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Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

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Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#291

Post by jonah »

soared wrote: post #36

Seeds, saplings, etc. Small houseplants and barely sprouted houseplants sell for a lot on Etsy and other sites and require very moderate amounts space and money. The difficulty is skill. Plants can be hard to grow and it’s easy to make a mistake that ruins lots of your crop!

Do note that commercial nurseries are generally licensed and inspected by your state agriculture department or some agency.

Not spreading plant diseases around ends up being a big deal.

However, the inspection and license is not very hard or expensive.

(My dad grows and sells seedlings of a particular and somewhat obscure native fruit as a side business.)

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#292

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

daenz wrote: post #176
12ian34 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm facilitating war, even if it means defence just doesn't sit quite right with me. shame we live in a world where this is even a thing

>even if it means defence Can you elaborate on why you feel uncomfortable with the idea of defense? Related[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operations_other_than...

As a US citizen in a place that's more or less evenly red/blue split, and given the trajectory of US politics lately, I'm worried that if I help improve US military technology, it will later be used against me or my neighbors.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#293

Post by mikewarot »

smm11 wrote: post #126

HP started in a garage. So did Apple. And some dude built a nuke in his. Have fun.

>And some dude built a nuke in his.

David Hahn[1] made an EPA Superfund site, not a nuclear weapon. Generally, the resources of a nation-state are required to build nuclear weapons. I hope it stays that way.

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#295

Post by mikewarot »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #202

About a million things? Art, furniture, metal gears, food, seedlings, chickens, printed t-shirts, shoes, electronics, bicycles, pottery, brooms, woven fabric, a bespoke suit. A car. It'd be easier to list what you can't manufacture in a 2 car garage.

>metal gears

It is surprising how much you have to know to make gears to be used in mechanical power transmission. It's not magic, and definitely doable, but you can't just cut them out out of sheet stock on a CNC router and expect them to work for years.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#296

Post by elevaet »

adrianmonk wrote: post #163

An apartment. Might or might not be legal. The disadvantage is you can only make one, but the advantage is recurring revenue once you've made it.

Similarly, storage lockers. Might be simpler to set up, but probably less income.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#297

Post by Arainach »

jfim wrote: post #80
derekp7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does making your own product on a home 3D printer compare to the cost per unit of having something like Shapeways or similar do it? Out of curiosity, I took my design for a Dremel gig that is about 4 - 5 hours of total printing time (biggest part is 3 hours, and several 1/2 hour pieces), and a single unit cost from an online quote was roughly $35. Plus there is a good selection of materials, including metal optio…

The material costs for 3D printing are really small. A 1kg spool of PLA is in the order of 20-30 USD, and most 3D prints have only a small amount of infill, so they're surprisingly light for their volume. For example, I designed a set of sprockets to drive my blinds, and the total weight of the sprockets to drive 3 sets of blinds is less than 15 grams of plastic. This goose-shaped figurine is about 35g of plastic: ht…

The labor costs aren't, however. I've helped maintain various maker spaces. Most 3D printers were nightmares that were constantly breaking down. The most reliable we've found have been the Prusas, and even they require regular work. We have 4 at the moment, and at any given time at least 1 is usually down for some reason or other.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#298

Post by justinlloyd »

I don't know what you can do in your garage, but in my two car garage I can do:

  * Basic blacksmithing (small furnace & anvil)
  * Woodwork using power tools & manual tools (table saw, miter saw, router table, band saw, planer, etc)
  * Metal working
  * Ceramics casting
  * Jewelry making
  * 3D printing (resin and reel)
  * Laser cutting (48 x 24)
  * Vacuum forming
  * Robotics
  * Paint spraying (just bought a five stage paint blower)
  * CNC (small format, would like to add a 5-axis eventually)
  * Shoot build videos
  * Electronics design & diagnostics (just finished my new ESD workbench with component storage)
  * Laundry
  * Mini-CostCo with freezer section
Will be adding a 48x48 CNC in the coming weeks, once I finish some more cabinets

What I cannot do in my garage:

  * Park a car
  * Find enough time to do what I want
If you've got a 4x8 CNC and/or large format laser cutter, you pretty much have a small business at that point. It is then up to you how you monetize it.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#299

Post by nl »

atourgates wrote: post #178
paulmd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think super-niche small-run hobby/lifestyle/specialty products are the big answer if you want to monetize your skills and experience. I'm really into analog photography and I can think of several products that people (including myself) would pay for but that it's just not economically feasible for a big company to hire a bunch of people and pay them wages, health insurance, and 401ks to make, on top of the actual c…

Similarly - I was recently looking for a replacement pivot for my mountain bike, and found a machine shop in Whistler, BC (arguably the current Mecca of mountain biking) that specializes in making upgrades for parts that regularly fail in current models, as well as specialized accessories. https://pinnermachineshop.com/

I think specialist components for niche hobbies is a great niche generally - especially when the hobby has the potential to blow up into something bigger.

Bikepacking bags (and to some extent ultra-light hiking) are good examples that come to mind where people started things as hobby businesses in their garage and they quickly expanded because of demand.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#300

Post by h4waii »

linsomniac wrote: post #186
h4waii wrote: post #5

I currently manufacturer a fairly niche product with nothing but a 7 year old $250 3d printer, some off the shelf parts, and a bit of custom electronics. Very high profit margin, as I am the only producer of this item (!). I'd love to move to a more "robust" process, but options for materials and widespread access to 3d printing provides a lot of versatility for a single-person business where I want to control the en…

This is basically how Lulzbot started: 3d printing parts for 3d printers. I know at one point they were experimenting with making molds and pouring parts, I think out of resin. But when I toured their new facility a few years later, they had a giant farm of 3D printers, so I gather that didn't work out. I have since gotten into 3d printing and have printed molds and poured silicone with good luck. Some of that silico…

Thanks for this suggestion!

I have looked at SLA printing and "bench/desktop" injections molding setups like MicroMolder, but I've ruled those out cause I don't have enough ventilation or appropriate space for handling resin -- I don't actually do this in a garage, but a spare room.

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