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Alternatives to MCB Machine Shop
The MCB machine shop closed down several years ago. A number of alternatives can be found on this page. (This page is only rarely updated, so rates may have changed.)
  1. Repairs
    1. Alert Scientific, Boston, 800-872-2028, www.alertscientific.com
      Headquartered in Connecticut, Alert has 7 Boston area technicians and an area supervisor.  Alert provides repair service as well as PM and Calibration service for most common laboratory equipment and instrumentation.  Alert has worked in partnership with HMS for many years at the Longwood Machine Shop.  There they provide equipment evaluation and repair once a week in partnership with Jim Horn at his shop.  Alert has a contract rate with Harvard of $85/hr, with a $45 fuel surcharge and ½-1 hr travel charge. (Appendix A).
    2. Caley & Whitmore Corp., www.caleywhitmore.com
      Located in Somerville and in business for 42 years, Caley&Whitmore provides repair services for most common laboratory equipment and instrumentation.  Their repair rate is $120/hr, portal to portal.  They will work on-site, or take equipment back to their shop for the repairs.

  2. Custom Acrylics/Metal Shops
    1. SEAS Machine Shop, 40 Oxford St., Louis Defeo, Manager, 5-4060, ldefeo@deas.harvard.edu
      Work with all plastics, metals and some ceramics; generally no glass. Shop rate for this year is 67.00/hr. for regular priority and 77.00/hr. for high priority. Turnaround time is approximately a week, however, depending on work load can be up to 2-3 weeks.
    2. MIT Central Machine Shop,http://web.mit.edu/cmshop/ Peter Morley, Manager (pmorley@mit.edu).
      Custom work a specialty.  The MIT shop is a large cost recovery operation.  They employ a staff of 11 people; 6 machinists, 1 welder/machinist, 1 clerk, 1 PT helper, an expediter that does design and drawings and the shop supervisor. They maintain a stock room supplying materials and hardware to customers and doing some custom cutting etc.  They also loan out tools where required.  They outsource most custom acrylics to Altec Plastics (listed below).  Hourly rate is $60/hr as of July 2006 (Appendix B).
    3. Altec Plastics, South Boston, 617-269-1400, web site under construction.
      Altec is used by both Longwood shop and MIT shop for out-sourcing some custom acrylics.  The shop is run by Ed Largey, elargey@altecplastics.com.  He provides quotes by the job from sketches, 2-4 wk turnaround time on custom products.
    4. TEKscientific/P&K Custom Acrylics, Inc., www.tekscientific.com
      Located in Lawrence, MA, and in business since 1994, TEK provides electrophoresis, shields, lab accessories, and radiation safety products.  They work quite a bit manufacturing custom acrylics from drawings and sketches working with Polypropylene, polyethylene, G-10, Mylar and other plastics.  They also do metal welding and fabrication, machining, line bending and CNC routing.  Paul Wenzel (paul.tekscientific@gmail.com) 25 years experience, is available to assist with design, each job is quoted by time and material, typical turnaround time is 7-10 days.
    5. Physics Machine Shop, 17A Oxford St., Stan Cotreau, Manager. www.physics.harvared.edu/services/machineshop.
      The Physics/DEAS shop is set up as a teaching shop.  They work mostly in metals and can take small jobs at $64/hr. (Appendix C). 
    6. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Model Shop, 60 Garden St., http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/ms/
      The CFA shop works with stainless steels, aluminum, other metals, and some acrylics, milling, turning and grinding mostly to fabricate optical equipment for telescopes.  Contact is lknowles@cfa.harvard.edu