Archer120x
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2012
- Location
- Davis Junction, Illinois
A friend hit $170k gross per year with an older mazak qt15 t32. He did really know his stuff and had some contacts from previous employers.
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Start up shop cnc lathe only question
- Thread starter Thunder kennels
- Start date
- Replies 37
- Views 2,296
DouglasJRizzo
Titanium
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2011
- Location
- Ramsey, NJ.
There's an old saying in show business - "You use what you have." Sort of like the old drag racing motto - "You run what your brung."
You have to start somewhere, and if it's lathe, it's lathe. My advice would be to grab a collet chuck (or two of different types) and lots of chuck jaw blanks.
If you can get a lathe with live tool/Y axis/subspindle even better as it opens up WAY more work for you.
You have to start somewhere, and if it's lathe, it's lathe. My advice would be to grab a collet chuck (or two of different types) and lots of chuck jaw blanks.
If you can get a lathe with live tool/Y axis/subspindle even better as it opens up WAY more work for you.
FamilyTradition
Aluminum
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2018
- Location
- Greenfield, Mass
Think about all the screw machine shops out there, they pretty much have nothing but lathes.
Years ago, I remember reading someone here on PM say something along the lines of: For every fancy turbine impeller that needs a 5 axis machine, there's a million pins, spacers, and rivets that are needed to assemble it.
If I were you I would at least get a Bridgeport or something of the like as support. It will allow you to do flats, cross-holes, etc. And modify tooling if necessary. That's if you can't find a lathe with live tooling. But you can do milling on a conventional lathe, just have to get creative with it
Years ago, I remember reading someone here on PM say something along the lines of: For every fancy turbine impeller that needs a 5 axis machine, there's a million pins, spacers, and rivets that are needed to assemble it.
If I were you I would at least get a Bridgeport or something of the like as support. It will allow you to do flats, cross-holes, etc. And modify tooling if necessary. That's if you can't find a lathe with live tooling. But you can do milling on a conventional lathe, just have to get creative with it
john.k
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2012
- Location
- Brisbane Qld Australia
Exactly right.....whatever machine you have ,you need to be able to do day to day stuff for yourself to keep production going....or rely on outside people to do the smallest thing.....and wait for them .
DouglasJRizzo
Titanium
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2011
- Location
- Ramsey, NJ.
You've got to spend it to make it.Live tooling + Y + bar puller =
Buy the best your budget will allow.
What was his net? Or better yet, how much did he pay in taxes? If this is a fulltime gig for him I'd expect to see higher numbers if that machine is running half the time.
metal-ica
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2019
Doug
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2002
- Location
- Pacific NW
I wonder how many startups don't pay any taxes. By that I mean they don't report any income to be taxed.
A long time friend was bitching about how poor he is in early retirement due to health problems. I told him things might be better when he could start drawing SS. What I didn't know is for his almost total working career self-employed he never reported any income. He does have a significant other who has a measly pension and SS.
Do you know what GROSS means? If that was $170k NET I'd be real impressed. $170k gross sounds like a real low number for a one man machine shop unless the customer supplies the material or it's a repair shop.
cnctoolcat
Titanium
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2006
- Location
- Abingdon, VA
"$170k gross sounds like a real low number for a one man machine shop"
Actually for a "one man/one machine" shop that's pretty good sales for a year.
Basically he's billed 1700 hours at $100 per hour...not too shabby for a one-man band...especially for 2-axis turning work, which is often ran at a lot less per-hour by small shops!
ToolCat
Actually for a "one man/one machine" shop that's pretty good sales for a year.
Basically he's billed 1700 hours at $100 per hour...not too shabby for a one-man band...especially for 2-axis turning work, which is often ran at a lot less per-hour by small shops!
ToolCat
How do you get that?
If his gross was $170k you would be subtracting the materials and all other expenses from that figure.
So here's a question- Why would you ever use "gross" to describe your income to somebody? Means virtually nothing. Net is what you got to keep. That's the meaningful number.
To illustrate Garwood's point- let say you sell a thousand muzzle brakes for $170 each. $170K, you're set. But these are awesome brakes made from unobtainium that cost $120/part. And of course that wears out tooling, there's another $10/part. Add in a repair bill, credit card processing fees, etc, and you might be loosing money.
Or maybe he uses all customer supplied materials and actually kept six figures. It's possible, but probably harder to do with an older standard machine. You can get lucky with extremely high paying cake walk jobs once in a while, but tough to do nothing but those.
Or maybe he uses all customer supplied materials and actually kept six figures. It's possible, but probably harder to do with an older standard machine. You can get lucky with extremely high paying cake walk jobs once in a while, but tough to do nothing but those.
cnctoolcat
Titanium
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2006
- Location
- Abingdon, VA
"If his gross was $170k you would be subtracting the materials and all other expenses from that figure."
We would have to subtract material costs, but the other expenses are part of the shop rate (for simplicity's sake).
So if his material costs were 25%, then he grossed $127,500 for "shop rate time" in a year.
Keeping with the example of billable hours by one man in a year at 1700, that would still be $75 per hour.
And I'm tellin' ya, most shops out there with 2-axis lathe time would be tickled pink to be filling it at 75 per!
We ran many 2-axis lathe jobs at the Cat House back in the day $45+/- per hour and up. Not anymore though, most work runs at double that I'd say...
ToolCat
We would have to subtract material costs, but the other expenses are part of the shop rate (for simplicity's sake).
So if his material costs were 25%, then he grossed $127,500 for "shop rate time" in a year.
Keeping with the example of billable hours by one man in a year at 1700, that would still be $75 per hour.
And I'm tellin' ya, most shops out there with 2-axis lathe time would be tickled pink to be filling it at 75 per!
We ran many 2-axis lathe jobs at the Cat House back in the day $45+/- per hour and up. Not anymore though, most work runs at double that I'd say...
ToolCat
I know you're a smart guy, I'm just trying to figure out where in the world you're coming up with numbers that the were never disclosed? All he said was $170k gross. That could be a $100k loss for him for all we know without any other information to make that number meaningful.
Do they need to be disclosed?
Most of us can come up with an educated guess what the business looks like based on the equipment, the in-a-garage location, no mention of employees and no tales of woe about weird expensive materials. Ballpark, material will be between 25% and 50%, tooling will be maybe 10%, electricity 10kW at $.15 or so, upkeep and fluids and compressed air and misc another 10%. We're mostly owners here and we all have at least minimally similar businesses. We can infer. So his expenses are almost certainly in the 40-60% range, which leaves $70-100k a year pretax coming off of one machine in a garage. That's... really not bad. It's a comfortable middle class living.
If the only answer the OP is looking for is "can a turning shop in a garage make a go of it" then that is one data point in favor of "yes, yes it can."
Most of us can come up with an educated guess what the business looks like based on the equipment, the in-a-garage location, no mention of employees and no tales of woe about weird expensive materials. Ballpark, material will be between 25% and 50%, tooling will be maybe 10%, electricity 10kW at $.15 or so, upkeep and fluids and compressed air and misc another 10%. We're mostly owners here and we all have at least minimally similar businesses. We can infer. So his expenses are almost certainly in the 40-60% range, which leaves $70-100k a year pretax coming off of one machine in a garage. That's... really not bad. It's a comfortable middle class living.
If the only answer the OP is looking for is "can a turning shop in a garage make a go of it" then that is one data point in favor of "yes, yes it can."
cnctoolcat
Titanium
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2006
- Location
- Abingdon, VA
"That could be a $100k loss for him for all we know without any other information to make that number meaningful"
I see what you're saying now Garwood, and yes you're right. We have no idea what his costs were---he could be losing money at 170k gross.
But I'm thinking along the lines of Comatose, the one-machine, home-shop, low-overhead guy grossing 170k should be making a decent living for himself out of it...
ToolCat
I see what you're saying now Garwood, and yes you're right. We have no idea what his costs were---he could be losing money at 170k gross.
But I'm thinking along the lines of Comatose, the one-machine, home-shop, low-overhead guy grossing 170k should be making a decent living for himself out of it...
ToolCat
Larry Dickman
Titanium
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2014
- Location
- Temecula, Ca
you just need to quote things using inverse time.
