I knew that someone would challenge the 250 hour estimate.cutnweld wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 9:12 am I can hardly believe the 250 hour thing. 1000 plates at 250 hours means 4 per hour, or 1 plate every 15 minutes. I run my table slow to try and save my gearboxes till I can find time to upgrade, but even at my 400 ipm I could cut an awful lot faster than that, and 12 mm plate is easily doable with plasma. Go for it Jack!
I had a welder/fabricator help me to make a custom hydraulic loading apparatus for the rear of a F450 many years ago. It cost a lot of money. He told me how many hours he thought it would take, and LIKE YOU, I thought, "I have welded and fabricated! It can't POSSIBLY take that long!"
Then he gave me a lesson in reality.
"Joe ... You want to use your F450 as a dedicated motorcycle towing truck. A COMMERCIAL VEHICLE. You want to create something from scratch. You want it to be designed for one-man operation, which means it will be operated by a REMOTE. You want it to fold up onto itself for driving down the road. You want it to LOOK like it belongs on the truck, and it wasn't hacked together. You want it to ride smoothly, and not clang around over bumps.
You don't want it to fall off while you drive down the road, or while it is supporting a load. You want it to work the first time, every time, and for a long time. This deck will be used to load and unload THOUSANDS of motorcycles and other larger and heavier vehicles during the life of the truck, or the business.
You came to me, because you either cannot do it yourself, or you need my shop tools, my welding skills and my EXPERIENCE to fabricate the heavy steel plate, remotely operated, folding hydraulic deck extension deck, and work out the math to create and build this thing.
We have been talking about this for one hour now. I looked at your sketches. As we go through the "WHAT IF" scenarios right here, we have developed several changes that must be made MADE to your original design idea thus far.
I am your friend, but I am also a BUSINESS. I CHARGE FOR MY TIME. Just as your attorney might be your friend, but he is also an attorney, which is why he charges you to read a document, or compose a letter, or speak with you on the phone.
There is an old expression which is quite applicable: "NEVER ask a person to do for FREE, what that person does FOR A LIVING." If you do, you are saying that the person's knowledge and experience have no value. You are talking to ME, because you came to a metal fabrication shop run by a welder/fabricator with a LOT of knowledge and experience. You came to a SPECIALIST in the field. You know what I can do, and you KNOW it will work!
I have enjoyed the conversation, and I WILL build you a great loading deck for your truck if you agree to my price. However, I have already invested one hour of MY TIME into this project. I call that my "THINKING TIME." If you don't want me to THINK about this, but just grab some metal and start welding, I can do that too. But you will end up with some contraption that will never work, or look good on your truck.
It won't take me long at all, to cut up plate and weld it together with two long hinges, and hydraulic rams to lift and lower it, and create three nesting, removeable ramps that are long enough and strong enough to be RELIABLE, yet light enough for YOU to deploy and retract as you do your tows, ONCE THE DESIGN IS FINALIZED.
You are not just paying for the loading deck. You are paying for MY THINKING TIME. You did not bring me prefabricated steel parts with assembly instructions. I have to MAKE the parts before I weld them together, and I have to DESIGN the parts before I make them. My shop rate is $75.00 per hour, but that is for EVERY HOUR of my time that I invest into your project.
You know that I cannot "just make it." I have to check the laws, to see if this thing you want to create is even LEGAL on your truck. I have to research design restrictions, weight limitations, material requirements, etc. I have to speak with your insurance company, to check on the liability of adding such a thing yo your truck, with the intent to use it for a commercial business. That all takes TIME. You are building an apparatus for A BUSINESS TOW TRUCK. That drags in the D.O.T., the C.H.P., the D.M.V., and other government agencies who will ALL make sure they have a hand in this project, if you EVER plan to use it on the road, or drive it through a scale house as a COMMERCIAL vehicle."
You guys are laughing at the 250 hour estimate, but I dare say, I will bet he has five hours into the project ALREADY, talking with the customer in (n) conversations, thinking through the LOGISTICS of a small one-man shop bringing in TEN TONS of steel plates, and then ... how will he move the plates from the delivery vehicle to the floor, and then onto the table? How will he manhandle them?
He says he has no room for an ironworker, yet he WILL need room to bring in large and heave steel plates. He will also need room for at least ONE pallet to stack the steel squares onto, and you CANNOT put TEN TONS of steel onto ONE PALLET. So now he needs a way to move them around (a forklift or a pallet jack?) AND he needs the room to store the ... TEN pallets? (at 2,000 lb each) of tiles, unless he has a large heavy hauler trailer or truck to stack these plates directly onto as he makes them. And if that is the case, can that truck or trailer be PARKED there during the entire one-man job, or will it be used for other tasks in the interim? Then he has to add the time of either picking up the materials and/or dropping them off at the customer. How far away is the customer at $9.00 per gallon of fuel, and $1.00 per loaded mile wear and tear on the truck, and $40.00 per hour to DRIVE the truck? How much time will be required to drive there and back? Does he shut down his shop while he is delivering these tiles, or does he pay a driver to deliver these, or does he pay someone else to run the shop in his absence? And is it his good friend, "Bubba" who will do it for a case of beer, or is he hiring a driver and maybe even renting the truck he will need?
You guys picture steel plate ON a plasma table, with the compressor fired up and everything READY TO GO, and then you mock me ... "It won't take 15 minutes PER PLATE to make these!" They can be cut in a couple of minutes EACH!
Well, I agree!
If he can walk into his shop, and the plate is already on the table, and
If the design file is already drawn, and
If there is someone there to swap out the skeleton and material for the next set of tiles, and
If someone else is going to de-dross each tile and stack it onto a pallet, and
If someone else is going to tie down ten tons of steel plates for transport, and
If someone else is going to deliver and pick up the 1,000 tiles, and
If the consumables NEVER need to be changed, and
If the power stay ON during the entire process, and
If he never stops for lunch, or a bathroom break ... then you are right! It will not require 15 minutes PER PLATE.
But if you look at THE BIG PICTURE, and you include EVERYTHING involved in turning the customer's plate into 1,000 tiles, my 15 minute per plate estimate is SPOT ON.
Joe
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