What do you charge to sharpen a breaker bit?

[Old N Rusty]

whats PM ?

[ciladog]

whats PM ?

I'm guessing profit margin

[pkrankow]

Preventative Maintenance.

I spent a summer at a company that would not have PM done. They did not pay the machinists for the PM, and required the machinists to itemize their day and record minutes spent on separate jobs. They did not want to see maintenance items on the time card. This was a job-shop and a large run was more than 1 item or setup.

The company closed up and was absorbed into the parent company not long after.

Phil

[Old N Rusty]

Thanks Sir, its understandable i never heard of Pm having spent an entire career working for various industrial contractors who had a vested interest in preventing PM from ever happening.

[Fosterob]

It sounds like they did not make enough money on these to even maintain their equipment? Be sure you do not end up in a similar situation. I hope that your 4b runs good.
Rob

[Fosterob]

Another thought is if they only have part time on these in the winter so will you. Your son will need something to fill in that time and that part of the shop will not be useable for anything else.
Rob

[monstermetal]

Yeah I dont want to get into there problems publicly but I think I can avoid the same pitfalls.. I think what it boils down to is I am interested in the work, not the product.. they where interested in the product, not the work... The good part is this is not my business, its just a potential job. I dont have any attachment other than the desire to make money... If I cant make money then I stop doing it, its that simple... There is no way for me to get "trapped" in an unprofitable deal here... Either I get paid what it takes for me to turn a profit or I dont do the work...

[fciron]

.... I think what it boils down to is I am interested in the work, not the product.. they where interested in the product, not the work... The good part is this is not my business, its just a potential job. I dont have any attachment other than the desire to make money... If I cant make money then I stop doing it, its that simple... There is no way for me to get "trapped" in an unprofitable deal here... Either I get paid what it takes for me to turn a profit or I dont do the work...

That's a valuable business lesson for all of us. Thanks for the refresher course and good luck with the job.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Do these have to be hammered? What about a hydraulic press powering some dies? Why use hundreds of pounds of hammer, when you can use tons of pounds with a press? I am thinking of a set up where you heat the end, stuff it into the dies, and squish till it fills them. Trim the flash, and yer done. Maybe even one of them 100 ton fly presses might be a better choice, since everyone is saying how tough this work is on a hammer. Plus a closed die setup should simplify things; insert and squish.

[pkrankow]

Do these have to be hammered? What about a hydraulic press powering some dies? Why use hundreds of pounds of hammer, when you can use tons of pounds with a press? I am thinking of a set up where you heat the end, stuff it into the dies, and squish till it fills them. Trim the flash, and yer done. Maybe even one of them 100 ton fly presses might be a better choice, since everyone is saying how tough this work is on a hammer. Plus a closed die setup should simplify things; insert and squish.

Cost of dies and repeatable starting point are the biggest obstacles I see with that idea.

Phil

[monstermetal]

Do these have to be hammered? What about a hydraulic press powering some dies? Why use hundreds of pounds of hammer, when you can use tons of pounds with a press? I am thinking of a set up where you heat the end, stuff it into the dies, and squish till it fills them. Trim the flash, and yer done. Maybe even one of them 100 ton fly presses might be a better choice, since everyone is saying how tough this work is on a hammer. Plus a closed die setup should simplify things; insert and squish.

Yeah Im not an expert (talk to me in a year after the first 40,000 tools ) But I think I hammer is just the most cost effective and fastest method.. One thing I have thought a lot about is that I am not likely to vastly improve upon this proses... this is work that has been done this way for most of a century... Its pretty well thought out and pretty darn efficient

[ianinsa]

Hi Biggun,

Many valid points have been made! One other is the frequency of payment! if this job is going to mean large volumes for your shop, at what may be a "low" price you need to ensure frequent payment. Most large buisnesses "make" money with OPM(other people's money) so if your price/margin is low you need to ensure that your cashflow is uncompromised.

I have taken on similar types of work at times in the past and can attest from personal experience that:
low margin + good cashflow =
low margin + crappy cashflow =

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
Ian
p.s. Don't think that just because something has been done that way for hundreds of years it's the best way
For hundreds of years man beat things with a rock held in his hand then one day someone says "How about if I tie a stick to this thing"

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Or is that the problem? It has been done this way before, so I have to do it this way too. Sometimes it take a different set of eyes to see the obvious,as craftsmen we sometimes get tunnel vision. A lot has been developed in machining, and metal working over that past several decades. I may be way off base, but I would be looking at several different possible solutions to this work. Shoot , with a big enough plasma cutter you could trim them close to size first, then clean them up.

Dies can be made in house. Nothing precision, we're talking about forging bits not punch press tooling. I believe that Larry has the machine tools to do this already.

A customer of mine had a small rotary swager that he used to point pipes. Heat them up, and stuff them in as it hammered them down. With what I was mentioning it would be set in at a certain length, and squish them down in one shot. There will be some loss at the tip in flash that is formed. To do these fast you need to eliminate as much guessing, and variables as possible. Heat, insert up to a stop, and form. If you lose 1/4" of overall length, oh well.

I am mostly thinking of the basic diamond pointed jack hammer bits that I have used. The spades might use something like the rotating press used in the Bulldog Forge video of them making shovels.

I still think that a press arrangement would be easier on all parties in terms of wear, and tear. Even a closed die set in a hammer might be a better way than freestyling them.

How are they made at the factory originally?

Sorry to ramble on, but I never see just one way to do something. Once i get on a project my mind starts tossing all kinds of ideas out.

[harrismetalsmith]

With pointing them under the hammer, the final point is done totally by forging. There is no need for a grinder if the smith is experienced enough. The exception is the wide blade points. That is why the hammer is the most effective, because it eliminates the clean up step.

[Mainely,Bob]

I do like the way the BigGun Dr thinks.
Whenever I had a task dumped on me I looked at the many ways to produce the finished product with all the tools we had at our disposal. Once I decided what the best tool for our shop was THEN I asked how it was being done elsewhere.
Just because someone else is using a drill press to drill holes doesn`t mean you can`t punch them and do it in half the time with less problems for the operator.
Grant posted about how bronze keel bolts were being turned from large diameter stock and he used a header to bang them out in a fraction of the time with far less waste for the same $ as the customer was paying for raw stock and made tons of profit.
We completely replumbed the fire main on a harbor fire boat by bid and everyone thought our bid was crazy low and the job couldn`t be done for that. We turned it around in less time than we figured and for more return than we planned. Everyone else bid with tearing out the old main and replacing it as it was. which required removing numerous existing systems to access and hang the branch pipes. I asked the folks in charge if they absolutely had to have it replaced in kind. The reply, "We just want to get water to the nozzles,do it however you want as long as it works". Rerouted pipe to leave systems intact,replaced expensive set pressure relief valves with cheaper updated adjustable units and they ended up with improved performance and a better balanced system for far less money.
The profitable answer many times is outside the box. I don`t seek to duplicate, I try to innovate,that`s where the money is.
This customer has already proven that it`s not a winning operation for them after years of doing it.Why would you want to duplicate their efforts and process for less than half the money?

I want to urge anyone who is looking to make max profit to focus on duplicating the part rather than the process.

[fciron]

It is frequently recommended to remove the end of the old chisel since it's got surface contamination that you don't want to hammer into the steel.

Tapered dies can be as fast as a closed die set up under the hammer, require no flash removal, and can be used on wide chisels or points. (You can even forge your new point behind the old point and then cut off the end with a couple of licks at the anvil; it's a specialized kind of flash. )

There are several threads on sharpening describing a couple of different die set ups. I am sure that Larry has done his homework, if he decides not to reinvent the wheel then round is probably the best shape.

[monstermetal]

Agreed, And its not that I dont think there could be improvement and innovation... What I think is this is a low margin gig and there will be 40,000 of them to do this first year.. At this point in the game I want to know how streamlined I can get the proven method. After I have been doing this for a while THEN is the time to innovate, after I know what a good bit looks like and how fast it can be done with more traditional methods...


But really... we are talking about heating, trimming, forging, trimming and heat treating a tool in just over a minute using a hammer and a air shear (an upsetter with shear tooling) I mean how much are you going to improve on that? Its all done in one heat and that right there is why you couldn't use a hydraulic press... the press dies would pull all the heat out of the tool and then it would have to be reheated for heat treat and thus take much longer

[Mainely,Bob]

Time to spring for that screw press or a huge hammer Larry!
One big BAMO and Bob`s your uncle. :D

[monstermetal]

I like it, BAMO was his name-o

[Dillon Sculpture]

We had named the Niles 750 "The Great White" I had also called it a "Big Blue", I like BAMO!

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Well, in manufacturing we would do 150 - 200 points or chisels per hour. In re-sharpening I could do around 50 pieces per hour AT THE HAMMER. Not counting unloading, loading, counting, wiping down, doing paper-work.

Ya gotta have a big enough hammer to keep the part hot so you can quench from the forging heat, you never want to lay it down hot and let the heat run up the shank. Induction also allows a very compact work envelope, you don't have to have the forge eight feet away to get away from the heat.

I've set up presses for manufacturing points and chisels, but the main advantage is requiring a less skilled operator. Also in that situation you might be forging 1000 points and then 1000 chisels, all the same shank size. In re-sharpening you might have a box with 5 points, 6 chisels (some 1-1/8" some 1-1/4"), a dozen electric hammer tools and a couple asphalt cutters. Every box is a different mix, so ya have to write all that down too.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

In simple operations like this the only reasons for pressing or automating in any way is repeatability and operator skill. It's a relatively expensive way otherwise. Tooling cost and maintenance are high. Think about it; the forging time is only 10 - 15 seconds, yet it can take 45 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes to "do" a tool. Forging is not where you can save. Besides, you learn very fine hammer control running a hammer all day, even just pounding points and chisel. "It's not the time you spend forging that costs you, it's the time you spend NOT forging that costs you".

[harrismetalsmith]

Grant, with induction, how many pieces do you think could be done per hour? Jack hammer bits.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

When I was doing it I had a pretty compact arrangement even with the gas forge. 50 was a personal best. Go for an hour, then take a break absolutely soaked in sweat. But I was young, strong and full of energy, and by God, I was pounding iron! Heck, in those days I'd change clothes at lunch time, looked like I'd just jumped in the river. Induction takes all the fun out on it! Dang, I was happy working like that!

[monstermetal]

Well my negotiations did not go well today.. They are sticking firm at the $1.50 for points and chisels, $2 for 2"-3" chisels and $3.50 for asphalt cutters He was not pleased when I told him I thought it would take $3 each for me to make a profit.. I had agreed to give it a trial run but I dont think it will sway me much... at 30 tools an hour thats $45/hr That leaves no room to actually make a wage, it will all go towards overhead and expenses.. (at least any way I run the numbers)