← Back to context

Comment by micro_cam

19 hours ago

People here also don't understand machine shops.

My dad ran a job shop focused on small jobs and the economics are different.

A lot of his work was keeping other local shops / industrial equipment up and running. So there is a lot of variety of work but very low throughput and kind of by deffintion you have the capabilities to fix your own machines.

Programing a CNC machine makes it east to make a lot of the same part but if you only need one it may be quicker to just knock it out manually.

A 50 year old mill or lathe is easy to keep up and running, can be upgraded with a Digital readout or even CNC controls if desired. A tool in a shop like this likely won't see the cycles one on a factory floor constant uses sees but may be worth keeping around since it offers a unique capability...he had a large ww ii surplus lathe for jobs that wouldn't fit on the smaller more modern machines for example.