Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 50 total)
  • Best one+ man small businesses man in a shed type job / businesses
  • TheBrick
    Free Member

    Over the years I’ve meet a few people with random small businesses ran from small units, sheads e.t.c that seem to be pretty profitable and the owner operators seem to enjoy them. One man plus a helper or two. Most of the time thing I would have never thought of or heard of. Met someone who does machine control as a one man band and seems to make good money but a lot of travel. Another guy seemed to do pretty well out of timber framing.

    What type trade do you think leads on to the best of small one / two man buisnnes that you have come across All in money, work interest / variety e.t.c

    Jobbing machinest I recon would make very good money and be interesting.

    qwerty
    Free Member

    Meth lab.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Hello, is it me you’re looking for? 😀

    https://theta360.com/s/2zDsYdt8DY5AHG4GxObOEAgqm

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    TheBrick
    Free Member

    That is one organised work shop!

    project
    Free Member

    rent boy

    mos
    Full Member

    A mates dad does high precision but fairly straightforward machining in his garage. Couple of hardinge lathes and a few other bits of kit (3 ph rectifier needed ). He is about 70 and people just keep throwing work at him. He does a lot of small batch work for car manufacturers.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    One I like is a little engineering shop to the North of Glasgow, though the name cracks me up. It used to be Blane Engineering, then he bought a new milling machine and renamed it Blane Precision Engineering 😉

    There was also a really cool little modelmaking place in a back lane in Park Circus – a converted coach house, where they made models of ships for BAE etc. Not sure it still exists, but that was very cool.

    bedmaker
    Full Member

    I fit woodburners. I only use a small shed to store some supplies in, and work from a van.
    I find it interesting and rewarding.
    It’s not rocket science, but it’s not easy either. Plenty money in it if you work smart and keep people happy.

    badnewz
    Free Member

    As above, model making can bring in a good income if you pick the right market and are exceptionally good.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Yes, there’s also Finch & Fouracre who do some really cool stuff:

    http://www.finchandfouracre.co.uk/

    bedmaker
    Full Member

    I worked for a guy a while back who had the very niche (and skilled!) job of painting steam locos and warplanes. Mostly copying pics from books.
    He worked in his kitchen and was constantly flat out. He charged about £150 and they generally went for birthday pressies.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    This lad and son seemed to make it alright.

    TheBrick
    Free Member

    Mr dibnah I don’t think could operate today unfortunately!

    TheBrick
    Free Member

    Not one plus helper but I came across a small foundry the other day doing custom castings, did not think they still existed.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Some people have a knack for finding a market sector that would pretty much have only them in it. The niche exists for them but if one competitor tried to move in then both would fail.

    A nice example not (not actually involving a shed) is I met a guy (and I think) his daughter, craning a 1820s cast iron artists printing press out of 4th floor window ready to move it to another studio and reinstall it. I mentioned in passing that it must have been an usual job for him. Moving and restating old cast iron printing presses between difficult to access studio was his job in trade – and he travels all over Europe doing it

    On another occasion I had the injectors removed, reseated and re-sealed on my Cdi Spinter. They’re notoriously difficult to get out if they’ve been leaking and garages can charge four figures for removing them and might shear the bolts or crack the cylinder head trying, nobody will give you a fixed price to do it…… except for a guy i found who travels the country only removing and replacing injectors on Cdi engines. Fixed price, about the 1/4 anyone else was likely to charge (and in fact 1/10th the price some of his customers had been quoted for work), does one or two customers a day, anywhere in the country the work takes him. Just him and his dog and a little workshop / day camper in an old Vito. Very contented chap!

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Not one plus helper but I came across a small foundry the other day doing custom castings, did not think they still existed.

    Theres a little architectural iron foundry still going in Edinburgh (Laings I think)

    I know that because I’ve got a contract to tour and install an exhibition for history building skills and it include a video of the foundry which means whenever I work on the that show theres a sound track of angle grinders.

    In fact thats a possible angle – to look at Building Conservation agencies and the like are very keen to keep certain skills going – no point giving buildings listed status if theres nobody out there the repair and maintain the features they’ve been listed for

    (edit – theres two foundries – one just opened a couple of years back!)

    revs1972
    Free Member

    I used a small foundry in Newton Abbot to get some finials made up from original Victorian ones. Was great to see a skilled craftsman at work making sand casts, then pouring the molten metal and the finishing them off on the sander.
    I was surprised at how quickly each one was made

    leffeboy
    Full Member

    We had some chairs made by a guy called Melvyn Tolley who seems to have found himself a dying niche as we struggled to find anyone who could make them for us. The folks we found were either running out of wood or retired. He had a shed full of bits of wood that reminded me of the pictures of Shand’s workshop where tubes (bits of wood in this case) had individual people’s names on them. We wasted a very happy morning there drinking tea and chatting about what he does and how he does it. It hadn’t been a lifetime plan for him to do that but circumstances meant that he had an opportunity to learn the skills from someone else at just the right time and managed to start up a small business


    The seat that you see was formed by standing on the piece of wood and carving it out with an adze

    DT78
    Free Member

    Could prob make decent money from restoring scooters and old motorbikes if you have the knowledge and the ability to source.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Ironically, it’s also the internet that often allows businesses like this to exist. I’d certainly never exist without the internet, there aren’t anywhere near enough customers for my esoterica in Glasgow and advertising doesn’t work.

    TheDTs
    Free Member

    This seems to offer a fairly good balance. The Joe is a customer and is one of the most skilled engineers I’ve ever met. His work is pretty amazing and his attention to detail is exceptional.

    Joe Nemeth

    timber
    Full Member

    Father of my wifes best friend makes some very nice fly fishing reels (centrepins?), mostly to order. Couple of years ago he moved the lathe to a new shed in the garden, after 20+ years in the dining room.

    stevied
    Free Member

    Troutie did pretty well before the Chinese invasion of cheap lights. 1 man in a shed..(although I did help out with the initial run of CNC’d light bodies) 😀

    bigblackshed
    Full Member

    Two different friends.

    One makes reproduction pedal cars. Bentleys, Rolls Royce, vintage race cars. My BiL does the log books and era correct tax discs, driving licences in the customers name etc. They sell for 5 figure sums.

    Other be makes reproduction armour. Lots of film work, also very serious and wealthy renactors.

    muppetWrangler
    Free Member

    This seems to offer a fairly good balance. The Joe is a customer and is one of the most skilled engineers I’ve ever met. His work is pretty amazing and his attention to detail is exceptional.

    I have no interest in steam trains and only a passing interest in engineering but that is beautiful work.

    TheBrick
    Free Member

    Quite amazed at the one man taking injectors out of sprinters. What a niche.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    My neighbour used to do that, although his niche was to buy the vans as spares/repairs when the injectors went and fix them for a tidy proffit.

    Less niche, micro brewery? Bit more capital intensive though if you want to be up and running as a money making business atraight away (brewery about £10k, plus £20k for electrics, drains etc).

    isitafox
    Free Member

    A friend of mine restores old jukeboxes, he did it as a hobby for a while but rented a unit earlier this year and went full on as self employed. I never realised but there’s some serious money in that game!

    Bregante
    Full Member

    This bloke.

    Richard Neave

    Had the pleasure of visiting his “lab” many times. It literally is in a shed in his back garden. Probably the most fascinating man I’ve ever met.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    I suppose at the bottom end of the scale is my dad – he makes oboe reeds. Started because they’re expensive, but also because quality is variable, so he now makes them for himself and a bunch of other people. He’s got a little workbench set up with the most beautifully intricate little scraping machines, and got me to make a few modifications and attachments for them.

    Doesn’t do it for the money, though.

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    I did fairly niche data capture work for a large credit card company for about 7 years (me + 2 helpers) – they referred to me a ‘Ted the shed’ 🙂

    marcus
    Free Member

    I’ve managed to run a small geotechnical and environmental consultancy from a shed at the bottom of my garden for the last 5 years. Ive got a couple of subcontract engineers who carry out most of the site works and write up reports remotely from their own homes if required. I’m not sure how many of my clients (and these include some pretty high profiles ones like Local Authorities, Rolls Royce, Carlsberg, Molson Coors, National Grid, etc) are aware how ‘low key’ the company is, but ultimately they probably dont care providing we offer cost effective / sensible solutions to their problems. Having said the above, I’m currently looking for a ‘proper’ office.

    chipsngravy
    Free Member

    I came across The Seatpost Man a few days ago.

    Jack English is pretty inspiring, making violin bows in the middle of nowhere

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6f56Q6-Kcg[/video]

    twixhunter
    Free Member

    Car bodywork paint/scratch repairer. Not major dents, just fixing scratches etc.

    wors
    Full Member

    My granddad used to repair watches. I reckon that could be a nice shed-industry. Or making your own bespoke watches. Hmmmm

    thenorthwind
    Full Member

    This guy springs to mind: http://www.aistoncycleracks.co.uk/about_us.htm

    I’ve yet to visit him, but a mate’s been and said his tiny garage is a monument to organisation.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Well, I just got a new spoke-making machine, from Ric at Wheel Fanatyk – he runs it all from a basement. The machine I bought is a Morizumi, made in a small workshop in Japan:

    Morizumi-san

    RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    I have quite a few friends doing stuff like this;

    Jay&Gary started a business together doing lead work on churches etc, a very skilled hands on job involving bashing lead into shape with a plastic rolling pin type tool.
    The business quickly grew and has morphed into a historical building restoration business as they have now included stone masonry.

    Two other friends have a large format printing business – hire purchased a few large printers which they now own and just do bigger sized print jobs. Happy and paying the bills.

    Another does diesel fuel injection pumps for a living, one man in a shed built up the business but then scaled it down again.

    Another has just quit his CEO job of a large plastics company to spend more time restoring Landrovers.

    Im stuck un happily working in a mulitnational, HS ruled, skint, engineering job!

    willard
    Full Member

    I have a friend that runs a gunsmithing/machining business from his shed, or at least used to until he moved house. I believe now that his workshop is now actually inside his house.

    His work is excellent and he makes a mean cup of coffee too.

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