A bit of fundraising...

Regular readers of the Tinker's Guild might know what I'm in the middle of a project involving some of my bigger machine tools (Guild thread here, with a little more detail.)

To summarize, it was a project to bring some of my older machines back up to close to new tolerances again, but in an effort to save shipping (on nearly three thousand pounds of cast iron) we ended up with a series of SNAFUs that can, really, only be solved by "throwing money at it".

The original deal was already not going to be cheap, to the tune of close to $6,000. But, that would get three of my machines back up to near-new tolerances again, which would make them far more useful to me than they were, so I decided to try it.

That fell through almost immediately, and now, some twenty months later, I'm having to fix the situation. On the plus side, I believe I will get better work from the new shop.

On the negative side, the whole evolution, including grinding work, customs fees and return shipping, will very likely cost me close to ten thousand dollars.

Or about twice what the complete, finished machines will even be worth.

But I have no viable alternative. My three options are either junk everything (which I'm not gonna do) have the parts shipped back up without any work (meaning I'd have sent them off for nearly two years, and close to $3,000 in shipping, to accomplish nothing) or bite the bullet and pay to have the work done.

And you people wonder why I'm not rich. :D

This little fiasco is going to cost me most of what I've been saving up for close to three years now, specifically set aside for a CNC milling machine I've been wanting/needing for a very long time. At best, it'll set that schedule back by at least a year, maybe more, and recent events have made it more important than ever that I get some of these projects and products going as soon as I can.

So if you could do me a favor: If you can, and even if it's only for a couple of months, if you could bump up your donation a dollar or two, that'd be a huge help. 

Or, if you could buy a set of books or other product, that too, would help me a great deal.

Or, optionally, I'm strongly considering  taking in a few commissions.  If you'd like something, from a simple sketch up to a full-color digital work (and are willing to pay for such things) drop me an email at grumpy@the-whiteboard.com with a brief description and a ballpark figure you're willing to spend.

[Edit] By request, my PayPal is ordering@docsmachine.com if anyone would like to make a one-time donation.

Thanks ladies and gents, your help and support is always appreciated.

Doc.