3 ms·

Your rate sounds a bit low for such short and somewhat specialized gig in the bay area.

• DannyBee 9y ago
  It's about right for what you'd pay to get something machined :)
  • abakker 9y ago
    Yeah, just about. It also has some "Craigslist discount". Sadly, there is much too large a gap between hobby and professional revenue to ever do this full time in the bay. Commercial rent and restrictions make it such that even as a sole proprietorship, you'd have trouble breaking even on 50k/year in recurring revenue, which is tough as a one man wood/metal shop with limited tools. Custom/spec work is better, but very irregular.
    • DannyBee 9y ago
      Yup. All of my cabinet shop friends basically have enough volume to keep 2+ spray finishers busy all-day every day, and are busy trying to get their per-sheet times from 5 minutes to less ;) That's the low volume guys. The high volume guys are just completely automated from material handling to flat line finishing. Outside of startup costs, complete automation of this stuff isn't usually that expensive (<200k of machines). Single proprietors will never compete with the level of automation you can easily get in the bay area.