Complaint Review: Gentec Manufacturing

As a horologist (watch and clock maker) I can see a little on both sides on the fence. I know what a pain in the hind end it is to wait a long time with a customer on my tail, and then get something that differs from what I ordered.

On the other hand I would NEVER go into a machine shop and ask them to make ANYTHING without a good set of blueprints or at the very least a layout with accurate measurements! A good machinist is worth their weight in gold, and if they have any skill at all they are usually backed up enough without having to chase down specs on some project or other!

When I find myself unable to make parts or tooling (I know the limitations of my skill and shop) I make a detailed set of drawings of the original if I have it, or map one out if I don't have it. If I find myself unable to draw it I take it with me to the machine shop and they tell me weather or not they want to mess with it. Believe it or not, folks, most machinists will gladly tell you if they can't do something, because they have more than they can do to keep up on what they CAN do!

To my understanding, the owner has related that the work was boon docked at a specialty polishing concern-an industry that can be highly specialized in its own right. I spent nearly a year learning to perfect the various polishing operations indigenous to the clock and watch industry, and that was after three years' apprenticeship! I assure you, the readers, that what I learnt in that year is a drip in the bucket compared to what some people must learn for their trade! A good fit and finish man (and lady) can do the imposable with the inadequate and they know it. They might take three months and more to decide how to do some difficult projects. Get over it! That's what we pay them for!

As to why he didn't give you the contact info for them I can't say. Maybe the polishing house is a wholesale-only firm and won't deal with the retail trade (happens more than you think), maybe the work was under the name of the machine shop that contracted it and not your name (a common practice) so it would have done no good as it was. I guess I would have lit a fire under them a little sooner if I were the owner, or given you the number if it would have done any good and let you get a move on them.

I 'm sorry Susanne, but I don't see your real gripe here, if the owner is telling the truth. Making blueprints or working drawings from a rough idea or a semi-finished prototype isn't the job of a machinist as a rule, and it sounds like they went out of the way to accommodate you on that issue. I guess if I had issue with a machinist over something they already did I would sit it down and work it over with them. Barring any results thus wise I would settle up and move on to better pastures. If you stiffed me with a barred check I would have drawn you to small claims court, too.

Note to any of the nay saying crowd: I don't know this particular machinist from a pile of silage. I am not shilling for anybody. He is someplace in California and I am 12 miles south of Lake Okoboji, in Iowa. It just galls me to see some craftsman get trash mouthed over something that in my mind is spurious at best. Skilled tradesmen and women are the least appreciated of all working Americans, and I hate to see the same old myths perpetuate. I remain

At your Service
Horologist
James,

Susanne has no idea what goes into engineering or machining of her product. This is a long explanation, but I wanted to post the whole story and let the reader/consumer make their own decision about the validity of the claim.

Susanne sent over her "engineer" with a product and said "Please make me 10 of these." She had NO engineering drawings (not even sketches), NO specifications, and NO idea how to make the product. I was upfront and told her that a project like this would be time consuming because of their lack of information and their inexperience in manufacturing. I also mentioned that without adequate information I could only do my best to recreate the product as requested. At no time did I misrepresent our capabilities or tell here something that was not true.

Within about two months we had created professional engineering drawings which were APPROVED by Susanne and her "engineer" Dennis. We then began making the parts to these specs and they were very satisfied with the first set of parts (completed 3 months after our first meeting).

After their testing, Susanne and Dennis realized that the specs that they approved were not good enough to achieve the result they were looking for. They returned the parts to us and asked that we rework them to new specifications. Since this work was in addition to the initial specs that they had approved we had to charge them an additional fee for the rework.

Unfortunately, the polishing company who was subcontracted to do the rework took possesion of the parts and were not able to complete the job for about 2 months. I was in frequent contact with Susanne and continued to get approval for the delays. After the 2 months went by I suggested that they take the parts to another polishing shop to get the rework done because my subcontractor had incurred too many delays. They agreed and took back the parts within 3 days. AT NO TIME DID I HOLD PARTS FROM THEIR POSSESSION. I also did not charge them ANY fee for the attempted rework because it was not completed as requested.

I had agreed to give them time to complete the payment for the engineering drawings that were initially approved. Once I returned the parts to them I requested to be paid for my work. Susanne AGREED and delivered a check on the day they picked up the parts. 1 week later I was informed by my bank that a STOP PAYMENT was put on her check the day after she delivered it to me. This was a blatant attempt to not pay for the initial work that she had contracted me to complete and that I had completed with her approval. This is the reason I sued her.

In small claims court the judge AGREED with me and we were awarded a judgement. He agreed that the stop payment of the check was an attempt to avoid payment for work that was completed as requested. I attempted to recover the judgement with no success so I soon gave up out of sympathy for her situation. Learning of this posting has caused me to think otherwise.

Susanne Montemayor seems to me to suffer from some kind of memory loss. She constantly forgot things that she told me and approvals that she made. Only once I confronted her about the stop payment did she give any sign of being dissatisfied with our work. It's unfortunate that our business relationship came to this.

For the record, we are a machine shop that takes professional engineering drawings and makes part to those specifications. We are not specialists in creating the specifications ourselves. We can create engineering drawings to a customers specs, but our work is always based off of the information given to us by the customer. We have several customers that are continually happy with our work and it shows in our increased customer base and increased sales.

President
Gentec Manufacturing

Susanne has no idea what goes into engineering or machining of her product. This is a long explanation, but I wanted to post the whole story and let the reader/consumer make their own decision about the validity of the claim.

Susanne sent over her "engineer" with a product and said "Please make me 10 of these." She had NO engineering drawings (not even sketches), NO specifications, and NO idea how to make the product. I was upfront and told her that a project like this would be time consuming because of their lack of information and their inexperience in manufacturing. I also mentioned that without adequate information I could only do my best to recreate the product as requested. At no time did I misrepresent our capabilities or tell here something that was not true.

Within about two months we had created professional engineering drawings which were APPROVED by Susanne and her "engineer" Dennis. We then began making the parts to these specs and they were very satisfied with the first set of parts (completed 3 months after our first meeting).

After their testing, Susanne and Dennis realized that the specs that they approved were not good enough to achieve the result they were looking for. They returned the parts to us and asked that we rework them to new specifications. Since this work was in addition to the initial specs that they had approved we had to charge them an additional fee for the rework.

Unfortunately, the polishing company who was subcontracted to do the rework took possesion of the parts and were not able to complete the job for about 2 months. I was in frequent contact with Susanne and continued to get approval for the delays. After the 2 months went by I suggested that they take the parts to another polishing shop to get the rework done because my subcontractor had incurred too many delays. They agreed and took back the parts within 3 days. AT NO TIME DID I HOLD PARTS FROM THEIR POSSESSION. I also did not charge them ANY fee for the attempted rework because it was not completed as requested.

I had agreed to give them time to complete the payment for the engineering drawings that were initially approved. Once I returned the parts to them I requested to be paid for my work. Susanne AGREED and delivered a check on the day they picked up the parts. 1 week later I was informed by my bank that a STOP PAYMENT was put on her check the day after she delivered it to me. This was a blatant attempt to not pay for the initial work that she had contracted me to complete and that I had completed with her approval. This is the reason I sued her.

In small claims court the judge AGREED with me and we were awarded a judgement. He agreed that the stop payment of the check was an attempt to avoid payment for work that was completed as requested. I attempted to recover the judgement with no success so I soon gave up out of sympathy for her situation. Learning of this posting has caused me to think otherwise.

Susanne Montemayor seems to me to suffer from some kind of memory loss. She constantly forgot things that she told me and approvals that she made. Only once I confronted her about the stop payment did she give any sign of being dissatisfied with our work. It's unfortunate that our business relationship came to this.

For the record, we are a machine shop that takes professional engineering drawings and makes part to those specifications. We are not specialists in creating the specifications ourselves. We can create engineering drawings to a customers specs, but our work is always based off of the information given to us by the customer. We have several customers that are continually happy with our work and it shows in our increased customer base and increased sales.

President
Gentec Manufacturing

Susanne has no idea what goes into engineering or machining of her product. This is a long explanation, but I wanted to post the whole story and let the reader/consumer make their own decision about the validity of the claim.

Susanne sent over her "engineer" with a product and said "Please make me 10 of these." She had NO engineering drawings (not even sketches), NO specifications, and NO idea how to make the product. I was upfront and told her that a project like this would be time consuming because of their lack of information and their inexperience in manufacturing. I also mentioned that without adequate information I could only do my best to recreate the product as requested. At no time did I misrepresent our capabilities or tell here something that was not true.

Within about two months we had created professional engineering drawings which were APPROVED by Susanne and her "engineer" Dennis. We then began making the parts to these specs and they were very satisfied with the first set of parts (completed 3 months after our first meeting).

After their testing, Susanne and Dennis realized that the specs that they approved were not good enough to achieve the result they were looking for. They returned the parts to us and asked that we rework them to new specifications. Since this work was in addition to the initial specs that they had approved we had to charge them an additional fee for the rework.

Unfortunately, the polishing company who was subcontracted to do the rework took possesion of the parts and were not able to complete the job for about 2 months. I was in frequent contact with Susanne and continued to get approval for the delays. After the 2 months went by I suggested that they take the parts to another polishing shop to get the rework done because my subcontractor had incurred too many delays. They agreed and took back the parts within 3 days. AT NO TIME DID I HOLD PARTS FROM THEIR POSSESSION. I also did not charge them ANY fee for the attempted rework because it was not completed as requested.

I had agreed to give them time to complete the payment for the engineering drawings that were initially approved. Once I returned the parts to them I requested to be paid for my work. Susanne AGREED and delivered a check on the day they picked up the parts. 1 week later I was informed by my bank that a STOP PAYMENT was put on her check the day after she delivered it to me. This was a blatant attempt to not pay for the initial work that she had contracted me to complete and that I had completed with her approval. This is the reason I sued her.

In small claims court the judge AGREED with me and we were awarded a judgement. He agreed that the stop payment of the check was an attempt to avoid payment for work that was completed as requested. I attempted to recover the judgement with no success so I soon gave up out of sympathy for her situation. Learning of this posting has caused me to think otherwise.

Susanne Montemayor seems to me to suffer from some kind of memory loss. She constantly forgot things that she told me and approvals that she made. Only once I confronted her about the stop payment did she give any sign of being dissatisfied with our work. It's unfortunate that our business relationship came to this.

For the record, we are a machine shop that takes professional engineering drawings and makes part to those specifications. We are not specialists in creating the specifications ourselves. We can create engineering drawings to a customers specs, but our work is always based off of the information given to us by the customer. We have several customers that are continually happy with our work and it shows in our increased customer base and increased sales.

President
Gentec Manufacturing

Susanne has no idea what goes into engineering or machining of her product. This is a long explanation, but I wanted to post the whole story and let the reader/consumer make their own decision about the validity of the claim.

Susanne sent over her "engineer" with a product and said "Please make me 10 of these." She had NO engineering drawings (not even sketches), NO specifications, and NO idea how to make the product. I was upfront and told her that a project like this would be time consuming because of their lack of information and their inexperience in manufacturing. I also mentioned that without adequate information I could only do my best to recreate the product as requested. At no time did I misrepresent our capabilities or tell here something that was not true.

Within about two months we had created professional engineering drawings which were APPROVED by Susanne and her "engineer" Dennis. We then began making the parts to these specs and they were very satisfied with the first set of parts (completed 3 months after our first meeting).

After their testing, Susanne and Dennis realized that the specs that they approved were not good enough to achieve the result they were looking for. They returned the parts to us and asked that we rework them to new specifications. Since this work was in addition to the initial specs that they had approved we had to charge them an additional fee for the rework.

Unfortunately, the polishing company who was subcontracted to do the rework took possesion of the parts and were not able to complete the job for about 2 months. I was in frequent contact with Susanne and continued to get approval for the delays. After the 2 months went by I suggested that they take the parts to another polishing shop to get the rework done because my subcontractor had incurred too many delays. They agreed and took back the parts within 3 days. AT NO TIME DID I HOLD PARTS FROM THEIR POSSESSION. I also did not charge them ANY fee for the attempted rework because it was not completed as requested.

I had agreed to give them time to complete the payment for the engineering drawings that were initially approved. Once I returned the parts to them I requested to be paid for my work. Susanne AGREED and delivered a check on the day they picked up the parts. 1 week later I was informed by my bank that a STOP PAYMENT was put on her check the day after she delivered it to me. This was a blatant attempt to not pay for the initial work that she had contracted me to complete and that I had completed with her approval. This is the reason I sued her.

In small claims court the judge AGREED with me and we were awarded a judgement. He agreed that the stop payment of the check was an attempt to avoid payment for work that was completed as requested. I attempted to recover the judgement with no success so I soon gave up out of sympathy for her situation. Learning of this posting has caused me to think otherwise.

Susanne Montemayor seems to me to suffer from some kind of memory loss. She constantly forgot things that she told me and approvals that she made. Only once I confronted her about the stop payment did she give any sign of being dissatisfied with our work. It's unfortunate that our business relationship came to this.

For the record, we are a machine shop that takes professional engineering drawings and makes part to those specifications. We are not specialists in creating the specifications ourselves. We can create engineering drawings to a customers specs, but our work is always based off of the information given to us by the customer. We have several customers that are continually happy with our work and it shows in our increased customer base and increased sales.

President
Gentec Manufacturing