Projects take forever....is this common?

[Rotate]

When I start a project, it seems to me that I need to do half a dozen other little projects before I can proceed even with the first step of the project. For example when I was asked to make a little part for a friend, I found that I didn't have a very good fence on the bandsaw so that I could cut straight. So I'm thinking, it would be nice to have a sturdier base and make the fence accurately adjustable, but I need a 1/2" aluminum plate for this job. Off to the metal shop. I make a nice platform with fancy grooves, and mount it and I find that because the base is larger, it's not rigid enough being held there by two small screws which were originally there. So, I machine an extension brace out of steel tube, which I tried to stick weld to the frame of the saw. The frame of the saw is case iron, and my welding rods isn't really work well. I'm wondering whether I should braze it on (I may be running low on oxygen), or get the right welding rod. Off to the welding store and get the welding rods (high nickel content)...already a weeks has gone by and I'm hoping that my friend won't be making a surprise visit to see my progress.

So, is this fairly common in the life of a home machinist?

Albert



[This message has been edited by Rotate (edited 03-12-2002).]

[chief]

Yes, you can more no change this than you can control the weather,for example, buy a
gear tooth micrometer and you'll suddendly never have the need to cut another gear again.
This is all pre-ordained, that's way we buy o-ring kits that have every size except what you need and also why your wife wants to know what you want for supper when she knows your getting meaatloaf regadless of what you say. This is also beer was invented, to help us ponder these questions.

[bighammer]

Yep sometimes one leads tp 6 more. Its all part the game.

[JCHannum]

Sounds like a typical five minute job to me.

Should get it done in about three weekends, unless you are retired. Then it will take a little longer.

[spope14]

Welcome to hobby and in fact prototype machining. I teach the stuff, here is some of the great stories.

I get a call to make some money for the students by making slots in a plate. Drop them by, I will talk.

#1 - easy looking job, I take it foolishly. Students can do this.

#2, plates have warp, need to straighten.

#3, Need to find a way to clamp plates to mill table - just bigger both ways than mill travel to boot. Buy Mitee bites, create additional fixturing to extend beyond the table. Buy metal to do this. Try to explain, end up having to design it, and it takes 10 hours of student and my time. 3 days gone.

#4 - Metal is tough and Gnarly, buy carbide end mills. Buy a new dresser for my old diamond wheel to sharpen the end mills - Find the darned wheel in the first place, put it where I would not forget where it was five years back, where the hell was that.....

#5 - Borrow old beater wheel from a factory close by, pleade stupidness and poverty from the school. Get lecture about being more careful, take the grief, get the wheel - gimmee, . Five days down on a 20 minute job.

#6 - Mill the slots part way, sharpen the mills, onre more day.

#7 - finish the slots, deburr. Create new tool to beburr one part of the plate.

#8 - I did so good on this 20 minute job that i get $50.00 for the school shop (spent $85.00 of my own), and now they want metric holes drilled and tapped in the plate.

One guy so impressed, he wants us to do all his work (all the school shop work I do MUST be referred by a sponsor shop, we do not compete).

All in all, the project was very successful.

[metal mite]

Typical,
Most people have no concept of what is involved in machine shop work.
That's why it takes some guys 10 years to build a locomotive.
mite

[Thrud]

The pickier you get, the longer everything takes - no point in doing a job half-assed unless you really could care less...

[SGW]

It certainly take ME "forever." Even when things go well. The other day it took me three hours to make two custom 5-40 bolts. The sane thing would have been to drive to the hardware store and get a couple of 5-40 Allen screws, but I thought I'd save some time. (Haw!)

Then there is the typical case, as illustrated by scope14's example, when things don't go well.

And Dave (Thrud) is right -- a lot depends on how picky you are, and the more you do this hobby, the more likely you are to be picky, I think, because you're more able to recognize the way it SHOULD be.

[Robert Jones]

If I got paid by the hour for the work I do in my shop, I'd be rather poor. This "hobby" has taught me patience and I find that it has overflowed into my other endeavors. I seem to want to do a better job on most any task I undertake.
I do have the luxury of being retired now, and don't really care how long some things take. It can be a lot cheaper in the long run to zip off to Lowes and buy the small items, though.

[hms50]

Rotate,

"as way leads on to way" Robert Frost

Chief,

"and malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways" A.E. Houseman

sorry to sound like a liberal artist, but isn't this the truth?

[bpsbtoolman]

If you didn't love dinking around in the shop, you got no business trying to make money from it. I have done a lot of jobs free, but on my time schedule. One job I did for myself was a 1/2" left hand nut. Tried a number of comercial places locally with no results. Mail oder was a consideration but wanted it now. Bought a $10 left hand tap and rough machined a nut thread and taped it. Worked fine. A week later I was in an ACE hardware looking for a casteeled nut right hand thread. In the same tray I found four 1/2" left hand nuts at 58 cents each. Pays to look before you leap.Well at least I have a new used one time 1/2 LH tap.
toolman

[kap pullen]

I'm not like you guys.
For too many years what went out the door dictated what my family had to eat.
I make it as good as it needs to be.
That dosen't mean shoddy workmanship.
Lifes too short. Too many projects in my mind to dally around.
Balls to the wall, full speed ahead.
Gotta go make chips.
see ya!
Kapullen

[wade_he]

Problem is, once I get going, I always want to make it better and better, or I need to build umpteen jigs - all of which takes much time.

Wade

[rmatel]

spope14 had the right word, "prototype". Where I used to work we only did prototyping. Oftened wished for a chance to make another. Got the wish one day; order for 21 from 3 different sources. Stopped wishing ;-)
But I digress. We finally had graphics dept make up a large poster.....

"EVERYTING IS COMPLICATED!!"

[SGW]

Kap has a good point -- doing it for money certainly changes your perspective. A month or so ago I had a small paying shop job making 45 custom antenna mounting brackets for a startup company's prototype product. All of a sudden, how efficiently I could work mattered a lot.