Stripped All The Paint Off The Ugly Duckling

[Dirtytires]

Many times Over the years I have considered doing welding of small projects as a side job. I keep coming back to the same conclusion that you just did. If I charge what it's worth, I'll not have any business but will loose money pretty quick if I'm not careful. Bottom line is I still don't have a side job...and that is ok!

[dacolson]

That’s hilarious, Hogaboomer. Gotta be frustrating though

[towtruck]

It's so easy to eat your profits on small jobs. Years ago I worked in the fuel business and had access to race fuel by the 55 gallon barrel. I figured I could sell it for the same price you could get it at the fuel supply and make my profit on the last five gallons. I charged enough to cover the cost of the fuel and the last five gallons was mine. I had several racers in my area that gladly brought their cans over for me to fill. I made sure everyone got their jugs full. Only issue I had was not knowing where 5 gallons were in each jug. By the end of the barrel I had given away my five gallons and broke even.

I got smart on the next one......I made all the racers buy the whole barrel and I took a smaller profit.....let them divvy it out to each other. They quickly learned what I did and did not buy any more.

I was building late 20's early 30's engines as a side gig for about ten years. I farmed out the machine work. Everything would go great until some of the work that I farmed out was bad and I had to eat the cost to fix it. That made me pick only the best machine shop to use. The type of engines I was building were stock and the owners would then start hopping them up and try to blame me for breakage. Aftermarket parts made more noise than stock parts and I was blamed for the noise, oil leaks were designed into the engines and I was blamed for those too. I built a bone stock engine and it was factory perfect. Drive it for hours, park it and get a 3/4" puddle of oil under the car overnight.....just like factory. Guy came to me and shut the car off and a 8" puddle formed under the car. I had him leave the car and I cleaned all the oil off the thing and drove it around for two hours and shut it down and got 3/4" of oil overnight. I called the owner back and took him for a drive and showed him that it did not leak anymore than is was supposed to. He then tells me it's the freeway driving that makes it leak. So, I let him drive me.......that is where the wheels fell off the bus. He hit the freeway and wound the thing out doing 70+. I just sat there and said nothing. When we got back to my house I had him park in the dirt when he shut it off and it poured oil out the bottom. I politely told him he needed to sell the car. He asked why. I told him the engine was 80+ years old and needed to be driven like an 80 year old car. I told him maximum cruising speed was 50 MPH with only short jumps up to top speed and very rare at that. He told me I rebuilt the engine so it was all new and should be able to do 70 all day. I told him it was built all new to 1929 specs. Had another customer that lugged the piss out of his engines and blew the bottom end out quickly...he did this several times and never learned. I built him another stock engine that he drove half way across the country with no issues. Then he tells me the engine is all messed up and tries to blame me and the machinist. I go look at the car and he has installed an overhead conversion on my engine. He never checked the new head for flat and just bolted it on. The head was way off and things went south....and he blamed me........that was the final straw. I stopped building engines for others. I ended up selling off everything I had for the old cars and walked away from the whole thing...best decision of my life.

[hogaboomer]

People are the worst!!!

[SheffSmoker]

Worth twice that!

That's what I thought! Those big smoker manufacturing guys sure do charge a hell of a lot more. But, if you make it any higher, it just sits and sits forever. I don't know, maybe a guy needs to come up with a better marketing campaign, or just be satisfied with less, but it sure is a lot of work building them.
I just had one idiot offer me $100 for the new Santa Maria I just put up for sale. It's got more than that in it, just in steel and paint. Not to mention the electricity for the welder, the gas and wire, and all the time spent putting it all together. Some people are just plain stupid.

I've had similar - Posted some photos of the finished build on the old socials, had a few friends message me to build them one... As soon as I said how much was in it just in raw materials never mind sundries, power and my time they all baulked with the "But I can buy one from xxx shop for $150..." Sure you can. Go on, see how long it lasts and how well it works, made out of cheap 0.6mm steel.

[EverydayDiesel]

As much as metal is these days I dont see how any of you turn a profit. I need a new hobby, metal working is getting way too expensive

[hogaboomer]

As much as metal is these days I dont see how any of you turn a profit. I need a new hobby, metal working is getting way too expensive

Yeah, it ain't hardly worth messing with right now. That's why I'm using up all my scraps. I bought one new piece of 1 inch angle for this current build, everything else is stuff I already had on hand.