I proudly admit that I’m crazy about tools. This often causes my business partners to look at me like I’m, well, crazy. Long ago, my father pointed out that the money saved when “doing it yourself” didn’t always pay for the tools required the first time. But even exotic tasks were likely to show up again. Based on that advice, I generally talk Patricia into the “do it myself” path if the tools can pay for themselves on the second use. My partners are much more skeptical. If a given project will cost us more when buying tools vs. buying services, we almost always buy the services.
Every once in a while, the math is ambiguous. A small part of our project work involves mechanical engineering, and fabricating the associated custom parts. It’s not enough to justify a machinist on the payroll, and isn’t likely to be in the foreseeable future. Having custom parts made can get expensive, though. Any project we undertake for a fixed price has some business risk attached, but custom mechanical parts are particularly risky, as a design flaw usually requires fabricating a fresh set of custom parts. Electrical design flaws usually result in an off-the-shelf purchase or two, with a bit of rewiring. Software design flaws typically cost us some time in front of a keyboard. It’s no accident that electrical design and software make up the bulk of our billable hours.
However, the math worked out for a new customer’s project, and we are tickled to have a brand new industrial mill/drill machine in the company workshop. No fancy power feed motors or numerical controls. Not even a Digital Read-Out. But solid construction and allowances for later add-on features.
The unfortunate part is that our new toy tool is a Chinese Taiwanese import. The equivalent American-made unit was twice the price. The project’s budget can’t justify a higher-priced machine. Long-standing political/economic foolishness has left American machine and tool makers at a distinct disadvantage.