(Not So) Hobby Machinist

[ChandlerJPerry]

Middlestadt was a huge job shop . Nasa , Electric Boat , Dupont , very large government contracts including the nuclear subs , tanks , etc . Family owned and finally family run into the ground . The back breaker was when the sub contracts went nuclear . We were asked if we wanted to rebid the jobs because they went nuclear , and they did not . The weld testing took 1000s of hours alone . They got rid of their smaller customers while doing the big crap . Closed up in 86 .

It's always sad to hear a family owned operation close. I hope JD can weather this economic downturn successfully, good people work there and it would be tragic to see them lose their jobs.

 

[BGHansen]

There a number of threads on this forum asking the same questions. Just repeating what you probably already know and what's been given as advice here. Summarizing, then boring details below, DO NOT try to make this the way you will support your family.

Don't bother (as you mentioned) going after high-volume business. Mind-numbing work on manual machines as you noted, plus there's no money in it when you're competing against CNC equipment or China. Example is a speed handle for a mill vise (couple pictured below). I made three similar to the one in the bottom photo. Ran the routine on a CNC Bridgeport, maybe 20-30 minutes to crank (pun intended) out the part once the routine was developed. Absolutely would not be putting any food on the table when competing against these prices.

$11.25 shipped on eBay


$19 shipped on eBay



Best advice has been to find a niche market for something probably not machining-related. Example is a spring-loaded center for the tail stock to support a tap and hold it on center. If someone was to develop a nice design and show it off here, they might sell a few. Frankly, most of us would add it to our project list and make our own. Key thing is to offer something to a market that cannot do that work on their own.

I reproduce parts for an old toy called an Erector set. Mainly sheet metal parts, some brass turned parts. I'm in a collecting club of around 400 members. Though there are a handful of machinists in the club, no one else is making volume parts at this time, so I've got the niche. Definitely wouldn't quit my day job for what I make, but I'm at the point in life where I say, "the one good thing about getting old is you get all of your debt paid off". I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can work for $25 an hour producing a part. I've arbitrarily set that figure as my minimum or I stop producing the part. It's strictly a hobby for me at this point, let's me keep my mind active by trying to figure out better/quicker ways to make stuff.

The problem with niche's is they can come and go. Remember Beanie Babies and the absurd lines at McDonald's when they came out with a new toy? Key thing would be to have a number of niche's so when one is not in demand, hopefully a few others are.

My brother-in-law runs a successful small-volume molding shop in the Coldwater, MI area (www.protoshapes.com). They do low-volume production cast urethane parts or one-offs. He has a lathe and mill in the shop, but jobs out any machining work. One of their current parts is an air-shammie for car washes. The design has a steel rod inside the housing which connects the trigger to a ball (valve). There are small shops in his area that do that type of work; you might try a small business like his for some work.

Doesn't hurt to dream, but start it as a supplemental job and try to grow it into a full-time money maker.

None of us want to squash your dreams, hope you can find a niche and make millions! Trying to leave it on a high note, hit the website www.displaypack.com. My uncle started this business back in 1967. His day job was a speech therapist for the hearing impaired. He was looking for something to do in the summers to supplement his income and started shrink-wrapping Christian music albums for his uncle's record production company in their garage. Ended up growing the business into a 2-city block, 5-story building (with 750+ employees) packaging Mattel's Hot Wheels cars, AC Spark Plug after-market products, Champion Spark Plugs, Kohler bathroom fixtures, molding iMac cases, etc. I don't know if he started out dreaming what his business would eventually grow into, but it could happen for you too!

Bruce

 

[stupoty]

People pay quite a lot for camera grip equipment , and sometimes require custom things to hold this to that.

for example ,

Wooden Camera Professional Accessories

Wooden Camera designs, manufactures, and retails innovative camera accessories for professionals. Including RED®, ARRI, Panasonic, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Blackmagic Design cameras, and more.

woodencamera.com

Wooden Camera Handgrip (Left)

Ergonomic wooden handgrip, carved from a solid piece of Sapele wood which is similar to Mahogany. Attaches by ARRI standard rosette and M6 threaded thumbscrew.It is possible to add start/stop trigger by purchasing the Trigger Box.

woodencamera.com

Top Handle V2 (2" Slotted Screw Channel)

IN STOCK Complete purchase by 3pm CST and order will ship same business day.Top Handle V2 (2" Slotted Screw Channel) is a new top handle designed to screw directly onto the top of a camera or to a top cheeseplate. The Top Handle V2 has a side to side screw channel that can fit two 1/4-20 screws...

woodencamera.com

 

[addertooth]

I have no desire to start a business. However, I have drawn a couple conclusions on where the profit versus sanity point is.
There are a few shops which specialize in making niche market items, i.e. just enough demand for a simple gizmo to merit producing, but not so much demand that the "big boys" want to dive in and mass produce a product. You can usually discover those niche items by being involved in another hobby community. You make a gizmo for yourself, you post pictures of it on your "other hobby" forum, and take orders. There is a guy in this forum who makes rectangular blocks, with a radiused channel, and a hole, which acts as a spacer to lift truck seats. His per-part profit is sufficient for him to make a modest profit, but the demand is small enough that the big guys don't want to go into production and compete. He appears to sit in the sweet spot is for a small shop. As a avowed hobby-a-holic, I can attest that virtually all hobby fields can benefit from some gizmo or another... if only someone would build it.

Some examples from just One of my side hobbies, which is air rifles. There are 3 shops which bore out the valve exhaust hole on a valve to a larger diameter to increase air flow through the valve (for higher efficiency, and power of an air rifle). A couple of them even do some radius work to further improve flow. There are a few small shops which make "silencers" for air rifles, to make them even quieter. Air rifles are NOT considered firearms, so the restrictions on silencers are not applied to them. Another shop makes replacement "wear parts" for air rifles, whose factory shut down decades ago. Another company makes improved iron sights for those who shoot match competitions (which fit popular air rifles). One company makes some trigger guards, for people who want to upgrade from plastic stocks, to wood stocks on their air rifles (the plastic stocks "cast in" the trigger guard, so it cannot be "moved over" to a wooden stock. This means a new trigger guard has to be manufactured. Good luck finding one of these trigger guards available for a popular model like the "Benjamin Marauder". Enhanced internal parts for popular guns are very desired. They can include, enhanced hammers, hammer spring adjustment kits, piston button kits, etc.

Other hobbies of mine, such as hand engraving has similar demands. I will end up making spindles for some diamond polishing plates which are used to shape the "graver bits" used to carve metal. I may end up fabricating a jig to get precise angle control on those petite graver bits.

I will even give an example for Our Forum. Newbies are intimidated making parts. One very common upgrade on the 7 By 10/12/14/16 lathes is upgrading the spindle bearings from ball bearings to tapered bearings. However, the tapered bearings are thicker, and require the spacer between the new bearings and spindle gear be shortened to keep spindle gear alignment correct. The factory part is some kind of plastic, most likely nylon. Although nylon is a decent choice for ball bearings which don't have a significant amount of pre-load compression, it may be short of the mark for tapered bearings higher pre-load values. This spacer also has a keyway. As far as I know, nobody makes this shortened part in metal. Most people end up borrowing someone else's lathe, and shortening their existing part, or they buy a spare plastic part and cut it down before they disassemble their lathe to replace the headstock bearings. But then, they are stuck with the preload issue with a plastic/nylon part. For most newbies, the metal fabrication process which would intimidate them (for this part) is the Keyway. I checked with a local shop on how much they wanted to put the key in the nearly-finished collar, and they wanted a hundred bucks. I am fabricating one such part right now. I will be using a parting tool and the lathe as a "shaper" to cut the keyway. If I had a small shop with a broacher, I would probably crank a hundred of these out, and see if some place like LMS wanted to add it to their "suggested item" which pops up with their tapered bearing upgrades. Or, perhaps sell the keyed METAL collar, along with bearings as an "upgrade kit" on Ebay.

The point is, all hobbies have these niche parts, which would be made in production runs of about 20 to 100, enough to be profitable, but not so huge to be mind numbing. Pick a hobby, join a forum for that hobby, and fill a need... be a HERO.

 

[WCraig]

You're sure you want to be a business owner? Those nights wondering where you are going to get the cash you need next week? Finding and selling to customers? Collecting from customers that 'lost your invoice'. Dealing with suppliers that over-promise and iunder-deliver? Banking, accounting, taxes, legal, ...

If that doesn't scare you off, an avenue you might want to explore is taking over a retiring machinist's business. Find the small (ideally one-man) local businesses that do something like what you're interested in. Hopefully at one of them the owner is approaching retirement age. Talk to him about a succession plan. Maybe you work for him for a few years getting to know his business and customers while you build your skills and experience. You and the current owner would have to work out a plan that you can both live with.

BTW, I think your welding skills would be valuable. Small businesses, farmers, etc, often need one-off repairs or mods that depend on welding. Probably won't make you rich, but seems likely to help pay the bills.

My $0.02...and we don't even have pennies here in Canada anymore!

Craig

 

[NC Rick]

Hey everyone, just musing a little bit right now and I thought there are probably some individuals on this forum that would be able to chime in. I know this is the hobby machinist forum, but I don't find the more professional cousin of this forum to be particularly friendly. Some background: I spent a little over two and a half years working for an aerospace machine shop in their sheet metal department before being laid off in July due to coronavirus related slowdowns. The job wasn't half bad, however I didn't find it to be the type of place that was interested in creating what I would consider to be true machinists, more parts pushers that could do one step of a process to make a good part. The good of it was that it ignited my interest in machining, I was usually using one of the few bridgeports (total CNC, production oriented shop, no repair/service work to necessitate manual machines) in the shop for personal projects after hours, and it has led to me contracting the sickness and purchasing a lathe and mill . I also do know how to weld (Took welding in school and worked at it professionally for a short time) but am lacking a machine at the moment, 120v only power in my garage has limited my options there and made me hesitant to purchase anything for fear that I will be disappointed by its performance. Some may have seen my recent purchase of an Enco branded RF-30, as well as an Atlas QC54 that I'm in the process of restoring.

Anyway, like many other people I do have the pipe dream of one day running my own operation and getting to have a one man band shop to pay the bills. I've found a new job in a completely different field, but ultimately don't feel a ton of passion for the work, which has really set my mind turning about my occupation. Coming from my recent background I'm familiar with the dizzying array of equipment a major commercial shop would have, which I'm approximately only 2.743 million miles away from comparing to with my two manual machines and decent set of mechanic's tools in a 10x20 garage . However that also means that my experience is rooted in the large scale commercial world, not that of the small job shop world, which I am largely unfamiliar with. Is there any work to be had for such humble beginnings with only manual machines? Or am I dreaming until I increase my dragon's hoard of equipment and space available? I'm primarily interested in repair/service work, and short runs/one offs. I know long run production is where the money is, but frankly having to do the same part 1000 times over makes me feel like my eyes are going to bleed. Prior to my unemployment I was occasionally getting small side jobs every so often such as minor modifications to turbocharger housings or brake calipers, etc. $100 here, $100 there type jobs that I would complete at my previous employer, usually with pretty basic tools. I will definitely be resuming that type of activity once I get my machines set up, and who knows, it could turn into a somewhat more steady customer base over time. But are there any markets or businesses that could be untapped that I'm not thinking of? Or maybe some of the users of this forum have experience trying to grow this kind of business from ground zero. To me right now, it is a purely a hobby and not a livelihood, but sometimes I can't help but daydream about it becoming something more.

I'm new here, been on PM for quite a lot of years. We may have some similarities if not a bit upside-downness going on. In high school primarily, I worked a few jobs in machine shops including working with a family friend who had a pretty big screw machine shop, I can still smell those machines. My first lathe was acquired in the mid-seventies along with a 1940s vintage Bridgeport. Since 2002 I have been supporting my family using upgraded machines (only upgraded during that time). I feel like I have been helped and supported a lot by "that other site" i just would never admit to having anything made in Taiwan. I find it to be a little funny because I know if I visited most any of those companies, there will be more money in Chinesium than I have ever spent. Seriously, who could really run a productive high to mid volume machine shop with vintage manual machines. I use them for specific functions supporting our core small business while a friend with a "real machine shop" makes the volume of parts with his vast skill, knowledge and equipment. my shop is in my home and evenings are spent tinkering with a great hobby that is not backed up by a career of being a machinist. I am still on a steep learning path at 65 years old and I know my friend of nearly 40 years who did make the machine shop his business still shares his passion of machinery and machining as his favorite hobby with me. I don't care for judgmental stuff That can go on but I do see where I would ask some questions and banter here and at the same time get help from the experience there on certain things. I own the wrong version of South Bend lathe for that specific forum as mine was built in France (heaven forbid). When I was a young man, it was still cool to have a big line of Bridgeport j machines that these days only really serve to make some of us happy at an auction or find a spot in a repair of support role at a "real shop". My hobby interest is in manual machining and machines which is more akin to being a museum curator these days. I still feel like the old masters of this art are around and influential. New ways of thinking will continue to transform the field and our world.

 

[silverhawk]

Don't turn your hobbies into work unless you are willing to no longer have it as a hobby. In other words, once it becomes work, you can't escape work by doing it outside of work.

When I worked in an emissions shop for a county, I hated working on cars, but tinkered with computers. When I switched back to working in computers, I worked on the car and hated working on computers.

Once a hobby becomes work, you have the potential to lose that love of it. Granted, we have a few anomalies here on this list, but just be aware.

joe

 

[Buffalo21]

My grandfather and his 2 brothers, ran the small rural 3 man machine shop, in the small town I grew up in. I spent a good share of my childhood, in the shop, first visiting to get milkshakes and candy and by the time i went to college, I could run every machine in the shop. This was in the 60s-70s, they were 100% manual, I used to do jobs of 100-200 parts and found it very boring, but the vast majority of the work was ones and twos. I went to college the 3 gentlemen retired and the company was bought out by 2 men, who went out of business within the second year, if I had not gone to college, I probably would have tried to run the business.

I enjoy my shop time, probably would not feel the same if I had to run it as a business. For me its an escape from the current employment and the rest of the world. I have talk to Bruce on occasion about CNC machining, apparently not its for me, I currently spend a huge amount of my work time programming boilers and burner control systems, the last thing I want to do is come home and have to program a lathe or mill to a specific procedure.

I work for a small company, that sells and services industrial boilers and related equipment, 30 or less employees, I see the struggle to keep the lights on and make the paychecks viable on a weekly basis. I have absolute no desire to get into that side of the business, the service side is more than enough.

 

[Nutfarmer]

Someone has to repair the production equipment. I was always happier repairing and maintaining equipment than being stuck on the production line.

 

[C-Bag]

Addertooth and BGHansen, especially Bruce nailed EXACTLY where I’m at with my hobby turned home biz. Both described exactly how the convergence of skill and a hobby can make a niche. And I’ll add not only do the big boys not want it, they would have a hard time taking it because the sentiment against big Corp is stronger than you know, people like buying and supporting an independent craftsman. Product loyalty doesn’t just extend to big corporations.

There has been so many good pieces of advise here. Also taking over something where the owner is retiring out is an excellent idea. I’ve seen small company after another disappear because either there were no relatives who wanted to take over or they took over and destroyed the outfit.

In my constant search for cheap materials and equipment I’ve also run into guys like myself who have created their own niche. This area has had a bunch for some reason. One guy who had a very similar life path as a mechanic had gotten into the coffee house, then roasting and grinding biz. The only outfit making I think the grinder, was Italian and it was crazy expensive, and nobody made a competing machine. So understanding machinery he had an idea for a machine and bought a 12x40 lathe and Bridgeport and made his first grinder. It works so well the word had gotten out and he was having to scale up. He can sell his machine for a fraction of the Italian machine and make a tidy profit, not a killing, a profit. His niche is like mine, people want a independent run, non corp place that does it all themselves. And will pay extra to support that and would drop the place like a hot potato if Starbucks took them over. There are all kinds of stories like that out there. Like the kid who learned to weave hats in some kind of trad way and it became a thing and has to have his family help weave them for him because demand is worldwide now and the biggest attraction is it’s done by hand. Craftsmanship and skill means something to some people, just not corporations.