CNC business. Making money

[Kitwn]

I used to spend 42 hours a week in a windowless concrete box to earn the money to pay all the bills and support my hobbies. Now I've retired I will need to put some of the newly available spare time (after all the other new things my wife has found me to do!) into making some items to sell. It's all a compromise, and I know how I'd rather spend my time.

CNC isn't really about bespoke, one-off items anyway. It takes many hours of thought and designing, experimenting and learning to make a single new widget. Then you make another one in ten minutes and a dozen more by lunchtime.

Kit

[Pilsbury]

CNC isn't really about bespoke, one-off items anyway. It takes many hours of thought and designing, experimenting and learning to make a single new widget. Then you make another one in ten minutes and a dozen more by lunchtime.

Kit

I think we’re all different here. I’m using my cnc for precisely the one off items at the moment. I can certainly see how repeatability is one of its fortes, but I’m utilising it’s super accuracy and ability to cut precision exactly where I want it. Something that is beyond me and a blunt chisel !

Maybe when I find that winning item, I’ll cut 100 of them

[Kitwn]

I think we’re all different here. I’m using my cnc for precisely the one off items at the moment. I can certainly see how repeatability is one of its fortes, but I’m utilising it’s super accuracy and ability to cut precision exactly where I want it. Something that is beyond me and a blunt chisel !

Maybe when I find that winning item, I’ll cut 100 of them

Everything I've made so far has been one-off but the potential is there to make many copies of that winning item as you say. The trick is knowing what that winning item actually is. Anyone want to buy a USB-powered wooden pendulum clock that's as accurate as a quartz watch?

Kit

[magicniner]

CNC isn't really about bespoke, one-off items anyway. It takes many hours of thought and designing, experimenting and learning to make a single new widget. Then you make another one in ten minutes and a dozen more by lunchtime.

Kit

Bang Wrong there matey!
Your point is valid for any simple things which are reasonably easily made quite cheaply on manual machines, for expensive things which are horribly complex to machine manually, CNC is a very appropriate way to go, and lucrative too.

[JAZZCNC]

Bang Wrong there matey!
Your point is valid for any simple things which are reasonably easily made quite cheaply on manual machines, for expensive things which are horribly complex to machine manually, CNC is a very appropriate way to go, and lucrative too.

Didn't see this the first time around but I 100% agree, many of the machines I've built have been for prototyping rather than mass production. This is one area where small CNC machines win over large production CNC machines because they are more cost-effective and efficient for one-off or small batch items.

[Kitwn]

Bang Wrong there matey!
Your point is valid for any simple things which are reasonably easily made quite cheaply on manual machines, for expensive things which are horribly complex to machine manually, CNC is a very appropriate way to go, and lucrative too.

Yes, quite right! It's interesting trying to remember the exact mind-set you were in several weeks ago. I wouldn't expect me to have written that.

I'm coming at this from the hobbyist looking to fund his hobby by selling a few things rather than a serious engineer making complex machine parts but even at this level I would not have bothered to make even one wooden clock without my CNC router. The ability to quickly cut a modified pair of gears out of plywood or adjust the frame dimensions for a better placement of the driving coil etc. etc. is game-changing for coming up with a final design that's good enough to sell.