What machine business have you operated?

[Jake2465]

I am curious to see what folks have done / are doing for supplemental or full income with their equipment and skills . The area I live in (Dayton Ohio) has around 140,000 residents and somewhere close to 60 machine shops listed in the phone book. That's just the phone book, so I imagine that there are a fair bit more than 60 shops actually conducting business in some form or another.
I have dabbled with the idea of starting a hobby business, but I think I would rather make it product based instead of service based. I am under the impression that most people outside the machine tool world don't have an understanding of why custom made parts should cost more than 50 bucks to produce. Perhaps that's not entirely accurate.
So, I am currently settled with the idea that if I decide to start a hobby business, then I should do a product and try for e commerce so I am not trying to compete with every other shop in the city.

I would be interested to hear what members have done in the past and decisions that brought them to run a business the way they have .

 

[Firestopper]

I've been providing custom metal fabrication, welding services since 1997 and added machining in 2001, I have also maintained a full-time career in public safety. That said, many of my customers are return customers and often will refer new customers. I also manufacture/sell a patented product for the past 15+ years. I only advertise my patented product, all else is word of mouth.


Reasons;
I was frustrated often on the long wait times, failed timelines and lack of quality many machine shops in Tucson offered. As for fabrication work, I got tired of making chump change working for someone else with no control of my own destiny. As far as the public safety career, its always in demand and rewarding, the bonus, it comes with a pension.
Last word of advise, invest in your retirement, no one will take better care of you than YOU.

These days I only take on work that puts a smile on my face in the end.
If one quits then it on them....simple.
Perseverance always prevails!

Turn and burn,
Paco

 

[JimDawson]

Offering general machine shop services is a tough way to try to make money, especially just starting out. Most people that I know started out by providing a niche service to a local manufacturer and then branched out as market conditions allowed. Others started out with a product and the machine shop was there to facilitate the manufacture of that product.

I have gone both ways over the last 50 years. Up until recently my machines were there to facilitate building custom automated machines for a wide range of customers and doing some tool & die and general repair work for others, and in the last few years primarily to just justify the shop's existence and support my tool habit . When my son retired from his day job, we kind of switched over to a product based operation and he purchased the Haas mill and Hardinge CNC lathe that were required for the operation. We are also making parts for a couple other manufactures and will probably expand that in the future depending on the amount of open machine time we have.

 

[Jake2465]

Interesting observations.

For the immediate future, I plan to continue college and finish out with an aerospace engineers degree. That is my reaction to providing a way to make a stable living with room for pension and so on.

I don't want to forget about my machines though as I do like to make things. Naturally, the idea of making stuff on the side and getting some extra cash for play money or vacations sounds like a fun thing to do.

I believe I have a fear of living a stagnant life with the degree I am getting. It may pay good enough to base a life off of, but the thought of permanence in a cubicle sounds painful . And worse yet, if I ask some of those guys what they do for fun, I am concerned may tell me that they find enjoyment off of playing board games or taking pictures of squirrels and starlings at the local park or something like that.

 

[benmychree]

I started my shop in 1973, and ran it until I sold the business about 7 years ago; I had two other shops in town, and did mostly maintainance work and making parts for bottling machines; rent was cheap, and that paid the bills; occasionally a customer would bring in something that was no longer made or in need of improvement; sometimes I'd make more of the item and have it on hand for sale as a product, as time passed more of these items were invented and made in quantity and we made a simple home grown catalog and mailed them out to all the local wineries. By far, the products made much more profit than doing the one off work. I never patented anything, just sold the products for a reasonable amount of money so that others were not tempted to rip them off, and we wholesaled the products to other sellers. The shop is still doing business and seemingly thriving, having developed more new products for the wine industry. I did this with all conventional machines, but the new owner had a CNC lathe and mill, which are used on the old and new products.

 

[ChrisAttebery]

Over the last 20 years I have manufactured parts for RC boats, cars and planes and high power rocketry. Cars was a pretty large market and I sold to people in about 70 countries. I got out or radio control about 5 years ago and got back into high power rocketry. I have a small product line and it pays for my own hobbies and tool purchases. Two years ago a friend saw some of the work I was doing for me personal projects and asked if I'd like to design and prototype products for his company. That has worked out well and he keeps me busy.

 

[Jake2465]

Over the last 20 years I have manufactured parts for RC boats, cars and planes and high power rocketry. Cars was a pretty large market and I sold to people in about 70 countries. I got out or radio control about 5 years ago and got back into high power rocketry. I have a small product line and it pays for my own hobbies and tool purchases. Two years ago a friend saw some of the work I was doing for me personal projects and asked if I'd like to design and prototype products for his company. That has worked out well and he keeps me busy.

Sounds like it has been a fun time for you . When I was a little younger, I used to fly planes and helicopters around on a weekly basis. Doing something just for the enjoyment is great.

 

[Jake2465]

I started my shop in 1973, and ran it until I sold the business about 7 years ago; I had two other shops in town, and did mostly maintainance work and making parts for bottling machines; rent was cheap, and that paid the bills; occasionally a customer would bring in something that was no longer made or in need of improvement; sometimes I'd make more of the item and have it on hand for sale as a product, as time passed more of these items were invented and made in quantity and we made a simple home grown catalog and mailed them out to all the local wineries. By far, the products made much more profit than doing the one off work. I never patented anything, just sold the products for a reasonable amount of money so that others were not tempted to rip them off, and we wholesaled the products to other sellers. The shop is still doing business and seemingly thriving, having developed more new products for the wine industry. I did this with all conventional machines, but the new owner had a CNC lathe and mill, which are used on the old and new products.

That is an interesting business to be in. I take it that the machines that are used in bottling processes tend to be high maintenance from all the production?

 

[Jake2465]

Offering general machine shop services is a tough way to try to make money, especially just starting out. Most people that I know started out by providing a niche service to a local manufacturer and then branched out as market conditions allowed. Others started out with a product and the machine shop was there to facilitate the manufacture of that product.

One thing I believe is nice with producing your own product is that you are the one that can set your tolerances which is a big plus. Where I live, opening up a tiny general machine shop and hoping for profit would probably give chances in the slim to none range, and slim left the building.

Interestingly enough, most of the shops I have seen are small operations which leads me to believe that they are either all making excellent use of the minimal square footage of their buildings, or they are not getting enough work to expand.

 

[[X]Outlaw]

I got into machining as a direct result of model aviation. There was a motor mount I designed that converted a particular model heli from gasoline powered to electric. None of the local machine shops could have manufactured it for me so I started researching how to do it myself. I decided to take the plunge and got a Taig CNC mill. It took me a few months to get up to speed on everything but eventually got my mount made.

That first part started my little side business about 7 years ago. I made quite a bit of those mounts for guys all over the world. Then a buddy of mine who also flies models threw me a job that other shops turned down, a motor coupler for an operating theater bed. Slowly by word of mouth I was getting request to make parts for all kinds of stuff.

I do pick and choose the jobs I take, I tend to turn down the more boring stuff and focus more on those that give me a challenge.

Chevy