Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO Semi-OT: small home shops and profitibility

Tom,

There is a fair amount of interest in side income apparently, I had two
other members contace me off-list.

As I see it, you face two big hurdles, finding work, and convincing a
company to give a garage shop a try. A third problem will quickly show
up in that few garage shops are well equipt enough to handle most
anything that comes along, so you'll have to pick and chose amongst
whatever you can dig up, unless you can afford to purchase the tooling.

I'd like to say I've got some good ideas about finding work but the bulk
of my windfall of work came from left field, totally unexpected.
I spent almost two weeks at night going through the business listings
for my area and a neighboring calling area. While I did check the yellow
pages for anything that looked remotely like a manufacturing company, it
was the regular business listings I really went over. Looked at each and
every single business name and tried to judge the likelyhood they needed
my services. Mailed over a hundred flyers.
Not a single call. Followup calls indicated:
Any business with mechanical in it's name is most likely HVAC.
I'd found another competitor (and let them know I was lurking...)
In this digital age, many tech sounding firms hardly know what machining
is.

Every worthwhile customer I've picked up came from either just walking
in the door looking for work, or by referral.

Tell everyone you know that you are interested in doing some side
machine work.
Hit the local shops and offer to take on the little dink jobs when they
are busy. Helps here if you can bring samples of work to show you can
actually make parts.
Pay attention to the business districts in your area. Anyone
manufacturing is a -potential- source of work.
You will most certainly have more success dealing with small companies
that themselves are not far from their garage roots.

You don't have to make your living at this like I am. I had to chose
between doing it full time or moving to where I could find a decent job.
Keep it a side thing, and let it build up your shop.

Don't give your time away, but don't expect to get top dollar either.
Quoting. Ugh. I sweated the quote on this big job for two nights, hardly
getting any sleep. If anyone is interested, I've got a spreadsheet I
developed for quoting. It's far from perfect and has grown more like a
wart than having been thought out before hand.
I could post this to my web site with some basic instructions how to use
it. It's in Excel97 format. No warranty expressed or implied, caveat
emptor, etc etc. Needless to say, I don't quite have time to do that
right now, but will mention here when I have it posted and available.

Jon