, and it took me ~8 hours of work. Turned out to be a great learning experience. (making those puzzle joints caused a revelation: .25" diameter bits are frequently, and irregularly, not .25". Most of mine end up being around .242" Once you compensate for that in CAD, things fit together nicely. )
  - vidanay 9y ago
    Try switching from woodworking bits to metal working bits. An end mill will be 0.2500 with probably a minus tolerance of a tenth or two. The wood bits might be undersized to accommodate tearing of the grain and sanding.
    - abakker 9y ago
      Thanks! The issue with metal working bits is # of flutes/flute geometry - the chips need to be too small to get a good finish, or the feed rate needs to be too high. The "woodworking" bits I use are already pure carbide, high quality bits. my method these days has been to bore a small test hole into a piece of delrin with each new bit, and test that hole with a set of .001" increment pin gauges. Using that number has proven to be good enough for my purposes. Note that this problem is only present where the cutting diameter is nominally the same as the shank diameter. If I buy .5" shank bits with a .25" cutting diameter, they are perfect, but 2x the cost.
      - DannyBee 9y ago
        FWIW: I've ordered 0.25 and 0.5 inch wood bits from onsrud, harvey, vortex, etc,and the bits are right to my ability to measure them. (IE i can measure them to be within 0.0005 of correct size easily, and better than that better tools on the uncoated bits i have). I'm not sure who you are ordering from. (as for feed rate too high to use other geometries not sure what IPM you can drive that thing at. I would expect you could easily do 300-400ipm, which seems more than enough. I can get a very smooth finish from metalworking bits with no problem)
- fuzzythinker 9y ago
  Your rate sounds a bit low for such short and somewhat specialized gig in the bay area.
  - DannyBee 9y ago
    It's about right for what you'd pay to get something machined :)
    - abakker 9y ago
      Yeah, just about. It also has some "Craigslist discount". Sadly, there is much too large a gap between hobby and professional revenue to ever do this full time in the bay. Commercial rent and restrictions make it such that even as a sole proprietorship, you'd have trouble breaking even on 50k/year in recurring revenue, which is tough as a one man wood/metal shop with limited tools. Custom/spec work is better, but very irregular.
      - DannyBee 9y ago
        Yup. All of my cabinet shop friends basically have enough volume to keep 2+ spray finishers busy all-day every day, and are busy trying to get their per-sheet times from 5 minutes to less ;) That's the low volume guys. The high volume guys are just completely automated from material handling to flat line finishing. Outside of startup costs, complete automation of this stuff isn't usually that expensive (<200k of machines). Single proprietors will never compete with the level of automation you can easily get in the bay area.

What did you charge for the work? How long did it take for you to do this? Was the price higher or lower because it was for Apple?

by gist 9y ago

What did you charge for the work? How long did it take for you to do this? Was the price higher or lower because it was for Apple?

abakker 9y ago

I charge around $70/hour for that kind of work, which tends to be a mix of CAD, CAM, Setup, Lifting/moving crap, packaging, and cleanup. Usually 1 hour minimum. I charge more for work in MDF because of the mess and because the dust is harder to clean up/get rid of and it is heavier. More again for aluminum. If I need to make whole assemblies with glue, finishing, etc, I tend to just go fixed bid. It's not super scientific, and I have to turn down certain types of work due to garage constraints, etc. Most of the work I end up getting that follows through are from contractors wanting one-off cuts, jigs, or templates. I get 2x inquiries from people, but they usually don't want to follow through with actually paying money for things.

abakker 9y ago
I didn't answer your full question - I didn't charge more based on the client. Just standard, and it took me ~8 hours of work. Turned out to be a great learning experience. (making those puzzle joints caused a revelation: .25" diameter bits are frequently, and irregularly, not .25". Most of mine end up being around .242" Once you compensate for that in CAD, things fit together nicely. )
- vidanay 9y ago
  Try switching from woodworking bits to metal working bits. An end mill will be 0.2500 with probably a minus tolerance of a tenth or two. The wood bits might be undersized to accommodate tearing of the grain and sanding.
  - abakker 9y ago
    Thanks! The issue with metal working bits is # of flutes/flute geometry - the chips need to be too small to get a good finish, or the feed rate needs to be too high. The "woodworking" bits I use are already pure carbide, high quality bits. my method these days has been to bore a small test hole into a piece of delrin with each new bit, and test that hole with a set of .001" increment pin gauges. Using that number has proven to be good enough for my purposes. Note that this problem is only present where the cutting diameter is nominally the same as the shank diameter. If I buy .5" shank bits with a .25" cutting diameter, they are perfect, but 2x the cost.
    - DannyBee 9y ago
      FWIW: I've ordered 0.25 and 0.5 inch wood bits from onsrud, harvey, vortex, etc,and the bits are right to my ability to measure them. (IE i can measure them to be within 0.0005 of correct size easily, and better than that better tools on the uncoated bits i have). I'm not sure who you are ordering from. (as for feed rate too high to use other geometries not sure what IPM you can drive that thing at. I would expect you could easily do 300-400ipm, which seems more than enough. I can get a very smooth finish from metalworking bits with no problem)
fuzzythinker 9y ago
Your rate sounds a bit low for such short and somewhat specialized gig in the bay area.
- DannyBee 9y ago
  It's about right for what you'd pay to get something machined :)
  - abakker 9y ago
    Yeah, just about. It also has some "Craigslist discount". Sadly, there is much too large a gap between hobby and professional revenue to ever do this full time in the bay. Commercial rent and restrictions make it such that even as a sole proprietorship, you'd have trouble breaking even on 50k/year in recurring revenue, which is tough as a one man wood/metal shop with limited tools. Custom/spec work is better, but very irregular.
    - DannyBee 9y ago
      Yup. All of my cabinet shop friends basically have enough volume to keep 2+ spray finishers busy all-day every day, and are busy trying to get their per-sheet times from 5 minutes to less ;) That's the low volume guys. The high volume guys are just completely automated from material handling to flat line finishing. Outside of startup costs, complete automation of this stuff isn't usually that expensive (<200k of machines). Single proprietors will never compete with the level of automation you can easily get in the bay area.