Hi Petem, Only 5 of us check in pretty regularly and an occasional "drifter" with an oddball question or two. But after all this time even this "gang of five" is beginning to wear thin. Three are no longer working in the trade. Just Mark and me are still active. But that hasn't kept us from bantering and posing questions and answers all this time. But - - - - now that Les has stepped down I don't think there will be too much left to talk about having to do with alarm systems. Good to see you're still around and kicking.
As Jim has typed it is rather slow here and I predict that some day in the future, all will stop. And, yes, I have quit!! But, my brain is still full of S-T-U-F-F that will be difficult to flush out!!
Yeah, I've tried to rationalize that a number of times. If you don't consider the labor and machinery costs, drilling holes into and making a big piece of metal a smaller lighter piece of metal seems to be counter intuitive to charge money for that. I mean, if you added the labor and machinery cost and made it BIGGER, it would seem more acceptable some how. I'm thinking that the new advancements in 3D printers just might do that though - - - - Right? Now you can REALLY charge a lot. Now your making something out of nothing. 8->
Which has more value? A couple pounds of raw dirt or a few ounces of cleaned and refined dirt shaped and processed to form a fine ceramic bowl to from which to eat your soup?
Exact same thing. Slightly different dirt.
How about a few tons of dirt or an engine block. Same thing.
A few tons of dirt or the electrical windings in a motor.
Metal casting or extrusion to machined part is just one step in the process from dirt to prized possession.
3D printing is just another way of going from dirt to part. Just slower. Sometimes it can assist in other processes as well.
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