A lot of the websites time out if you take a certain amount of time to do your reply so when you hit post reply all is lost, I open a new text document and copy and paste the reply before hitting send ,that way if the site looses the reply I can just copy and paste my reply again and hit post reply. I only do this if it's something you don't want to type out again .
Machining is fine if you can find someone like Norm to do decent machining at a fair price.
I've had no luck with fitters and turners in my area ,if I take a simple job to them they are not interested and I have to contact them multiply times to ask if the job is finished ,ends up taking a month to remove 1 mm of steel then they over charge and stuff the job up.
The last job I had was to turn down square axle spindles to fit in a trailer drop axle ,the square axle had to go in a round hole, I was converting a disc brake trailer axle that needed new discs and calipers to electric drum brakes because I had the parts.
I explained what I wanted done and gave them the square spindles with a bit of thin alloy sheet to clamp in the lathe to use as a soft jaw so the seal surface was not damaged .
Get the spindles back weeks later and I have jaw mark damage on both where the seal runs from the lathe chuck ,I had to spend time linishing the marks out and now they will be slightly undersized.
I guess every time I get a job done they have no common sense , don't care or they are getting the first year apprentice to do the work and charge top dollar.
