prototypes

[shanefranz@yahoo.com]

Don How do I go about getting prototype work then mass producing hundreds or thousands of same product.Perhaps store displays or merchandise. I have cnc cabibilities. thank you Shane

[Don]

Hey, Shane, and welcome to the forum.

Buddy, you certainly made your first question a doozy. In the proverbial words of my late father-in-law, "you just asked the 64 million dollar question." I'm sure all eyes will be on this answer. Just for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume you are serious.

Having CNC capabilities simply begs for the answer you desire, more often than not most shops will buy a CNC "whatever" as a labor saving device (or they fell in love with the machine at a show) and they soon discover that the machine is sitting there idle most of the time. Then people begin thinking along the same lines you are now. How am I doing so far?

The people that are the most successful at this had a need first. They needed to produce this or that, their market grew, they added capability. This is the best way, anything else is pretty much luck. Every shop has some CNC excess capability today and are looking for that slice of the pie you want to find too.

But all is not lost. Doing just what you are doing now, joining a forum gets you in touch with the heartbeat of what's going on. Keep an eye out, make friends and network as much as possible. There are guys on this very forum that are making parts, a couple of them are looking for a CNC jobber.

The best way to succeed in this game is to look for a problem, then figure out a way to solve it. There are already many on the net advertising CNC services, join them by getting a site and doing the same - one more guy out there is not going to hurt, might help.

I love machines, my dream has been to come up with a widget that everyone on the planet needs. Set up the machines, sit back and watch them print money. The American dream. I've been in shops where we've had limited runs of stuff and it sure is nice - but keep in mind that we're talking about wood here. Anything that requires thousands of anything if usually relegated to another material that can be manipulated quicker. If it must be wood and there is a huge market, like furniture, cabinets or related - there are giant millwork houses out there that will be tough to compete with.

I would start off by visiting every single local cabinet shop and millwork house and telling them of your capabilities. Sure they are the competition, but first and foremost they are businesses. If they have a need and you can supply a cost effective solution, you're in. I've done this exact thing through the years and found some pretty sweet production runs.

Good luck and let us know how you make out - and thanks for the question.

All the best, Don