Quote from: Cody on January 16, 2014, 07:58:52 AM
Before you put too much effort into that, I'd find out the history of Cycle Cat prior to it being owned by Chris Calovini.

It's a good business lesson of what NOT to do.

I don't k ow too much about them other than they disappeared for a while and came back.

Ill just do a few things bike related. Its really just filler work. I'm not building my whole business around bike parts.

Quote from: Monsterlover on January 16, 2014, 08:18:54 AM
I don't k ow too much about them other than they disappeared for a while and came back.

Ill just do a few things bike related. Its really just filler work. I'm not building my whole business around bike parts.

I'd contact Chris Calovini. He owns all the Cycle Cat patents.

Spent some time on the mill today.

Prototyping some bar risers.

So far : Sweet!

Quote from: Cody on January 16, 2014, 07:58:52 AM
Before you put too much effort into that, I'd find out the history of Cycle Cat prior to it being owned by Chris Calovini.

It's a good business lesson of what NOT to do.

IIRC, Alfred had a big hand in f**king that up and no one double checked him on it when he did what he did....

I haven't posted in a while and figured I'd update.

Things are going ok, but never great.  We're keeping bills paid but just barely.  Customers are saying the second quarter will be better but I never put any faith in anything anyone else says about the economy until I have orders in my hand.

Despite things being slow I still put in two more lathes.  They both were purchases of opportunity more than immediate need.  The one can serve as a backup to my other two lathes in case something fails there, the other is bigger than anything I have so I can quote on larger diameter work.

I've run jobs on them both and they're both badass!  I'm glad we got them even tough it was a little painful financially.  They'll really pay off in the long run.

We've gotten involved in a couple projects that could turn into a decent amount of repeat work.  One of those is check valve bodies that get used by SpaceX on (I think) the Falcon 9 rocket.

We make the bodies, my customer assembles them into working valves and sells them to SpaceX.  We did a few last year and recently got an order for 4x that qty.  I delivered the first half of that order yesterday.

One thing I really need to do is work on the sales side of things.  I need to get out there and find new business. 

What's been holding me back is I've been stuck in the office doing quotes.  I've quoted a shit ton of work over the last 6 weeks.

The other thing is I've been needed out on the floor.  I installed both those lathes myself and there has been a bunch of work that had to go through the mill.  I'm the only one that speaks mill at our shop and the other guys are busy running lathes.  I'm training one of them to help me but he'll never be autonomous there.

I really need to hire a guy that can program and run anything on a mill and be capable of learning lathes or whatever he needs to learn and work on his own.  That would really free up my time.

I don't have the level of business to support a hire like that though.

Catch 22

We'll get there, but it will take some time.

Everything takes time.  I want results now!

One thing that has me happy right now is we only have 12 payments left on my first machine.  We'll, really that loan was for that machine and everything else I bought to start the shop with.

As you might imagine, $2300 a month can get tiresome after three years.  Once that's done I may actually be able to pay myself something

Quote from: Monsterlover on March 15, 2014, 08:11:37 AM
-snip-
Once that's done I may actually be able to pay myself something

new ride? new cage? new house? or order a ML Jr?

No jr's for me.

No new ride, cage or house.

The company owes me a lot of money.

A lot

Once that's paid back, we're moving someplace bigger and closer to the shop.

Suggestions.... from a former 'lieutenant' in a machine shop that collapsed under the weight of financed equipment when the economy soured last time....

Get the big lathe running jobs.
Quit buying machinery, especially financed ones.
Even paying cash for machines drains your capital reserves.

When that first loan is paid off, use that cash flow to get that mill guy you need.

Quote from: Speeddog on March 15, 2014, 11:38:11 AM
Suggestions.... from a former 'lieutenant' in a machine shop that collapsed under the weight of financed equipment when the economy soured last time....

Get the big lathe running jobs.
Quit buying machinery, especially financed ones.
Even paying cash for machines drains your capital reserves.

When that first loan is paid off, use that cash flow to get that mill guy you need.

Noted, and thanks.

I own 2 out of 5.

The two big payments I've had for a while.

The two I just put in, one costs me $700/mo, the other(which is the big lathe) I own.  There was extra money from the lease on the $700 machine that went to buy the big lathe.

So, technically I'm paying on both of them, but if I defaulted on the lease they can only take one of them.

I'm hoping I can pump things up and get the mill guy before that other machine is paid off

 I really hope that this works out well for you. As the economy continues to improve it should help. As the riding season starts to ramp up you could make up some sort of farkle that fills a need and get rich!

Quote from: SpikeC on March 15, 2014, 06:39:26 PM
I really hope that this works out well for you. As the economy continues to improve it should help. As the riding season starts to ramp up you could make up some sort of farkle that fills a need and get rich!

its just that easy!

I know it will work. Its hard now but it won't always be.

So I decided to run some square material in the lathe.

I milled a pocket in aluminum pie jaws to hold the blanks.

Worked pretty well!

Okuma LB300-M milling a square: http://youtu.be/Ox08_5hBx6U

ML - I'm halfway through teaching a two week high school class titled "Becoming a Metal Worker." At my school, kids get two elective credits a year, and they're each taught as two-week intensives. In this one, we're scratching the surface of a whole lot of different trades - in week one, we've visited a master blacksmith, a local aerospace machine shop, an old-school automotive machine shop, a jeweler who works mostly in copper & silver, two different bronze foundries, one at Arcosanti that does sand-cast bells and the other at a friend's studio where he does free-form pours onto various steel shapes. After a couple more days of field work Monday and Tuesday, we'll have a lot of shop time for the balance of the week.

I've been running through this thread to show some of your pictures of cool machine work; in particular, your Lego was a huge hit!

Seriously?  That's pretty cool!

Glad they liked it

Quote from: Monsterlover on May 11, 2014, 08:27:34 AM
So I decided to run some square material in the lathe.

~~~SNIP~~~

That's impressive.
Crossfeed must be really quick.
Most people use a mill for making square stuff.