I'm in the process of opening a machine shop, south central Wisconsin. Trying to capture some of that knowledge before the old geezers all die off
More or less directly instigated by nobody being able to grind a crank for **** unless you want to ship it to Moldex/Crankshaft Specialists/Marine crank/Winberg/etc. I'm 46 and pretty much the "young guy."
Unfortunately a lot of these old shops have equipment just as used up and tired as the people operating them. It's hard to justify spending $50k+ on new machines, and especially tooling and fixturing when the break even on the investment is going to be years and years. And that was when it was available, with the Brandon/COVID shutdown of everything, everyone is monthes and years to delivery. Sunnen flat out tells you it'll be a year before you can get a honing machine from them. All this for a hobby industry. S/F....Ken M