are all machine shops so slooooow?

Not all machine shops are as slow as some reported here. A shop with a good reputation and a lot of work WILL take some time to do the work correctly but the times quoted that reach into a year and beyond are absurd. Unless there is a delay acquiring exotic or rare parts involved I can't see an engine rebuild taking more than a month or two at the most.

Frank

 

In the community that I lived for over 30 years, small town, county seat that used to have two machine shops -- one was in the NAPA store and the other was a one man shop that had been in an American Auto Parts store that closed years ago and went out on his own. A couple of years ago the guy working in the NAPA store left to work in a factory, better pay and benefits. Now the one man shop has all the business and brought his son in to help. He is busy and I suspect he puts things in priority. Let's face it, our money is all green but a farmer in harvest season needs his truck or tractor fixed a whole lot more than I need the crank in the old flat motor fixed. The farmer will be back to get more stuff done later, with good luck I won't have to see him for a few years. Someone brought up the comparison of fast service in a restaurant. In food service if you don't deliver as promised you can go next door. That alternative doesn't exist in the machine shop world. They have all the work they can handle and in the case of the guy that does my work, after six days of laboring over a myriad of machine tools, he needs a break too. By the way, how many young guys are in the business? How many want to be in the business? If it was an easy way to make money there would be a lot more of them. By the way, when I had the flatty crank turned it was three weeks instead of the one week he had estimated, guess some farmers got higher priority and he knew I would understand. I hauled the crank 55 miles to him rather than try to find a local to do it. He may have been a slow SOB but he is my SOB

 

In this case, Most likely what the problem is that the machine shop does not keep its doors open By doing flatheads, So your work is low on the list.....not to mention that for most machine shops today, working on flatheads is a learning exp. in it's self.....But there are some who still have an old man in the back who knows all about them, but he don't move like he did when he was 20 anymore.....but for the most part It really comes down to the money.....You want it by tomorrow?..NO problem!!....Sign the check and I will fill in the amount...LOL

 

Is wendy on the corner, and was it a fur burger you got? because it sounds like your getting screwed by a machine shop

 

WOW. I own a small machine shop. I cant keep it open right now because of a divorce. However when it was running I could not keep up with the business. I had every cheap ass person asking me to fix there lawn tractor and they wanted it tomorrow. I had to send them away because they were not willing to pay the cost of machining. I am slow but I NEVER ONCE have had anything come back. I ran my shop since 2004. I stopped accepting work last march. I tell customers an approximate date but I also tell them I'm really busy and any thing can happen. I have found that with the "average Walmart" customer that never sits well. They don't understand that I can't afford to stop my production stuff mid run. I don't know if it crosses there mind that setup time is the most time consuming. I have parts that require 2 hours of set up and 10 min of cutting. I do respect every customer that contacts me and I treat them with the small town hospitality I was raised on. However if they don't like what I tell them I don't have time for them. I just send them on their way. I don't do second chances. I am not being a jerk, I am just choosing who I do business with. I do word of mouth advertising, that is why I was hesitant about posting in this form. I make what ever you need, I fix what ever you need. It comes at a cost. But I do it right the first time. If that takes a longer I promise it will save you time in the long run.
I also would like to say that most of the shops I deal with across the country have the same problems, I more and more machinists that are retiring and scraping there machines because no one wants to start a shop anymore.

 

First of all ,MOST machine shops in the USA have no where near 500,000 dollars in tooling and machines. The cost of the MACHINERY has nothing ,NOTHING to do with the quality, speed, or time required to get the job done.Thats done by the machinist.
I'll bet your one of those " you get what you pay for " guys.

 

You are funny !!! >>>>.

 

Which one did you not agree with, The interview that you had to pay for, the never occurring estimate or the engine that disappeared and I was still charged for, by the way, he had the nuts to take me to court and was ordered to pay me for the base engine, but never did. I pay them cash and tell them I will pay them cash, they never need to worry about CC fees or charge backs or bouncy checks or any of that crap. The reason I mention his glass is because it had 2 panels out when I first went there and a different panel out the next. I now take that as a sign that this is a quality operation, NOT.

 

Engine Pro where is your shop? Are you in Milwaukee?

 

Hang in there. You forgot about the 20 min. teardown and cleanup before you can start the next one. Peace brother.

 

Kansas >>>>.

 

The guys over here turn out stuff pretty quick, at least as long as the surf's not up.

 

Its easy to complain when you have not experienced the time and accuracy needed to do such work. And speeking from a machinist standpoint, if you want a fast job, you'll get just that. If you want it done right, accurate and a lasting product you might have to hold on to your ass for a bit.

 

There are a lot of reason why a shop would be slow. Probably all have been mebtioned in this discussion. This was sort of mentioned, but not directly; big time shops typically have commitments to one or more race teams, regular long-time customers, and maybe even prototype or development work. Fair or not, in a shop with those kinds of customers random work off the street gets done in slices of time between higher priority work.

Plating shops were mentioned, I had a business that spent a LOT on plating. A typical job would have an assortment of parts with everything from large pieces to bolts, nuts, and flat washers. The shop I used could usually turn around 1,000+ assorted pieces in about a week. They did high quality work with few problems. Any problem pieces would be redone in a day or two. On a rww ocasions I even waited while something was re-done! I was a good regular customer and paid well for the level of quality and service they provided. A person walking into that same shop off the street would wait weeks for their parts to be done, if they decided to accept the job at all. It's exactly the same situation I described in the previous paragraph about machine shops.

 

in my op i stated that my problem was not with the work done on my flathead, i know flatheads are not high on most peoples priorty list.
my issue was with my small block and the work not being finished for monthes after the agreed upon time frame.

 

Kansas? I guess I would not have gotten that right if I had to figure out sausage capitol of the USA.

 

This is a touchy subject for me, So my opinion might be a little one sided, But I can see your point of having to wait much too long.....This is the reason I do not build motors anymore, for anyone but myself..Period!.....there are machine shops that can get you in and out fast...But they are not normally for the average Joe....because they don't fit the budget.......Also to JOE COOL who said that "MOST machine shops in the USA have no where near 500,000 dollars in tooling".....I am sorry to infrom you but You can not operate a quality machine shop with tooling from harbor frieght!..LOL.....If you are going to do production work, (which is what pays the bills) you had damn well better have $350,000 to $500,000 in tooling, Not to metion guys who no what the hell they are doing......Hell I have spent more time babysiting when I could have just done it myself alot quicker....

 

The flatheads are pretty time comsuming. That seems pretty slow for the the 283.
My dad is an Assembler at S&J. They are a ways away from you, but they do engines all over the country cause they are compedative on price, even with shipping factored in. They are also a high production shop, so I don't think the wait would be too long. Check it out. https://www.sandjengines.com/

 

Not true! I work in a machine shop that just got in a HASS horizontal milling machine that cost 300 grand before the pad was put down and wired. We have 4 other HASS cnc's and misc manual and cnc machines. Tooling alone is more than 500k. blanket statements are always inaccurate.

 

Cheaper shops arent necissarily bad shops. They are usually slow because they are so busy and alot of them even assemble engines and heads. I agree there are bad shops. Alot of them, but sometimes you just got to be patient. It took me about 4 months to get my tranny back.

 

Hey oldguard care to share who your go to shop is? I been using buddy rice, been very pleased.

 

Bar none the best machinist I Know are John and Bobby Layne, Of layne machine works here in kansas city MO......They can do anything, Their dad elmer started the shop many years ago and it is a family owned and operated business, John restores old race cars for speedy bill smith, Greg weld, and many other famous guys all over the country....They also make their own transmission for the model T......I have done and do machine work, But what they can do is mind blowing......when I was a kid and went to the races, bobby layne ran up front every weekend, And Elmers Model T speedster will run faster than anyman should ever go in a car like that....LOL

 

Bobby Layne !! Haven't heard that name in years. Takes me back to The Good Ol IMCA DAYS >>>>.

 

Shop i use has about a 7 day turn around on heads or blocks, never had em done at the same time. Basic small block Chevrolet block job, vat, mag, bore and hone, new oil plugs and freeze plugs etc is around 350 bucks. We had my dads heads redone on his 04 silverado for $500, vated, maged (or what ever they do on aluminum to check for cracks) new valves, seals, resurfaced took less than a week to get those back.

 

Engine Pro, what quadrant of Kansas are you in?

There are several shop out here on the western side of the state and two local that do good work. One is run by a man approaching Old Timer status but he does great work, but it's a one man operation so he take a bit longer, but he generally knows how long a 'bit longer' is. The other local guy has done great work for me but the bulk of his time is consumed with irrigation engines and appears to be suffering from a slight coke habit. He hasn't ever given me an exact date of delivery, generally an answer like 'probably be a couple weeks'. If you tell him you will check back in he won't call you. If you tell him to give you a call he does. Then there are several old timers and small time machine shops that can do quality work if you can convince them that should take your project. But if it really comes down to we know we will have to have an engine done and have it done in less than a month we do the heads ourselves and occasionally the old man(bosses dad) will break out the bore bar.

But if you need an old tranny gone through people come to us. The old man is in and out of a C4 or Ford-O-Matic or a Dynaflow inside of a day if he doesn't get too tired.

 

I have to count the time I spend sending something back because when I mike everything it turns out it has to be re-done, or worse yet, is now unusable and has to be replaced. Over the years, this has narrowed the list of machine shops I will deal with considerably, and the ones I end up sticking with, are generally NOT the ones that are first across the wire. Lemme see, in the past I have seen a crank that was cut with one throw .013 short, valves too tight in the guides NUMEROUS times (re-did an entire motor that had swallowed an intake valve due to this, someone else had assembled it and just ASSUMED that the machinist knew what he was doing) BB chevy guides installed so badly they PISSED water, cocked cam bearings, SBM heads drilled for 3/8 pushrods at the wrong angle, ect, ect ect. There are lots of shops around here that can spew parts out pdq, if thats your criteria, and as long as you dont measure anything when you assemble it, or lean on it too hard after its done, you will probably be happy. One of the best shops around here is a one-man operation run by a well known stock elim. racer, last time I spoke to him, he had a 7 month waiting list.
And if you want a crank indexed, you better plan ahead, cause there is only ONE guy around here that can do it properly. If you are lucky, and the guy you deal with is honest, he will refer you, and tell you you are gonna wait. Most guys will say "yea, sure, no problem, I can do that." and go ahead and re-grind your crank on the existing centers. Just dont measure it when you get it back.

 

Wow and I thought it was only around my neck of the woods. My buddy took his 302 in for rebuilding last year its still not done. We get the same story every other week an emergency. Last week he had a boat engine in the shop, not much call for them now. There are four guys there but the beer party begins way before 11 am. In the hour we were there a crank made five revolutions on the lathe and it took one guy 25 minutes to blow the filings off the drill press once he located his beverage. l bought a crate engine or I'd still be waiting. Its not like were not paying customers, were repeats and we pay cash. We want to yank the old engine in his car now so its ready for spring. for what he is spending he could have bought a new Ford 302 complete from Speedway. The money talks BS walks doesn't apply wit these guys they spread it thick.

 

The good ones are always backed up.

 

Some of these stories make a crate engine sound damn attractive.

 

If I went into a machine shop and saw guys sucking up brewskis while they were working, I would be out of there SO FAST. Most guys seem to have enough trouble doing this shit right when they are sober...