Potential opportunity?

[bigsteel15]

My cousin and her hubby run a home based business for making employee name tags and the like. Trophy plates, name tags, safety signage, anything made from that type of plastic material.

They are looking to sell the business and I was thinking it may be a way to get a CNC run overhead router that could possibly do custom wood plaques, etc at the same time. It would be an income for my wife in the winter and extra income for us in the summer.

Any thoughts on viability of the wood side of this?

[cabinetman]

Sometimes you can buy a business but can't buy the customers. If it is making money, that's better than starting out from scratch. Check to see if the router is compatible with bits you'll need. I would guess it is. If you can afford to be "set back", it may be worth it.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[bigsteel15]

Sometimes you can buy a business but can't buy the customers. If it is making money, that's better than starting out from scratch.

I've seen them make a living off this primarily mail order (and now internet) based business for about 15 years now. Now to them making a living isn't to my standard (they live up north and own their property) but as an extra income I think it would be OK.

I'm mainly looking for thoughts on the wood side of things. The primary business is a no-brainer as long as they don't want a fortune for it.

Now that you've responded Cabinetman, is there situations where you could have used or have used that type of overhead router on doors or trim or anything else?

[Stytooner]

CNC isn't just limited to signage and plagues and the normal stuff. You can also do 3D carvings with the right software.
Depending on the price, it might be better off for you to simply step into your own part time business. The newer CNC machines and software are far more compatible with today's computers and hardware. Replacement parts are also a whole lot cheaper and much easier to fnd. There is a steep learning curve withthee older software and machine drivers. Today's stuff is much easier to learn and a lot of it has online tutorials and setup instructions. Not to mention direct Forum support.
An internet business is also time consuming right by itself ithout doing anything but answering emails and doing research.
Now I like that kind of thing, but it ain't everybodies cup of tea.
You might want to chck out CNC Zone. They can at least give you a heads up on the machines that this business may have. Once you find out the details that is.
Good luck and keep us posted. Glad to help if I can.

[cabinetman]

Brian

Absolutely a dream for a cabinet shop. I have always planned to make a radial arm router out of a RAS and a router. For about 10 years, I kept thinking about it. Then I got a deal on an old Craftsman RAS, and I was hot to trot. Got busy and kept putting it off. Seems like all my big routers I needed for hand use, and didn't want to sacrifice one of them. Wound up giving the RAS away to an ex employee who was ecstatic about getting a RAS.

The idea is so simple, I'm surprised they don't make them that way.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[LCHIEN]

I have thought about that kind of business.
I think it sounds dreamy and fun to play with the toys but,
it tends to be very schedule driven, customers order at the last minute for presnetations, shows, etc and the customers tend to very picky about exact appearance etc. Also the orders tend to be one-off, not repeat orders. So in net, it takes a huge amount of personal time to chase business and get customers and get one order, then a lot of time to customize each one, lots of picky customers who start out not knowing what they want. Very much service oriented. Would take away from the fun of owning the spiff equipment.


Seems rather too frustrating to me.