Side work

As an aside to this thread:

I worked for a manufacturing company in Louisiana that did CNC work and plasma cutting. And fine TIG welding to bring it all together. They had a laser cutting bed from TRUMPF that cost $700,000. They had other bending machines and cutting machines that were state of the art, and all linked by CAD/CAM.

The boss was having trouble making payments that high, and called Trumpf to discuss the situation. Trumpf said that they would make some phone calls.

Trumpf called Caterpillar and Ford, and got them so much work they had to hire more guys and run two shifts.

Point is that if one does want to do the legwork and gets lucky, they can hook up with some specialty niche, and do well. It may take a while, and you might go through a few, and payment might be slow, but that's biz. I knew a guy who retired to a picture post card perfect rural Utah town with spectacular fishing and hunting nearby. All he made was tiny fasteners that he sold to model train manufacturers. He could ship his whole monthly output in a 5 gallon bucket, and made good money.

If you know your stuff, it isn't making it that's a problem, it's selling it/marketing it. And now that the business atmosphere has changed to foreign manufacturers who can beat you up on price, and less disposable income among the regular buying crowd, there's that, too.

Trouble is, "side jobs" are usually intended to be a sideline income, using extra time, or at least not a ton of time each week, so as to leave time for sleeping, eating, kissing the baby and playing with mama, working your other job, etc. Some of these take on a life of their own, and then the demands put you in the 60-80 hour a week category. Then, if you quit your day job, it better make enough to pay the whole nut and have some left over.

My thoughts from BTDT.

Steve

visit my blog at

I have seen one gunsmith like this, he was pretty poor.

--I've found the 'hard part' to be not so much getting customers in the door as getting customers who spread the word to generate *more* customers. I've got one repeat customer I do work for on occasion but one ain't enough to pay the bills. --OTOH I get to spend 'down time' working on my own projects and posting progress on various social sites at least makes it known to a wider audience what my shop can do. Slow going tho...

"A conservative who doesn't believe? in God simply doesn't pray; a godless liberal wants no one to pray. A conservative who doesn't like guns doesn't buy one; a liberal gun-hater wants to disarm us all. A gay conservative has sex his own way; a gay liberal requires us all to watch and accept his perversion and have it taught to children. A conservative who is offended by a radio show changes the station; an offended liberal wants it banned, prosecuted and persecuted." Bobby XD9

"A conservative who doesn't believe? in God simply doesn't pray; a godless liberal wants no one to pray. A conservative who doesn't like guns doesn't buy one; a liberal gun-hater wants to disarm us all. A gay conservative has sex his own way; a gay liberal requires us all to watch and accept his perversion and have it taught to children. A conservative who is offended by a radio show changes the station; an offended liberal wants it banned, prosecuted and persecuted." Bobby XD9

A similar story for you. An orthopedic surgeon I know always used something called Knowles pins when he did fracture work. The company that supplied these was the sole manufacturer and they decided to end production. He showed them to me and I took a sample to friend who has a tool and die shop as a potential business line. He made up a dozen of them without difficulty and I gave them to the surgeon. When the original manufacturer found out that a local shop made some, they quickly reinstituted production of Knowles pins. I have no idea why they decided to stop production in the first place; I was told that they were a popular item among the orthopedic surgeons who had trained at Temple Univ in Philly, so it wasn't like the local surgeon was the only purchaser.

RWL

I forgot about the saw tensioner gage. He mentioned them to me and I bought a new dial indicator for $2 identical to the one in the video.

He hadn't mentioned the stuck bullet remover, but he did show me parts from the rear sight alignment tool for pistols.

RWL

If you surf for awhile you can find some interesting stuff, let your imagination go. Granted this one is a bit large.