Facing Lathe

Does anyone know how you would go about finding work for a small vertical lathe machine shop?

My father in law is wanting me to go to businesses and ask them for lathe work. I know nothing about this stuff and he does not explain himself very well to me. I know he is good at what he does because he is the forman in the shop he works at. He just wants for me and him to try to start a business together and get our own work. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this and where I would even start to find customers for something like this?

Public Comments

It's hard to find customers if you don't know the product you're selling. My suggestion to you is to work (or to apprentice - meaning no pay) at your father-in-law's machine shop until you get a grasp on what is done, and how it is done, and where the work comes from. Of course this is difficult since you'll have to explain why you're there. Learning the trade so that you can go out and steal potential business from this place isn't going to go over so well. You might want to start with local shops that do engine repair, they are always machining parts. Vintage cars where the parts might not be readily available also need people that can make parts to specification. You might also look to other machine shops that do a lot of production work. Ask them if you can help them doing "one offs", single pieces that require a lot of set up for only one or two pieces.