I would like to make some money working weekends and during the evening. I work a regular job during the day. I have tools.
I thought about buying cheap cars with mechanical problems and fixing them to sell. People in this group did not think it was a good idea.
I like working with my hands. I like to weld and build things at home although I have never had any formal training. (I work in an office during the day).
ANy advice? I have a family and would like something to fall back on in case my day job fell through with the economy and all. Dont think it will but it would be nice to have something in reserve I could do working for myself.
What do you do in your office? How about handi-work for your neighbors? If you can find a "thing" to make at home in your spare time, "a printing press to print cash" if you will, but they are few and far between or everybody would be doing it. I do computer work for 12 small companies in my spare time.
The thing that stops me from doing any machine shop work for others is the liability. Most people who approach me to do stuff for them want repairs made to running gear on various vehicles. "I cracked the frame on my truck and the repair shop wants big bucks to fix it because they say its a complicated and critical job. I think they're full of crap. Could you just run a bead or two over the crack?"
Even if I didn't get sued into oblivion by the surviving family members, I'd feel like shit for a very long time if a repair I did let go and killed or injured someone. If it killed or injured ME then I'd just feel stupid, and I can live with feeling stupid.
What some people I know have done is to get piece work jobs from small factories. A guy I knew, for example, had a buffer set up in his basement and he would polish small parts by the bucket- load for a small fab shop near his house. Not exactly scintillating work, but at 10 or 15 cents a pop it made him enough to pay for his lotto tickets.
As another example, the guy who I bought my lathe off of had a TIG welder and did piece work for the factory across the street from him, welding in baffles and compartment walls in electronics chassis. (He did really nice work, too.)
If you do get into anything like that, just don't forget to claim your income with the IRS! :-)
If you are making things in your shop and know how to document what you have created, you can publish your designs on our website. If you are doing the work anyhow you might as well get get paid for it.
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Bill
-- btw, Still waiting for you guys to start using my free classified section, help me make it to be huge. Check it out, it's a nice classified ads website. Suggestions are welcomed.
It kind of depends on where you live. Around here, I think I could make garbage can carts and make money selling them. I don't think anyone sells a cart for a garbage can and some recycling boxs. Some of my neighbors live at the end of a long private drive, so a cart with a hitch so it could be hauled to the street with a car with a bumper hitch would be handy.
On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 5:45:13 -0700, Don wrote (in message ):
You will never get rich doing this, but if you build and sell something in a 'nitch' market (i.e. something a big company would not spend the money to tool up and produce because the market is too small), it can supply a small but reasonably steady income.. I do this to supplement my disability check, advertising on the Internet.
Kinda depends.... you say you have tools, but you didn't say what kind. However you mentioned working on cars, so I would assume mechanic's type tools. You also mention welding. What about carpentry tools - building decks, lawn furniture, mailboxes/posts, clothesline posts, birdfeeders, assembling metal outdoor sheds for the people who buy them, working on lawn mowers/tractors, restoring antiques, repairing antiques, building/installing fences.... etc., etc. Ken.
What I do is go to yard sales ,flea markets and auctions to buy items to repair or refurbish, and then resell them. Hook up with a finance company or bank and buy their repos of cars, motorcycles, quads and such to fix and resell. The beauty of this is that you are NOT working on anyone's time schedule other than your own. If you have machining facilities, you can sometimes make that critical item that the original owner would not spring for. Take all the time you need for the work, then sell at your convenience. Never let anyone know what you paid for it. They'll think you're supposed to just about give it to them then, friends included. A guy near me hauls in junk cars on the side. He is now crushing them, and told me he has about a million pounds of them to sell to the crusher. (Do the math) Another friend just sold $200,000 in industrial salvage from an old yard the original owner retired from 10 years ago. He bought the yard last year for $50,000. Our society is geared so that most people feel they have to have new and shiny, and this makes the used and salvage market a good game. Example: A hoity-toidy type gave me a moped his wife once used to ride to the golf course near them to get it out of his way a couple of weeks ago, and I loaded it and took it home. Sold it in a week for $50, just for hauling it home. Sold it it as is, where is, never tried to start it, didn't care. Ran a free ad in the local Bargain Trader. Young kid got his Dad to drive him 45 miles to get it. He was happy. I was happy.
Hmmmm. Tried that. In machining, unless you like production work, you'll find a lot of things you _can_ make. Lots of things that fit Niche markets, but be ready to starve while sitting on thousands of dollars worth of inventory. Subcontracting production makes more sense. I have a unit, part of the controls for a home built aircraft, a glider. Cost of purchased parts and materials is less than $100. They sell completed for $300, and that's as high as the market can bear. Time is 16 hours each, do the math.
Flip side, I did a prototype run of a special plastic washer for a company, they offered $3 each, 1000 pieces. 60 pieces per hour in an old Garvin turret lathe. Better math.
A city wide blackout at Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:21:27 -0700 did not prevent Roger Hull from posting to rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
This usually works until someone else starts making the same thing.
I lost a part time job last year because someone else started making a similar thing for a less, and selling it online. Of course, price isn't everything, but a lot of people will make their choice based on that.
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