I was surfing around and found this http://www.emachineshop.com/ This sort of thing has to be new right? Wave of the future? Could change business, create different ways of doing business? I'd be interested in what the pro's think of this. Seems like an outstanding idea on one hand and a million problems waiting to happen on the other.
It sounds like a great idea, but for my stuff I usually work with local suppliers for prototyping and small production runs. There are inevitably problems in the early stages so it's good to deal with the supplier face-to-face. There's a lot to be said for being able to jump in the car and be at the supplier in a few minutes!
For my third and final act in life (engineer) I am integrating parts of a shop internally into my house. For example dining room is main workroom, other bedroom is going to be wrap around benches with tools/jigs what I'm working on. Yes manufacturing fascinates me. Haha good thing I have a wife that puts up with such things. I could not live without getting my hands dirty. So while I am not likely to use such a service, I can see how such services could change things like Home Depot changed construction.
I have seen a discussion (don't remember where) in which a lot of machine shop owners were saying that this service wasn't very good for them. They spend a lot of time bidding jobs, but don't get any work unless they bid too low to make money. I like to work with someone that I can talk to, and who will talk to me if they have questions. You can get stuff done on E-machine shop, but I would just use it to find a close place to work with on an ongoing basis.
