When to turn a hobby into a side job.

If i knew any difficult products id be working on it already lol.
 
Rule number one of starting a business is have a business plan. Before you spend a dime on tooling, fixtures, or even raw materials, you have to have a business plan. Otherwise you're probably throwing money down the drain. You'll probably make more and better cash pulling some OT than you will machining on the side. Another good investment might be skills improvement. Check your local continuing education facility to see what they offer to improve your metal working skills to increase the chance of promotion and advancement.

To more directly answer your question, when do you take your hobby and turn it into a side business. When your business plan says it makes sense and you'll make money. Yes it's possible to score side action from CL but it's generally not quality work. For the most part it'll be people who were turned down by local machine shops because they're to busy, or the quote was to expensive and they want you to do three hours of work for $ 25.

When does it work. When you've got some kind of niche to service. A friend of mine used to make 50 BMG bottle openers. He got the used brass and projectiles dirt cheap, the fixture took less than an hour, the endmill was $ 30. 60 seconds and done. 4 hours on a Saturday and he'd have 150 done and ready to go at $ 4 each. Easy money.
 
There is another side to the coin. Consider if machining is mainly your hobby or mainly your business.
If its predominately your hobby then you may find that having to defer to customer expectations with delivery times etc may cause a lot of stress and eventually destroy it as a hobby.
I used to do a fair bit of gem cutting and silversmithing.
I loved it.
One Christmas I took on board too many orders and had to devote all my time to finish them within the time constraint.
It virtually burnt me out of the hobby rushing to fullfill all the orders.
 
Are there any tax benefits to turning your hobby shop into a small business, whether you make money or not?
 
Not sure. Idk if i would turn it into a business persé either just try and find like local work to pick up some extra money depending on jobs around was my main thought.
 
Are there any tax benefits to turning your hobby shop into a small business, whether you make money or not?

Yes once your a business and pay Uncle Sam taxes you can write off all your expenses. I have a good friend that just did so. He purchased a cnc plasma table about 2 years ago. We’ve got aliitle niche making custom signs of any kind. He registered his business through the state and he doesn’t have to pay tax on his materials and he gets to write off all expenses tooling,machines,everything. Not a bad gig. He actually just bought a new 5x10 table that I have to go help setup this weekend.
 
I want to do this. Need to find out what the authorities consider a business. Do I have to have a sign a certain size and distance away from the road. Do I have to be bonded and do I have to have a shop with certain amount of sqft. On second thought forget it. Lol
 
As far as I know a business is when customers pay for your services. As for signs as so on that would have to do more with your local zoning laws. You can have a business and not sell anything so??? My wife has a great business self employed. Up until we married she didn’t show a profit some 6yrs.:D
Their is no criteria on building or space you can work in the shed for all they care just as Uncle Sam gets his cut on sales.it just filing the proper paperwork.
 
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