A few comments;

Putting up a separate building tends to raise the profile of the whole
thing to the point where it hits the local building officials' radar.
All of a sudden they take a LOT of interest in your activities, may tell
you that you can't do "light manufacturing" in a residential area or
similar.

Pricing your product is weird. As long as you are doing it as a hobby,
just want to cover the costs of your equipment, make a few bucks for
beer you get one set of costs/prices. As soon as you want to make real
money, pay yourself some semblance of an honest wage, actually pay down
the cost of your equipment, you get another set of costs/prices. The
latter is usually at least double the hobbyist version.

Then there is the risk part. In our lawyer happy society, it's really a
good idea to carefully review what kinds of things you make. Liability
insurance starts looking like a good investment. The company I used to
work for flatly refused to do any aircraft related work. Too much
liability. (Of course the fact that there wasn't much money in it
compared to our mainstream business had a lot to do with making us not
do what we said we were not going to do!)

I'd suggest that you figure out if your 'business model' actually works
before going too far. Pick one of your pet projects, make the parts in
the current shop, set up an e-bay store, see what happens for a few
months (or even a year). Keep accurate records of your out of pocket
costs and your time. Things like your CNC program development time, your
setup time to get a fixture mounted and aligned in the mill, the actual
run time, the time spent boxing stuff and running off to the post
office/UPS store, etc etc. See what the market will bear for pricing.

All that said, I know a fellow who lives in the country on a 20 acre
hobby farm. Has a mail order ONLY business making high end race ATV
parts. Has 2000 square foot office/warehouse/shop/garage to work out
of. Makes a comfortable living while employing his son part time as a
welder and his wife half time as the accountant/shipping clerk. Sounds
like a decent life style to me!!! Go for it. Just make sure you know
what you are doing before you commit a lot of time or money.

RogerN wrote:
Due to underemployment I like to do challenging hobby projects at home
mostly because I enjoy it, but it's nice to make something that's useful
too. I like automating equipment, cnc, and that type of work. Trying to
think what I'd like to be doing, I thought I'd like to design, build, and
repair automated equipment and automate manual machines.

I've been thinking about putting up a small building for my home shop and
start my own mini (low dollar home shop style) manufacturing business. When
I come up with a project idea, such as RC varmint control, I could program
the CNC machines to make the special parts needed and sell parts on the
internet for others interested in similar projects. That project would need
a camera to scope adapter, night vision infrared illumination, and a turret
type mechanism to point at the target. When I make parts for myself, I
could make a few spares and offer to sell them over the internet. If any of
the parts became hot sellers, I could set up to produce more.

The work would all be done on the side as a hobby and if I didn't make a
dime I wouldn't loose much since I'd be using the equipment I already have.
The idea is that once I do the setup and programming, the CNC machine can
make additional parts in a fraction of the time it takes to setup and make
on manual equipment. So even though any HSM'ers could easily make a camera
to scope adapter, they may not want to mess with it if they can buy one for
$5 that I could make on my CNC lathe in 5 minutes.

Another incentive for doing this is that my son in now 10 years old and he'd
be able to start running machines in a few years. He's interested in
mechanics and electronics and I think it would be good experience for him.
Best case, things could take off and my son could have his own business,
worst case he'd have experience with manual and CNC machines, operating,
programming, repairing, etc.

I know there are a lot of experienced business folk on here and thought
there might be some helpful advise and or direction..

Thanks!

RogerN

Let the Record show that RoyJ on or about
Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:48:46 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in
rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
A few comments;

Putting up a separate building tends to raise the profile of the whole
thing to the point where it hits the local building officials' radar.
All of a sudden they take a LOT of interest in your activities, may tell
you that you can't do "light manufacturing" in a residential area or
similar.

Pricing your product is weird. As long as you are doing it as a hobby,
just want to cover the costs of your equipment, make a few bucks for
beer you get one set of costs/prices. As soon as you want to make real
money, pay yourself some semblance of an honest wage, actually pay down
the cost of your equipment, you get another set of costs/prices. The
latter is usually at least double the hobbyist version.

It goes from being a hobby, to "work". I used to make little
wooden boxes. People would say "why don't you sell them." For grins
and giggles, I tracked my time. Five hours at minimum wage, no charge
for supplies - forty bucks for a box about 4" square, and two inches
high. Pretty, but ... would you pay $40 for that? Of course, as a
hobbyist, I could use all hand tools, this was "occupational therapy"
as much as anything. But I couldn't "produce".

It has been observed that the best cabinet work is done by
hobbyists. They have the time to select materials, be painstaking
when setting up, and take the time to produce a beautiful finish. They
can do all those things, because their day job pays the overhead.
The Professional, OTOH, has that overhead to meet. "Only
customers pay wages", and "Until product goes out the door, checks
don't come in."
OTGH, I remember a story of "The Man Who Never Worked." The guy
carved and painted wooden duck decoys. It never was "work", as the
children who often helped out learned, but a fun thing to do. The
cliche is to find something you love, do it and the money will follow.

So keep that in mind, and have fun.


pyotr

-
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

"RoyJ" wrote in message
m...
A few comments;

Putting up a separate building tends to raise the profile of the whole
thing to the point where it hits the local building officials' radar. All
of a sudden they take a LOT of interest in your activities, may tell you
that you can't do "light manufacturing" in a residential area or similar.

I didn't go into all the detail in the original post but I plan to put up a
little pole building for my home machine workshop anyway. The house I used
to live in has a 30 X 50 building and that is my home machine shop, it's
about 5 miles away from my current house. Currently I live out of town and
have around 4-1/2 acres with no outbuildings except a portable storage
building.

Pricing your product is weird. As long as you are doing it as a hobby,
just want to cover the costs of your equipment, make a few bucks for beer
you get one set of costs/prices. As soon as you want to make real money,
pay yourself some semblance of an honest wage, actually pay down the cost
of your equipment, you get another set of costs/prices. The latter is
usually at least double the hobbyist version.

Then there is the risk part. In our lawyer happy society, it's really a
good idea to carefully review what kinds of things you make. Liability
insurance starts looking like a good investment. The company I used to
work for flatly refused to do any aircraft related work. Too much
liability. (Of course the fact that there wasn't much money in it compared
to our mainstream business had a lot to do with making us not do what we
said we were not going to do!)

I'd suggest that you figure out if your 'business model' actually works
before going too far. Pick one of your pet projects, make the parts in the
current shop, set up an e-bay store, see what happens for a few months (or
even a year). Keep accurate records of your out of pocket costs and your
time. Things like your CNC program development time, your setup time to
get a fixture mounted and aligned in the mill, the actual run time, the
time spent boxing stuff and running off to the post office/UPS store, etc
etc. See what the market will bear for pricing.

All that said, I know a fellow who lives in the country on a 20 acre hobby
farm. Has a mail order ONLY business making high end race ATV parts. Has
2000 square foot office/warehouse/shop/garage to work out of. Makes a
comfortable living while employing his son part time as a welder and his
wife half time as the accountant/shipping clerk. Sounds like a decent life
style to me!!! Go for it. Just make sure you know what you are doing
before you commit a lot of time or money.


Sounds like good advice, I don't plan to quit my day job :-) I plan to have
a building for my home shop, it would be nice if it could be used for paying
for the building, but I won't depend on it. I guess if I go at it with the
primary goal of having fun, learning, and teaching my son, it will be
worthwhile even if I don't make any money at it. On the other hand we might
come up with some specialty parts that might make a decent second income.

RogerN

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:38:20 -0700, the infamous Frank Warner
scrawled the following:

In article , pyotr
filipivich wrote:

Let the Record show that RoyJ on or about
Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:48:46 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in
rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
A few comments;

Putting up a separate building tends to raise the profile of the whole
thing to the point where it hits the local building officials' radar.
All of a sudden they take a LOT of interest in your activities, may tell
you that you can't do "light manufacturing" in a residential area or
similar.

Pricing your product is weird. As long as you are doing it as a hobby,
just want to cover the costs of your equipment, make a few bucks for
beer you get one set of costs/prices. As soon as you want to make real
money, pay yourself some semblance of an honest wage, actually pay down
the cost of your equipment, you get another set of costs/prices. The
latter is usually at least double the hobbyist version.

It goes from being a hobby, to "work". I used to make little
wooden boxes. People would say "why don't you sell them." For grins
and giggles, I tracked my time. Five hours at minimum wage, no charge
for supplies - forty bucks for a box about 4" square, and two inches
high. Pretty, but ... would you pay $40 for that? Of course, as a
hobbyist, I could use all hand tools, this was "occupational therapy"
as much as anything. But I couldn't "produce".

It has been observed that the best cabinet work is done by
hobbyists. They have the time to select materials, be painstaking
when setting up, and take the time to produce a beautiful finish. They
can do all those things, because their day job pays the overhead.
The Professional, OTOH, has that overhead to meet. "Only
customers pay wages", and "Until product goes out the door, checks
don't come in."
OTGH, I remember a story of "The Man Who Never Worked." The guy
carved and painted wooden duck decoys. It never was "work", as the
children who often helped out learned, but a fun thing to do. The
cliche is to find something you love, do it and the money will follow.

So keep that in mind, and have fun.

What I'm looking for is something like the "pet rock" craze of a few
years ago, or the Beany Baby craze a little later. Something that costs
a nickel to build but that people will spend $19.95 for. Over and over.
Millions of times.

Ooh, me, too! My Exotic Tees, Schnazzy Tees, NoteSHADES, and ToolyRoo
products haven't made my million yet, but have kept me in a very
unsteady and quite low stream of income for a decade and a half now.
I'd like to get that big hit once, too.


My high school civics teacher came up with something like that. He sold
bags of sand at county fairs and craft shows. That's right. Bags of
sand. Linen sacks filled with plain old beach sand. Big ones. Little
ones. Medium ones. Nothing special about them at all. And his pricing
was totally helter skelter. A 2" bag of sand could sell for $1 while
its neighbor, same size, would have a $50 tag on it. People snapped 'em
up like you wouldn't believe, paying any price for them. He only did
this for a couple of summers because it was too much hassle traveling
to all the craft fairs setting up and tearing down and dealing with
"disgruntled customers."

Disgruntled customers? Um, things like "My bean bag doesn't DO
anything!" and "My bean bag doesn't talk any more!"?

--
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in
nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding
danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.
-- Helen Keller