Ep. 87: If You Want Me to Do It, Pay Me Properly

This week on the Lone Machinist Podcast, Jamie has one hell of a week in the shop. A mold job turns into roughly 40 hours of machining in just three days, including a late-night finish, while the machine burns through an impressive amount of coolant along the way. It also sparks a much-needed conversation about pricing, especially when a retrofit or machine job takes significantly longer than expected.Meanwhile, Curt continues experimenting with anodizing and gets increasingly consistent results before dropping some big news: a 100W MOPA fiber laser and fourth axis are on the way.Back at the shop, Jamie is working on ways to automate more of the production process, including improvements to the spindle gripper, automated part handling, and a new coolant-level monitoring system designed to survive the reality of life inside a CNC machine.There's also plenty of discussion about production planning, R&D, getting machines to run unattended, and the eternal struggle of trying to take a few days off when you're the person everyone relies on to keep the machines running.40 hours of machining. 60 litres of coolant. One very tired machinist.Links Discussed: IMTS Meet Up RSVP Form: https://forms.gle/CQXMmFsTZEytb8gD7 CyberPunk FPV Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/31642The Lone Machinist: Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/ Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinistsNeed Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/Jamie: http://instagram.com/jspec_engineering https://www.jspeceng.com/ https://www.noughticalwh.com/Curt: https://www.instagram.com/confoundedmachine/ https://www.confoundedmachine.com/