Tour of a mom and pop machine shop left me questioning my own setup

Drove out to a little place outside Reno last Saturday to pick up some scrap aluminum, and the owner let me walk the floor. He had a 20 year old Haas that was running a part with a tool offset set by feel, literally tapped the tool until it scratched the vise and called it good. The wild part was his tolerance was still within half a thou, and he has no probe or tool setter at all. Meanwhile I spent $400 on a tool pre-setter and still scrap a part every couple of months from a bad offset. Made me wonder if the fancy gear is really carrying me or if I'm just lazy about the basics. Anyone else run a machine that's basically a dinosaur and trust it more than your newer one?

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