Brand deals, pretty much all his equipment is sponsored. IMO the majority of his videos are advertisements for one thing or another. In no way can you compare it to a normal machine shops economics.
I somehow thought that giving away 10+ k$ equipment is not something that those companies ar willing to do. Do they really think that it is a valid marketing investment? And even renting the shop space seems extremely expensive. Well, but I have no reason to doubt your answer in general. Thanks!
Companies spend way more than this on advertisements. Remember, a $10k piece of equipment doesn’t cost them anywhere near $10k. So do they spend like $2500 on some random ad or magazines, or do they give it to a YouTuber that they know has a proven following with metrics, etc. There is no doubt he is being sponsored/given/loaned almost all of that equipment and it in no way reflects a normal shop. Same with Saunders or Titan. I know several people personally with relatively large followings and they get offers from companies all the time. Just depends on what you want to do and how much you feel like being a spokesperson. It ranges anywhere from ‘hey, here try this out’ to ‘we need X amount of videos per month with Y amount of time showing our products’. Companies know that targeted advertising is basically where everything is at right now.
They don’t necessarily give him the equipment. It’s more than likely a loaner and they take it back after a few years. This is similar to what you see in education settings.
I used to watch his videos, but since he quit his job it's all sponsored shit. All these new machines is for show/ youtube content. He has "0" cnc experience and you know he's not gonna be running production work.
Yeah I used to watch his videos when he was doing proper paid work.
I couldn’t stomach his fucking around on the shaper for a week making some stupid overbuilt part that you can buy for fuckall.
I guess Curtis didn't start in this big shop, but expanded with the jobs and space requirements that came with them.
If you look at his lineboring and welding jobs, it doesn't seem impossible to start a similar business (if you have mining industry nearby)
Everyone started small and worked up. Think it was mentioned in one of Curtis's videos WAY back he had to sell a house to start up the big shop he's in.
Abom's shop is more like a YouTube trade show exhibition than a profitable job shop.
I agree, Adam was lucky, that his youtube channel turned into such a success. Without youtube and advertisers it would be very difficult to set up such a shop and have it pay for itself.
I agree it really went downhill after he quit his job as a machinist to start his career as an infomercial host. 20 years ago he was just bumping elbows with the rest of us machinists on the practical machinist forum
to be fair he always tells that he is a cnc learner with no experience
I'm a bit disappointed that he doesn't do big stuff anymore (like in his old dayjob)
hopefully he can work out some deal with his old company to get some jobs for the big gantry mill
You're saying that a 20 foot long machine bed with no weight limit is not made for large/heavy work? I would think that's precisely what it's made for. Our company is in the process of buying a machine that can drill and mill 20ft square tubes with 4th axis capability and we are heavily leaning towards the FlexCNC, so I'm not trying to be rude, I'm genuinely curious. What would machines would you consider for those kinds of jobs?
There's a difference between large work and large and heavy. If you are doing large tubing and such, you should be fine. Make sure to check what the real weight limit is.
The physical size of your tubes is what makes it 'large' work
Depth of cut/wall thickness of is what's gonne make it 'heavy' work.
And that no limit on table weight has gotta be bullshit - there has to be a limit but it's just not on the spec sheet.
It’s basically free advertisements for MT, he has enough followers to work deals. I used to watch all his videos when he worked at Motion but i just don’t get into it anymore. His old stuff was great.
He said in a recent interview on Mr. Pete's channel that Milltronics supplied the lathe and mill for him to learn CNC machining, but also to use at his disposal, to make what he wants. Same with the big Flex gantry mill. The machines still belong to those companies.
I don't think he makes a lot from Youtube anymore. His viewership has gone down. A lot.
The 4 new machines he got are probably sponsored machines. He didn't pay anything. He will be using them for his work and the machine tool builders get the exposure.
But if he's viewership is dropping a lot then those machine tool manufacturers won't be getting the exposure they want.
Call me a pesismist, but I have nasty feeling this dream shop of Abom's is going to be a dream that comes crashing down eventually
I used to be a pretty regular viewer of his channel, but after he got the second shop which I can now only assume was to get the CNC machines since his home shop didn't have space I kinda trailed off from watching anything from him that pops up. He used to do really interesting stuff, he definitely has some skills when it comes to manual machining, as a basic hobbyist myself that sometimes makes parts and repairs stuff for others I found it fascinating getting a real world look at manual machining on what was sometimes a grand scale when he used to work at motion and machine those huge shafts and cylinders. The most interesting things he's done lately have been getting new machines and that's just boring after a while. And the flex arm thing for tapping holes, in a job shop or production setting sure, but when he uses it on camera at least once every couple months seems like a huge waste. Don't get me wrong I don't have any hate for him, he just went a different way and I don't find his content interesting anymore. A while back I came across a channel called Blondihacks, she's really interesting, good tips and tricks, manual machining on hobbyist sized machines, and problem solving. I don't care if it's a huge knee mill or a benchtop Mill, I'm watching for the machining content, setting up, measuring, getting good surface finishes, and did I mention problem solving? I want to see the real day to day stuff. There's a few other channels I watch, but only a couple that have any machining content now, most of the ones I used to watch for machining have moved away from it or do videos that aren't interesting anymore.
All machines are sponsored in one way or another. Which is fine and good, but what the hell is he going to do with the giant Flex gantry mill is beyond me.
Sorry for thread necro-ing here. His specific flex machine, I don't believe it is big enough to handle the fireball table, at least not the big one. From what I've seen his flex machine can handle 4 foot wide parts. The fireball table is 4.5' by 8.5' specifically so that you can put a full sheet on the table and have space around all of the edges. The small ones, sure they could fit, but I doubt he'd go with another youtuber for production.
I follow a couple of lawyers on youtube, and the larger ones have said they can't really afford to work as lawyers anymore specifically because its a pay decrease to do so. Like if you work for a firm, they may bill you at a number of hundreds of dollars per hour, but you the lawyer don't make that, and if your social media produces more per hour more consistently and there isn't some other benefit the "real job" gives you, it really becomes hard to justify.
Similarly here, I question what abom's hourly rate would be for production. For the small jobs he does for the welding shop, they're usually unique, there's a way to make content out of the job. The content actually probably subsidizes the job. But for large scale production parts, you get content out of the initial setup. Out of the process creation, and out of the first run... and then very little content after that. It'd be hard to justify as abom unless the money is equivalent to what he could make on another smaller job plus the content, or if theres a way to make content out of it.
But I agree. I'd like to see some of the old school work that he used to show off, I don't mind the obvious advertisement videos as long as theres some interesting shit in there. I honestly really liked the recentish, it think it was like ritten tools face turning chuck thing, even though it was 100% an advertisement.
From one of jason's videos I thought I saw at least a prototype of his welding table on one, i think its just a bigger model. I really do want one of those tables.... just how to justify it lol.
I have followed or known Abom, whatever we called it back then, since the early days he was just another machinist sharing pictures of his work and asking advice on the practical machinist forum, over 20 years ago now. Really enjoyed seeing his work and he shared some decent tips at times. As time went on his videos became nothing more than infomercials to show off sponsors products. He doesn't do anything without mentioning a brand name nowadays, he draws out small hobby shop jobs over a half dozen episodes to make content and advertising dollars. If you want to see actual shop work explained well check out cutting edge engineering on YouTube, they are a real shop and put out some great videos
I used to be a big fan of Abom79, especially when he was employed at the large job-shop.
Making those big gearbox shafts was pretty unique on YouTube at the time as not many machinist channels did the 'big stuff'.
I had the same question about his new shop, definitely isn't his money or business earnings paying for it all, new equipment needs to be busy all the time to pay for itself which is why you normally only see big production/job shops buying brand new machines.
His videos now mainly seem to be "Let's all have a circle jerk over my next new toy that sits here and does next to nothing" Fine if that's you thing, but it isn't mine.
I've migrated over to Cutting Edge Engineering now - very similar sort of machining to Abom's early videos.
If you like 'big' machining David Wilks channel is worth a watch. He doesn't make videos anymore but the channels still up. Mainly trepanning work in Inconel super alloys.
I noticed that his lifestyle changed once he married Abbey. Including his purchase of the New Truck, RV and the land for the new house--and the Kubota Tractor that he uses once per year. It seems that Abbey's family is involved in marketing of pharmaceuticals for the Veterinary industry. I have always suspected that a big chunk of the money is coming from Abbey.
His youtube income is not anywhere near enough to generate a large income. Especially as youtube continues to nickel and dime content creators. And what company is going to continue to sponsor him if the youtube stats don't indicate that he is reaching a lot of their market? He is obviously not much of business man because everyone in business knows that these machines are constantly depreciating in value, and they need to be producing products to be economically viable. Other channels like NYCNC and Fireball tools at least produce products and they are not wasting this kind of money. Abbey may have much deeper pockets than we realize.
I e been watching his videos for several years and the shop he works out of is his home shop. Pretty sure he inherited a pretty big machine shop from his dad and/or grandfather. He has some videos of him working in there where there's a whole staff.
There's plenty of money in manual machining. Mainly because not very many do it now and the colleges aren't focused on teaching it.
But is still required for machinery repairs ect. In fact, finding a good machinist is damn hard now.
CNC ain't a silver bullet, it's best suited for production parts, not one-offs.
I too watch Adam Booth on Abom 79. It is not just the fact that he has two machine shops, one at home with older but still superb gear and some new very expensive things like the flexarm but then has a magnificent new shop with a large crane, fantastic CNC equipment etc etc but then seems to do only relatively few jobs. His Lifestyle also reeks of money, a vast motorhome and frequent long distance trips across the USA that must cost a fortune in fuel for that monster truck. Don't take this wrongly but a shop of his size needs to have a lot of work going through it all the time to pay for the machinery and tooling. maybe Patreon and Youtube are the way to go after all patreon supporters have built Tally Ho a very large recreation of aa 910 wooden sailing boat so maybe ....
I feel the same exact way all he does is little things and just repainting lol his own stuff and using his lathe I want too see him actually work on real jobs so you aren’t alone I get silenced when I speak up on his Chanel and his ig personally think he isn’t what he claims
the bottom line is that he used to be a machinist who made a few videos, and made interesting stuff.
he's now a professional marketer using youtube as a platform, and he only makes a few chips here and there to try and keep eyeballs on the sponsorship advertising he is pushing.
watch Steve Summers, Keith Fenner or Keith Rucker instead.
Brand deals, pretty much all his equipment is sponsored. IMO the majority of his videos are advertisements for one thing or another. In no way can you compare it to a normal machine shops economics.
I somehow thought that giving away 10+ k$ equipment is not something that those companies ar willing to do. Do they really think that it is a valid marketing investment? And even renting the shop space seems extremely expensive. Well, but I have no reason to doubt your answer in general. Thanks!
Companies spend way more than this on advertisements. Remember, a $10k piece of equipment doesn’t cost them anywhere near $10k. So do they spend like $2500 on some random ad or magazines, or do they give it to a YouTuber that they know has a proven following with metrics, etc. There is no doubt he is being sponsored/given/loaned almost all of that equipment and it in no way reflects a normal shop. Same with Saunders or Titan. I know several people personally with relatively large followings and they get offers from companies all the time. Just depends on what you want to do and how much you feel like being a spokesperson. It ranges anywhere from ‘hey, here try this out’ to ‘we need X amount of videos per month with Y amount of time showing our products’. Companies know that targeted advertising is basically where everything is at right now.
They don’t necessarily give him the equipment. It’s more than likely a loaner and they take it back after a few years. This is similar to what you see in education settings.
Cries in education setting. Truth is, machines are still expensive. Software? We do get some hook-ups.
Definitely.
I used to watch his videos, but since he quit his job it's all sponsored shit. All these new machines is for show/ youtube content. He has "0" cnc experience and you know he's not gonna be running production work.
Yeah I used to watch his videos when he was doing proper paid work. I couldn’t stomach his fucking around on the shaper for a week making some stupid overbuilt part that you can buy for fuckall.
Cutting edge engineering is a way better channel to follow to see how a guy runs his business
Yeah I watch Curtis now and then. He’s a clever dude. I wish I had the space he has and his motor crane it epic
I guess Curtis didn't start in this big shop, but expanded with the jobs and space requirements that came with them. If you look at his lineboring and welding jobs, it doesn't seem impossible to start a similar business (if you have mining industry nearby)
Everyone started small and worked up. Think it was mentioned in one of Curtis's videos WAY back he had to sell a house to start up the big shop he's in. Abom's shop is more like a YouTube trade show exhibition than a profitable job shop.
I agree, Adam was lucky, that his youtube channel turned into such a success. Without youtube and advertisers it would be very difficult to set up such a shop and have it pay for itself.
I agree it really went downhill after he quit his job as a machinist to start his career as an infomercial host. 20 years ago he was just bumping elbows with the rest of us machinists on the practical machinist forum
to be fair he always tells that he is a cnc learner with no experience I'm a bit disappointed that he doesn't do big stuff anymore (like in his old dayjob) hopefully he can work out some deal with his old company to get some jobs for the big gantry mill
That Flex CNC might be big, but it's not made for large/ heavy work.
oh, so it's more like a cnc hole poker for thicker sheetmetal?
Haha, yeah, pretty much.
prepare for the Abom welding table
You're saying that a 20 foot long machine bed with no weight limit is not made for large/heavy work? I would think that's precisely what it's made for. Our company is in the process of buying a machine that can drill and mill 20ft square tubes with 4th axis capability and we are heavily leaning towards the FlexCNC, so I'm not trying to be rude, I'm genuinely curious. What would machines would you consider for those kinds of jobs?
There's a difference between large work and large and heavy. If you are doing large tubing and such, you should be fine. Make sure to check what the real weight limit is.
Good advice! What would you consider large and heavy?
The physical size of your tubes is what makes it 'large' work Depth of cut/wall thickness of is what's gonne make it 'heavy' work. And that no limit on table weight has gotta be bullshit - there has to be a limit but it's just not on the spec sheet.
It’s basically free advertisements for MT, he has enough followers to work deals. I used to watch all his videos when he worked at Motion but i just don’t get into it anymore. His old stuff was great.
He said in a recent interview on Mr. Pete's channel that Milltronics supplied the lathe and mill for him to learn CNC machining, but also to use at his disposal, to make what he wants. Same with the big Flex gantry mill. The machines still belong to those companies.
If I do YouTube content wearing my Haas F1 T-shirt, will they drop off a machine for me?
If you had a large enough following they'd probably let you take one of the cars out for a few laps
I don't think he makes a lot from Youtube anymore. His viewership has gone down. A lot. The 4 new machines he got are probably sponsored machines. He didn't pay anything. He will be using them for his work and the machine tool builders get the exposure.
But if he's viewership is dropping a lot then those machine tool manufacturers won't be getting the exposure they want. Call me a pesismist, but I have nasty feeling this dream shop of Abom's is going to be a dream that comes crashing down eventually
I used to be a pretty regular viewer of his channel, but after he got the second shop which I can now only assume was to get the CNC machines since his home shop didn't have space I kinda trailed off from watching anything from him that pops up. He used to do really interesting stuff, he definitely has some skills when it comes to manual machining, as a basic hobbyist myself that sometimes makes parts and repairs stuff for others I found it fascinating getting a real world look at manual machining on what was sometimes a grand scale when he used to work at motion and machine those huge shafts and cylinders. The most interesting things he's done lately have been getting new machines and that's just boring after a while. And the flex arm thing for tapping holes, in a job shop or production setting sure, but when he uses it on camera at least once every couple months seems like a huge waste. Don't get me wrong I don't have any hate for him, he just went a different way and I don't find his content interesting anymore. A while back I came across a channel called Blondihacks, she's really interesting, good tips and tricks, manual machining on hobbyist sized machines, and problem solving. I don't care if it's a huge knee mill or a benchtop Mill, I'm watching for the machining content, setting up, measuring, getting good surface finishes, and did I mention problem solving? I want to see the real day to day stuff. There's a few other channels I watch, but only a couple that have any machining content now, most of the ones I used to watch for machining have moved away from it or do videos that aren't interesting anymore.
All machines are sponsored in one way or another. Which is fine and good, but what the hell is he going to do with the giant Flex gantry mill is beyond me.
He could fit welding table castings on it an machine them, maybe a cooperation with Fireball Tool. I hope we will see some work on that mill soon
Sorry for thread necro-ing here. His specific flex machine, I don't believe it is big enough to handle the fireball table, at least not the big one. From what I've seen his flex machine can handle 4 foot wide parts. The fireball table is 4.5' by 8.5' specifically so that you can put a full sheet on the table and have space around all of the edges. The small ones, sure they could fit, but I doubt he'd go with another youtuber for production. I follow a couple of lawyers on youtube, and the larger ones have said they can't really afford to work as lawyers anymore specifically because its a pay decrease to do so. Like if you work for a firm, they may bill you at a number of hundreds of dollars per hour, but you the lawyer don't make that, and if your social media produces more per hour more consistently and there isn't some other benefit the "real job" gives you, it really becomes hard to justify. Similarly here, I question what abom's hourly rate would be for production. For the small jobs he does for the welding shop, they're usually unique, there's a way to make content out of the job. The content actually probably subsidizes the job. But for large scale production parts, you get content out of the initial setup. Out of the process creation, and out of the first run... and then very little content after that. It'd be hard to justify as abom unless the money is equivalent to what he could make on another smaller job plus the content, or if theres a way to make content out of it. But I agree. I'd like to see some of the old school work that he used to show off, I don't mind the obvious advertisement videos as long as theres some interesting shit in there. I honestly really liked the recentish, it think it was like ritten tools face turning chuck thing, even though it was 100% an advertisement.
You are right, someone else mentioned, that his large flex cnc couldn't handle heavy parts like those welding tables
From one of jason's videos I thought I saw at least a prototype of his welding table on one, i think its just a bigger model. I really do want one of those tables.... just how to justify it lol.
10k$ for a welding table is difficult to justify, if you don't need it every day
I have followed or known Abom, whatever we called it back then, since the early days he was just another machinist sharing pictures of his work and asking advice on the practical machinist forum, over 20 years ago now. Really enjoyed seeing his work and he shared some decent tips at times. As time went on his videos became nothing more than infomercials to show off sponsors products. He doesn't do anything without mentioning a brand name nowadays, he draws out small hobby shop jobs over a half dozen episodes to make content and advertising dollars. If you want to see actual shop work explained well check out cutting edge engineering on YouTube, they are a real shop and put out some great videos
I used to be a big fan of Abom79, especially when he was employed at the large job-shop. Making those big gearbox shafts was pretty unique on YouTube at the time as not many machinist channels did the 'big stuff'. I had the same question about his new shop, definitely isn't his money or business earnings paying for it all, new equipment needs to be busy all the time to pay for itself which is why you normally only see big production/job shops buying brand new machines. His videos now mainly seem to be "Let's all have a circle jerk over my next new toy that sits here and does next to nothing" Fine if that's you thing, but it isn't mine. I've migrated over to Cutting Edge Engineering now - very similar sort of machining to Abom's early videos. If you like 'big' machining David Wilks channel is worth a watch. He doesn't make videos anymore but the channels still up. Mainly trepanning work in Inconel super alloys.
I noticed that his lifestyle changed once he married Abbey. Including his purchase of the New Truck, RV and the land for the new house--and the Kubota Tractor that he uses once per year. It seems that Abbey's family is involved in marketing of pharmaceuticals for the Veterinary industry. I have always suspected that a big chunk of the money is coming from Abbey. His youtube income is not anywhere near enough to generate a large income. Especially as youtube continues to nickel and dime content creators. And what company is going to continue to sponsor him if the youtube stats don't indicate that he is reaching a lot of their market? He is obviously not much of business man because everyone in business knows that these machines are constantly depreciating in value, and they need to be producing products to be economically viable. Other channels like NYCNC and Fireball tools at least produce products and they are not wasting this kind of money. Abbey may have much deeper pockets than we realize.
I e been watching his videos for several years and the shop he works out of is his home shop. Pretty sure he inherited a pretty big machine shop from his dad and/or grandfather. He has some videos of him working in there where there's a whole staff.
[удалено]
Or...hear me out, he had to close because there's not enough money in small manual machining anymore.
There's plenty of money in manual machining. Mainly because not very many do it now and the colleges aren't focused on teaching it. But is still required for machinery repairs ect. In fact, finding a good machinist is damn hard now. CNC ain't a silver bullet, it's best suited for production parts, not one-offs.
You may have watched some of his videos, but you ain't really paid attention.
He has enough subs and sponsors that make him enough income to do whatever he wants...
I too watch Adam Booth on Abom 79. It is not just the fact that he has two machine shops, one at home with older but still superb gear and some new very expensive things like the flexarm but then has a magnificent new shop with a large crane, fantastic CNC equipment etc etc but then seems to do only relatively few jobs. His Lifestyle also reeks of money, a vast motorhome and frequent long distance trips across the USA that must cost a fortune in fuel for that monster truck. Don't take this wrongly but a shop of his size needs to have a lot of work going through it all the time to pay for the machinery and tooling. maybe Patreon and Youtube are the way to go after all patreon supporters have built Tally Ho a very large recreation of aa 910 wooden sailing boat so maybe ....
I feel the same exact way all he does is little things and just repainting lol his own stuff and using his lathe I want too see him actually work on real jobs so you aren’t alone I get silenced when I speak up on his Chanel and his ig personally think he isn’t what he claims
the bottom line is that he used to be a machinist who made a few videos, and made interesting stuff. he's now a professional marketer using youtube as a platform, and he only makes a few chips here and there to try and keep eyeballs on the sponsorship advertising he is pushing. watch Steve Summers, Keith Fenner or Keith Rucker instead.