r/CNCmachining

I’m looking for advice from experienced machine shop owners/machinists, especially anyone in Ontario.
I have an opportunity to take on a production job worth roughly $60,000 CAD. I’m considering bidding around $45k–$50k for the work to get my foot in the door. If the first job goes well, there is potential for more recurring work.
The job is roughly 8,000 parts, and material will be supplied by the customer. Based on the process, estimated cycle time is around 20–25 seconds per part once the machine is set up.
Since this is my first job, I don't want to put a large amount of capital into buying a machine and signing a long-term industrial lease.
My idea is to:
Lease/rent a Swiss-type CNC lathe

Rent/share space inside an existing machine shop around Markham/GTA

Run approximately 18 hours/day during production

Keep my initial investment and risk as low as possible

What I'm struggling with is figuring out the true cost of the job before submitting a bid.
For those who have done this before:
How would you calculate the actual cost per part/job before quoting?

What hidden costs should I account for besides machine lease, labour and tooling?

How does leasing/renting a CNC machine typically work? Who normally covers maintenance, repairs or a machine crash?

What costs should I expect for setup/programming, tooling, coolant, electricity, compressor, inspection/QC, scrap/rework, etc.?

Has anyone rented floor space inside another machine shop? What problems should I watch for regarding power, insurance, access hours, loading, coolant/chip disposal, liability, etc.?

How much contingency/profit margin would you build into a ~$45k–$50k production job like this?

Is there anything a first-time shop owner would probably overlook that could turn a profitable-looking job into a loss?

Have been looking for quotes local to me and so far only one guy in my area, so not really able to shop around. Im needing some custom 6061 plate work done and Ive never done anyhting like this so delete if this is not the place for this.

Standard

https://preview.redd.it/mp32indmy7kh1.png?width=1059&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf9153becd87778b8a2448ab0db1aabb70d02ab3

https://preview.redd.it/y6rb9w1sy7kh1.png?width=1113&format=png&auto=webp&s=c3284119d04fa2a4c2c7a027ae18e21781c1fb87

metric

https://preview.redd.it/onnmov60z7kh1.png?width=847&format=png&auto=webp&s=9527c34c25076fbc0a58db32822d45c0ae3b518e

I’ve been a machinist for around 13 years, the shop I work at I am the lead in the Swiss/Mill-turn department. I get a print and provide the operations manager with cycle time and the tooling I need and anything I might need for the job. I program it order tools and setup and run the parts. I have been very heavily thinking about getting a mill and a lathe of my own starting with maybe something smaller and used to start out with. I’m just wondering what others have experienced with the same dream I know it’s going to be hard and I’m definitely not going to quit my job but I just can’t stop thinking about shops I know of off the top of my head that struggle with on time deliveries or just being too swamped. What’s a good way to build connections without even having the machines? Is there a good way to go about obtaining work. I just have so many questions.

Does anyone know of any CNC machinists shops in the UK who will do work such prop replicas for private individuals??? Any pointers would be helpful , thanks !!!

I’m very new to CNC, and at work I recently had to work with a 5-axis DVF 5000. I’ve learned the basics and started doing some trial machining.

I recently tried 3+2 machining. I machined one side with a 90° tilt, and then, using the same 90° tilt, rotated the part 180° to machine the opposite side.

However, when the two machined halves meet, I noticed a shift/mismatch at the joining area. The two surfaces are supposed to meet perfectly and form a flat, continuous surface, but there is a noticeable step between them.

I’m trying to understand where this error could be coming from.

Could it be related to:

• WCS/work offset setup?
• Rotary axis centerline or machine calibration?
• Fixture/workholding alignment?
• Tool length or tool offset?
• Incorrect rotary transformation/orientation in CAM?
• Backlash or positioning accuracy?
• Something else in the 3+2 setup?

I’d really appreciate some guidance from experienced 5-axis/DVF 5000 users on how you would troubleshoot this systematically.

Thanks!

Hello, looking for a designer. Needs to know 2D and 3D in ArtCAM. Urgent hiring.

Salary negotiable.

Room and visa provided.

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Hi everyone,

I’m planning to start a small CNC machining job-work business in Bangalore, with CNC Lathe and VMC machines

.

I’m planning to offer:

CNC Lathe job work

VMC machining

Component manufacturing as per drawing

Small and medium batch production

Job work with material supply

Prototype and development components

My main question is:

How do small machining companies get their first regular customers and orders?

I’m particularly interested in supplying components to:

Machine manufacturers

Fabrication companies

Automation companies

Industrial equipment manufacturers

OEM vendors

Other machining companies that outsource work

For those already running CNC job-work businesses:

How did you get your first customers?

Which methods actually work for getting regular orders?

Is approaching companies directly better than using online platforms?

How do you find companies that outsource CNC machining?

What are the biggest mistakes to avoid when starting?

How important are ISO certification, inspection equipment and quality documentation for getting B2B orders?

I’m not just looking for one-time jobs. My goal is to build long-term customers with repeat production work.

Any practical advice from people who are already in this business would be really helpful.

Hey everyone! I don’t know much about CNC machining, but I wanted to ask whether CNC technology has the capacity to carve human rib cartilage?

I’m part of a community of patients who have lost aspects of their original nasal structure following trauma, reconstructive/functional surgery, complications, illness or rhinoplasty. Restoring someone’s original anatomy can require extremely precise cartilage grafts—sometimes only a few millimetres thick, with subtle curves, ridges and tapered edges—which are currently shaped by hand during surgery, often very imprecise. Many have to accept this loss of identity such as loss of bumps, loss of curvature and shape that may have connected them with their heritage and made them feel like them.

So, purely from an engineering perspective: could CNC machining accurately carve something this small and geometrically complex from cartilage if you already had a 3D model of the desired shape?

And do you see potential for something like this to become feasible in the future?

Any thoughts would be really appreciated :)

Looking for some opinions before sending this out.

It's a stainless valve housing going from prototype to a 75 part production run. Two threaded ports and a tight bore tolerance, so repeatability is more important than saving a few bucks on the quote.

Quickparts, Xometry and Fictiv are the cnc machining services I'm comparing right now. Who has been the most consistent for production parts?

Hi

I need to machine a 0.0780" Diameter Pin of 0.225" length and cone angle of 60deg at one end with tolerance of 0.0001" on diameter. Material is M2 steel. Need inputs on how to machine this. This is for a aerospace customer.

We’ve been sourcing precision CNC machined parts for a robotics project and the inconsistency between suppliers has been annoying. Tolerances matter a lot for what we're building, we need 5-axis milling on some aluminum housings and tight-tolerance turning on stainless steel shafts and half the factories we've sampled from just can't hold what they quote. Looking specifically for a Chinese cnc machining manufacturer that can handle prototypes and scale into production without the quality falling off a cliff. ISO certifications are non-negotiable for us (our client is in the medical space), so something with ISO 13485 or similar would be ideal. Anyone have direct experience with a shop that does both the CNC work and sheet metal fabrication under one roof? Makes logistics way simpler.

I've been thinking about something I saw while working with a machine shop.

The quotations, drawings and setup sheets were all documented, but a surprising amount of practical knowledge wasn't.

Things like:

• Don't use that fixture for this revision.
• This tool tends to chatter on the second operation.
• Watch the vice height or you'll hit it.
• Customer accepted this deviation last time, but only after approval.

One thing I still remember was an operator bringing me an out of tolerance part and asking if I could persuade the customer to accept it. It wasn't even a particularly tight tolerance. It made me wonder whether the same issue had happened before and whether anyone had recorded what happened.

I'm curious how other machine shops deal with this.

Where does this kind of practical knowledge actually live in your shop? ERP? Setup sheets? Whiteboards? Excel? OneNote? Someone's notebook? Or simply experienced people?

What's one lesson your shop learned the hard way that you now make sure nobody forgets?

I'm not selling anything. I'm genuinely trying to understand how different machine shops capture and pass on practical knowledge.

If anyone is happy to chat in more detail afterwards, I'd really appreciate it.

Hi,

I am not selling anything. I am genuinely looking for connections in the manufacturing/CNC sector (especially B2B / wholesale) to build free ecommerce websites.

What you get:
- A free ecommerce website at the end of 3 months - complete with storefront, backstore, inventory management, quote approval engines, MOQs, pricing rules, custom pricing for customers, payment gateway, SEO, sales rep dashboard, deep categorisation / specifications of catalogue, complex search/filter, etc.
- Once finished, you are free to use it (or not use it), host it as your website if you see fit. No strings attached. Or, I will host it for you if you want a managed service.

What you give:
- A discovery call to understand the scope of the website and business. Genuine feedback about the website experience.

Why am I doing this for free:
- I have built several ecommerce websites for D2C. But I am transitioning into B2B / wholesale so I need the experience to build my portfolio.

- I need real world product catalogues and data to understand the nuances in the industry and manage security and traffic.

If this is something you wouldn't mind trying out, please let me know :)