Low-cost copper pills, spacers, optics, drop-ins (Updated 23/10/2022))

I think I have to share some extra information about current situation. Have not done this earlier because there are still no visible progress.
I’ve tried my best to get a ready-for-use small CNC mill (like tormach 770/1100) or used VMC (Haas minimill/Syil X7/ Scyfire VMC) but had find out that things here are even worth than I expected. Country is closing from the inside, amount of imports flowing down for many years, taxes and bureaucracy are raising each year. All this makes new import machines very expensive (like US price multiplied by 2.5-3), same time deficit (and raising costs of everything) don’t allow used machines prices drop as fast as they should (I’ve seen several 15y.o. HAASes that cost more than brand new model in States). I have looked over several hundred thousands listings, and could not choose anything because main options were CNC router or 30+ y.o. heavy mill with punch tape input or 4k ROM.
During this period, I have also made hundreds of phone conversation with people that sell/upgrade/manufacture machinery, but again, I could not expect that thing here are so bad. People just don’t want too learn using someone’s else’s experience. They offered many funny machines (like heavy 2 ton mill with direct driven small nema motors, or bf20 with modern fanuc CNC and servos), but they are not able to find out how one or other thing should be made based on worldwide experience (read-not able even to copy imported technologies).
“If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad will come to the mountain”. I’m going to build it myself. This is not right way. Do not repeat it. Just get tormach or used Haas.
I’m renting a small place for this needs. A place owner was not able to remove his machines from this place, so I could not start repairing work. Need to work hard next several weeks to make it suitable for my needs.
I’ve bought few small manual machines by occasion. Just find out that person I’m calling is different from the others (mentioned above). I don’t overestimate my machinist skills and I have no plans in making big customer work using them. Probable they will not pay off themself, but I’m ok with this because they are valuable and they do not losing value (because of some factors mentioned above).
There is just one small thing that can justify why I have not made big progress in 3.5 months. Things are really slow here. I understand that country is not small but since start of this year I’ve met dozen situation (both as sender and reciever) when delivery took more than 1.5 months. Each day I met situations when something that should work doesn’t. Yesterday I could not get some equipment unloaded from the truck because heightbores forklift has broken batteries, runs on AC transformer and not runs when it rains :person_facepalming: .
I don’t know how long I can accept all this.

Well, well, well...looks like you are about to start something interesting there.

I hope it will go smooth for you and waiting for more news.

Thanks for the update. I am the proud owner of several copper S2+ spacers and they are great.
Looking forward to hearing more.

Thanks for the update and sorry to hear of your troubles. I hope things start going more smoothly for you and o look forward to what you have to offer in the future. Wishing you the best.

Sorry to hear of the difficulties. Take care and good fortune

Excuse me for no update for a long time.

After the room I’m going to occupy was cleaned from all stuff and garbage left by previous owners, I’ve realized that it needs some deep tough repair work (that I’m not good at and was not expected). I needed to place my machines before I could finish all repair work so I’ve got an agreement to place them temporarily in a bigger (but still ugly and dirty) room. It is hard to make space clean when there is still no water on the whole floor.

Still waiting for some more lathe tooling and will probably need to order more various holders (trying to avoid HSS blanks, don’t want to produce abrasive dust in a new place). Machines are not fully workable and have to make some parts to each other, but I hope I will make some parts for BLF needs in few weeks.

Woohooo!
Great news. Growing is slow and sometimes anoying but you’re doing it right.

Excellent news kiriba-ru. Glad you are going to make it work and start producing again.

Sounds exciting. I hope things go well for you. Looking forward to new parts.

Aloha brother,

sorry to hear of your challenges and hope you can get through them smoothly. We are very fortunate to have your time, personal investment and outstanding parts supplied to us over these years…please let me know if I can do anything to help from this end!

S2+ cu, S21a cu, S11 cu and alu spacers are back in stock.

What’s the price on the S2+ cu spacers?

$4/pc

S2+ spacers are sold out, need few days to restock.

Sorry everyone who got PM respond not as fast as usual last week - it was a busy week and I was not able to be online 24/7.

S2+ spacers restocked.

Little bit brighter now:

Now I need to figure out how to get 2 m3 of concrete for the floors without ruining my back completely (even the smallest available concrete delivery truck is not able to get close enough to spit it directly in my room, while concrete pump truck minimum rent value is unaffordable for small objects).

Around here I’ve seen gas or electric powered dump cart. About 2x the size of a large wheel barrow I’d guess. Fits through wooden fence gates to dump in back yards.

PM’d you about an S21a spacer. Sorry if this isn’t the correct way to handle this. New to the forum, hope to post my builds when I’m able to get them all finished.

Some more progress:

Not much progress for last month. I tried my best to organize the concrete laying process in such a way that it was finished as well as it is possible. Unfortunately, it came out so-so, and I had to do some grinding with a diamond cup on the angle grinder. Making such things here is a really big pain. I can not rent tools or services because they don’t work with small private persons, also I cant delegate such work to anyone because people that used to make such jobs have too low “internal quality level”.