I ain't a porter and don't have a dog in this fight. I do work at one of those "local machine shops", and will offer my opinion as to the cost of cutting a jug. You will be paying $200+ to have the base and squish cut to whatever specifications you provide. We don't have a shelf full of mandrels and fixtures to cut jugs, and we likely don't have appropriate material to make them. I don't know of any other shop that would keep stock on hand that they aren't going to use, or only use once every 10+ years(if that)....and we aren't likely to make them for a single job consisting of a single low dollar part. On top of that, we also assume the risk of damaging/destroying the part. Most likely, we aren't even going to take the job. Assuming we do, and assuming a 50mm jug....
2" UHMW(for the mandrel) is $9.30 a foot, plus shipping. I have no idea what it would cost to ship, but let's call it $10. So $20 to round it off.
Now we have to turn that to fit the bore, so we will figure on a half hour for that. Another $32.50(our shop rate is $65/hr unless you want it right now)
Next is figuring out how to hold the jug and drive it without damaging it...and still being able to move it to get it indicated in. So we build a rinky dink fixture from some random odd lengths on the shelf. There's another $15 in material and an hour($65) spent looking for junk that would work and then making it work.
Now we spend another 45 minutes($48.75) screwing around with the rinky dink fixture, getting the jug to run true, and cutting the base.
If we're lucky, we can cut the squish without moving anything. $0
We might not be, and then have to spend another 1/2-3/4hr fiddling with it to get it right again. $32.50-$48.75
Assuming we didn't have to move anything, we're at $181.25 before tax. You still have no porting done(which we aren't going to do anyway), and no popup.
If we did have to move something. then $213.75 to $230.....still no porting or popup.
If we destroyed the jug with a crappy fixture, setup, or some unexpected cluster**** occurs, we lose money.
I can guarantee that I have removed less material from a part and charged more for it than the "porting" from this thread cost. Should I have taken more off so the customer "got their money's worth", or only taken off what was necessary for optimum function of the part? It's a no brainer IMO. On the other hand, an agreement for services needs to have very precise and appropriate use of language to adequately define the scope of work to be performed. "Porting" implies(to me anyway) work being done on the ports to change the size or shape in some way. That doesn't appear to have been done from the photographs, but there isn't a pic of an unmodified jug for comparison either. I don't know for sure either way. In one of the pictures it doesn't appear that the liner has been matched to the port( or port matched to the liner, however you view it). The jug ain't in my hands, so again, I don't know for sure. I do know that if that's the case, I would be quite displeased at having paid for a service that was not(in my opinion) rendered in full. At the least, I would expect such a flaw to be corrected when "porting" a jug. That said, $200 wouldn't buy you that much at a "local machine shop".
by apprentice we... well at least me! assume beginner. the implication reads well! I am not saying an apprentice who is just hours away from journeyman couldn't do it given training, education and experience. I think the threads here on AS on the subject, complete with indepth fotos and vids... clearly show its not a job for beginner, apprentice or even a skilled machinist without the knowledge and experience of what he is doing.
