Greg72 said:
Let me ask a dumb question......(since I've been wondering about this for a while now)
#1. Why is it that the tooling for machine shops is so expensive? Even with my limited experience, it's becoming clear that most serious machinists have WAY more money in the cutters, adapters, and other parts than the actual machine they work on.
#2. With all your obvious skills and access to machine tools, why wouldn't you make an item like that instead of buying it??? Is it that complicated, or just VEEEERRRRY precise and beyond the milling tolerances of your existing tools???
its not a dumb question at all, I will try to answer the best I can in my openion, here goes,
first and formost because they can, thats the American way. precision cost money. the tighter the tollerence the more its going to cost. thats just the nature of this bussiness. if it was easy to hold +- .001 much less +- .0001 tenth then good machinist's would not make the kind of money they do (which is not enough). no one who does not do this for a living knows just how hard it is to hold the kind of tollerences we have to hold unless you have tried it for yourself. just cause the machine is capable does not mean the parts are going to come out in tollerence. its directly releated to tne machinist running the job, and it can be a cnc or conventional machine.
with all the crazy parts these engineers come up with that machinist have to build there has to be tooling to help aid in machining these parts. so all the different tooling that has been invented over the years has beed designed, developed, and manufactured out of necessity. and because its so specialized for just that purpose it cost alot of money. that old saying necessity is the mother of invention is very true.
the shops that make chucks and other spicific items are tooled up for just that purpose. we are a specialty shop, we are not a manufacturing shop, or job shop. its just would not be cost effective for us to take the time to make something like that when there are shops that make thay kind of product. just like it would not be cost effective for them to say, "we are going to plasma coat a chuck body" they would have to buy the equipment and learn the process. it would cost a fortune.
the scroll that the chuck jaws move in and out on would be hard to make conventionally I would think. I dont know how they did it before cnc was invented but it would be tough. every thing else would be relatively easy to make. there is also the cost of material. they buy in large quantity's and get a good off where we would buy enough for only one. the less you buy the more you pay.
then just machine time and heat treat cost, it all adds up. its just easier to buy and existing item, bolt it up and run it. as far as our machines holding tollerence, they are old and worn out but I still do jubs that have +-.0002 tenths or +.0002 -.0001 for either lathe work I have to turn or a bore I have to bore with a boring head on the mill. our boring heads are only .001 graduation but I still hold tenths, you just learn how to split the lines and knowing how your cutter is working.
I feel as though I am starting to ramble on so I hope I have answered your questions. this bussiness is a tough bussiness to get into. there is alot of overhead costs accociated with a machine shop. thats just what it takes though.
