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Impossible.. I think Knot

Yesterday, someone asked my to do a small machining job. I fully expect the drawing to be similar. What is a fair hourly rate for a small one of job from a hack hobby machinist, when all the shops he called don’t want to do a small job?
 
slow-poke said:
Yesterday, someone asked my to do a small machining job. I fully expect the drawing to be similar. What is a fair hourly rate for a small one of job from a hack hobby machinist, when all the shops he called don’t want to do a small job?
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Who you calling a "hack?"
 
I love the mixed / converted units too, for what are nominal values in a different measure.
slow-poke said:
Yesterday, someone asked my to do a small machining job. I fully expect the drawing to be similar. What is a fair hourly rate for a small one of job from a hack hobby machinist, when all the shops he called don’t want to do a small job?
Click to expand...
Thats a tough one, I struggled with it once when I was asked by a friend to quote his buddy. I came up with $50/hr, but that was including design work too, and was used to calculate a per piece price so I wasn't quoting an hourly rate directly, just what I expected to get out of the job. If it went long it was on me and my hourly would go down, if I figured it out and made it go faster I would make more per hour.
I ended up wasting 2 hours figuring out stuff only to have them not want to do it...

Maybe ask how much they are willing to pay, give them an estimate of $50/hr and say once you see the job you can say how many hours it will be?
 
I grew up on Escher - absolutely love that stuff. There are gallery exhibits of his work that tour - I know they've shown at the University of Calgary a few times over the years. A lot of his work has become quite familiar, but there's less common stuff in the shows, including blocks he used for printing woodcuts. IIrc, the staircase one is called "Ascending/Descending", and there are other impossible structures, inc. Belvedere, the waterfall that pumps itself, etc.
 
Mike R said:
I love the mixed / converted units too, for what are nominal values in a different measure.

Thats a tough one, I struggled with it once when I was asked by a friend to quote his buddy. I came up with $50/hr, but that was including design work too, and was used to calculate a per piece price so I wasn't quoting an hourly rate directly, just what I expected to get out of the job. If it went long it was on me and my hourly would go down, if I figured it out and made it go faster I would make more per hour.
I ended up wasting 2 hours figuring out stuff only to have them not want to do it...

Maybe ask how much they are willing to pay, give them an estimate of $50/hr and say once you see the job you can say how many hours it will be?
Click to expand...
He offered me $200, if as described it's a super simple job. The piece is a hub with a integrated flange about 1/2" thick, wants the flange diameter reduced from about 5" to 4" and then 3 holes drilled in the flange. Seems like 10 minutes in the lathe and perhaps 20 on the mill (mostly setup). He tried several shops and no one wants to do it. States precision is not critical, I asked is 0.001" okay, yes that's better than needed.
 
someidiot said:
I grew up on Escher - absolutely love that stuff. There are gallery exhibits of his work that tour - I know they've shown at the University of Calgary a few times over the years. A lot of his work has become quite familiar, but there's less common stuff in the shows, including blocks he used for printing woodcuts. IIrc, the staircase one is called "Ascending/Descending", and there are other impossible structures, inc. Belvedere, the waterfall that pumps itself, etc.
Click to expand...
We saw the travelling exhibit in Naples some years ago. The staircase print was super trippy because some of the streets in Naples have staircases that feel similar to that.
 
Matt-Aburg said:
View attachment 89341
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LOL! I have been asked to make stuff so close to that...

One guy got PO'd at me when I told him that unless he would allow me to round the perfectly square corners (his original was welded up from about a dozen pieces, but he wanted it made from solid), that it would not happen. He sent a snotty comment on the memo that requested the part, that also denied any variation from the Original, where he pointed out that I was supposedly the expert, and that I should be able to machine such a simple part... I minuted a further comment, that yes, I WAS the expert, and that if he was not willing to listen to an expert opinion, he had no business bothering our shop... If we had EDM Sinker capability (we did not) it 'might' have been doable, but still a poor idea...

Which was only mildly better than the dude that came in with 22 (!), 2x2 inch Post-It notes, covered in tiny drawings of each of a great number of individual parts that he had carefully designed and drawn out with tolerances ranging from thousandths to tenths of thousandths, which were all intended to be welded together to form his completed brain child...
 
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