As my manufacturing business has grown, rather slowly up until late. I’ve been upgrading my machinery. Last year I picked up a Grizzly combo lathe/mill. While this seemed like a good idea, it really wasn’t. The lathe is not too bad for small jobs, the mill is a joke. It’s way under powered and there’s no work table, so what good is it?
Moving forward. I picked up a nice little CNC from Ebay. Again, a bit small but did the job of sterilizing frames. Albeit slow, it did nice work.
Not having a mill worth a darn I decided to change that, so a month ago I started looking for a decent one. Let me tell you, that was not hard. In about a week’s time, I ordered five mills. All of them came back saying back-ordered, but you can wait until the end of July or as late as the end of September. I finally found this one on Ebay from Granger. I was very clear when I placed the order, I would need a lift gate because I do not have access to a forklift. The truck pulled up and I walked out to meet the driver. Ya, we have a problem here. The back of your truck is missing something. Ya, no lift gate.
Well, it turns out the CNC I have decided to start acting up and didn’t want to work anymore. Great, I need a CNC, and by need, I mean I NEED a CNC. Today I did a wire transfer for this beast. A Bridgeport ProtoTrak two-axis CNC. It should arrive in about a week. In the meantime, I need to open up space for not one, but two mills, and get some electric run.
I was hoping to not be taking delivery of such large machines before we move in about six months, but I’m not left with any options. Besides, it was hard to pass up this Bridgport.
Although the growing pains are a PITA, it’s. great to see the hard work paying off. I really like seeing the little guy win once in a while. Someday, if I hit the lottery I would love to have you build me a set of 1911s.
Not this new stuff. That’s all out in the garage. I can’t wait to get into our new shop, but that’s still months away. If we find a new house that lacks the shop space, we will be building something in the 4k-5k square foot range.
Yes, they sure are. We’ve been doing pretty good by not having to finance anything. Paying cash keeps more money in our pocket and nothing going to the bank. Well, almost nothing. Had to pay $30 for the wire transfer, but that’s not too bad.
Today mill number one came in. I’ll need to run to Menards tomorrow to pick up a plug and outlet to get it wired in. Today I picked up 50 feet of 14/3 wire. Talk about sticker shock, $66 for just the wire.
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