"stryped" wrote in message
...
Watched Orange County Choppers last night. I know, it is reality tv
and you never know the whole story. I know the dad started making
ornamental iron in his garage or something.

Is there anythign someone can do in his own shop part time starting
out that would be some income? Even if you had to buy some equipment?
I always hear people doing this starting out then turnign it into a
business.

Just curious your opinion.

I personally think that if OCC was a stand alone motorcycle shop, they would
have a tough time. Some of the machinery they have is way out of the reach
of someone doing that type work, and a lot of that is provided by the
manufacturers and advertisers. If you've ever run a shop, you recognize the
gobs of down time, waiting on 3rd parties, and just screw ups that have to
be done over.

I personally see Paulie and Numb Nut Son doing work and just tacking things
together with blobs of MIG weld, and not even a hood. Then I see the tacked
article handed off to a real TIG welder who does all the magic. If some of
the stuff Paulie and Numb Nut Son were to go to the painter, it would look
like crap. There's a lot of hours to get stuff geometrically straight so
that part A fits through part B and C in a straight line. They make it look
like zip, zap, done.

There is a ton of side work that is not shown that takes place to get the
bike out the door, and those costs are never addressed.

Do the math on a bike shop, and figure the man hours it it takes to do one
of those bikes. I see the money in the marketing and T shirts and hats and
endorsements, and the bikes as just a fufu thing and a reason for a show.

This would not happen in a real shop. Math and reality would take over.

Look at that Jessie James or whatever the heck his name was. He had a cute
hottie wife that was making big bux, and he couldn't even take care of that.
Building high speed garbage trucks. Doing projects even a demented
metalworker wouldn't take on. Where's the market on those? Who's going to
buy them except a Hollywood reality show? I personally have no interest
(yawn) in those "buildoff" competitions where the result is something that
is useless and couldn't even be licensed. So what if it has 2 million
horsepower and goes almost as fast as the speed of light.

Back to reality.

Side jobs. Market niche in a market where people have disposable income.
Buy/resell, as Iggy mentioned. Repair in a market where people are trying
to keep stuff running rather than replace.

Make serious money? No. Not unless you get lucky, or some cable channel
picks you up. You seriously think those American Pickers are getting rich?
On some days, they barely make expenses.

Steve

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