I'm already focused enough (remember, I have 2 full time employees and maybe a third once I buy either a Shop Saber or Langmuir full sized 4 x 8-10 plasma table and build an addition on the main shop because I'm out of room presently. Between contract machining for 2-3 tier automotive suppliers, sharpening chipper knives and anvils for all the local arborists, working on their rolling stock (not chainsaws), heavy fabrication on loader and excavator buckets, doing AWS certified welding (which I have to do myself because I hold the AWS certification and sharpening their saw chains (I like doing that actually), at 73, I'm real busy and that don't include my part time job at the local Kubota dealer, delivering new tractors and picking up used ones and fiddling in the shop as well and farming in the warm months and always loosing money with that (but it's fun as well), I need to start slowing down a bit. My ongoing cancer, I can deal with just fine actually, but at 73, it's getting time to kick back and spend some of the revenue and maybe start taking cruises with my wife to far away warm places in the winter. Problem is, I'm a 100% hands on boss and I'm (OCD) about how the shop runs and kept spotless, so I'm a prick. Don't know how my wife of 37 years stand me. She must have an iron will or a lot of ear wax and ignores me most times. All I know is I would not be successful and financially secure if it was not for her and a good accountant. I do have to take 2 days every other week to get my ongoing chemo with no end date as my cancer issue is not operable. I can keep it in remission for a price, however. Now that my Kubota dealer has taken on an Echo franchise, I'll probably will be getting into that as well. I will sharpen customer loops here however and charge them (dealer) for that service. I'm already fixing factory screw up's on new equipment that the factory people screw up now and I do that here as well. Not a lot but that always involves machining, welding and refinishing (with a spray can of Kubota Orange...lol). One nice thing about Echo is their 5 year conditional warranty (consumer) and 1 year commercial warranty and unlike Stihl, they don't **** with it other than a straight gassed saw. Most everything else is covered except obvious customer abuse (like no bar oil and burned up bars or saw loops). I don't get involved in the front office relations between Echo and the owner and the customers, I just report my findings (like Dennis does) and let them deal with it. People in general are hard on chain saws anyway, just like their tractors. I don't want to wrench on filthy, mis used equipment and I don't want to fiddle with the new (abused) stuff either as it all entails computer controlled engines, after treatment, DEF and all that crap I don't want to know about. Why ALL my farm tractors are pre 4 emissions engines.
I do get employee discount on all my parts and a discount labor rate if they have to go in the shop. Nice thing about that is I don't ever get charged for pickup and delivery either as I haul them myself with the owners roll back and the parts manager lives nearby so if I need any consumables for the tractors, he delivers them to me at no charge except for the parts and Kubota parts, like JD parts are expensive today. I never make any money working for them part time but it offsets my parts and labor charges.
Customer as a rule don't have a clue when it comes to sharp chains or shot bars. They run them until they won't cut anymore, forget to fill the chain lubricant tank or straight gas them. They don't seem to care one way or another and then they bring them in the dealership and complain. People today are whiners and not doers for the most part. Not all but quite a few. I've seen some newer saws that look ancient' covered with crud, chains that are so dull and rocked that you have to grind off half a cutter to get them sharp (or toss them and sell them a new loop or a new bar and loop because the bar is shot too from lack of bar oil). I find it amazingly stupid but in the end, they get to pay for their stupidity. At least the chains I run for my arborist customers, I've educated them a bit about chain loops and bars and when it's time to sharpen or dress a bar and I usually get around 30-40 loops at a crack to sharpen. Loops have gotten expensive just like bars and drive sprockets have. Bidenomics at it's best. I just took a 30% increase on Tungsten electrodes for the TIG welder. I only buy my TIG Tungsten from Midwest Tungsten in McCook, Illinois because they are the last domestic producer of Tungsten electrodes left here and I won't buy Chinese Tungsten, it's sub standard and all the TIG I do has to be certified AWS. I buy it in bulk packs. Makes no difference in price however. I understand how it works and I'll increase my price accordingly to my customers, even though the customers I deal with want the best low ball price. I always need a sharp pencil to stay ahead. So far, so good and my arborist customers also understand that. I typically charge 50 cents an inch for sharpening chipper knives, just upped that to 75 cents an inch and if the knives are really dull, as in they ran some nails or whatever through the knives and rocked the anvils as well, it's a buck an inch and on loops, 75 cents per inch of teeth and that includes dropping the rakers if required. Least with them, they don't usually rock chains or do dirt cutting either and if the loops have corroded drivers, I toss them in the scrap can. Got them trained on that as well. I give them a new 5 gallon bucket with oil in the bottom. Keeps the chains oiled and no rust. None of them run import chains either. Mostly Stihl or Oregon and very little PICO low kickback loops either, just the liming saws and mostly the high buck Stihl top handle saws. Most of the chain I run are either 325 or 404 and yes, I make up new loops here as well.
Now, I do sharpen with Diamond Abrasives CBN wheels always (I know there are cheaper (imported) wheels out there and I've read on here that they can be hard to deal with, something I've found not to be true and I have a commercial account with them as well so if I order something, it gets shipped right away and I pay at the end of the month. In fact, they are going to produce a sharpening jig for Greenteeth Tungsten Carbide stump grinder teeth and I've provided them with some dull teeth to build their new sharpening tool with. Nice folks and I get along with them just fine plus I've gotten to know the owner as well. We are all in business to make money despite the Bidenomics. and so far I'm busy and keeping my 2 employees happy too. Green Manufacturing is local for me and I also have an account with them but they only sell new tooth assemblies, they don't sharpen used cutters. The issue with sharpening used Tungsten Carbide cutters is, you have to use a diamond wheel and the swarf from carbide is a known carcinogen so that in itself is a touchy subject. I'm sure that once they perfect their sharpen jig it will come with some kind of 'hold harmless' note, just like most everything comes with today. Right now, if I dress them here in the shop (I own my own stump grinder), I run them on one of my vertical mills with the tooth chucked in the R8 spindle in the appropriate holder and a drill motor clamped in the milling vise with a diamond impregnated wheel of suitable radius that will concave the cutters and provide the relief to shave the stumps but it's a tedious process and I have to have a negative air hander with a HEPA filter installed nearby to suck off all the grindings so I don't breathe them. I do the same when I sharpen Tungsten electrodes for TIG welding with exotic metals. Tungsten electrodes, especially thorated and lanthinated electrodes when grinding produce toxic swarf. I usually buy them pre sharpened but with the price increase, I'll do that in the shop and be more careful not to dip the filler rod too close to the electrodes when welding and foul them. Has to stay in the inert gas envelope however. Not much room for error there and with my cancer issue, I don't need anything else to aggravate it.
