Starting a Custom CNC Shop: Things I wish I Knew 2 Years Ago

A little over two years ago, I pretty much left CNCKing.com as/is as I dived head first into building my custom CNC shop, CNCROi.com.

Things will take longer and cost more than you think!

Starting CNCROi.com has taken an incredible amount of time and resources to get going, if you think just buying a top of the line laser equals instant riches, you are wrong! I’d say that whatever the value of your equipment is, you need to double that to account for other tools that you will need to feed said equipment.

Things will also take a long while to get going as well, when I ordered my Trotec Speedy 400 flexx from Trotec, it took a bit more than two months to arrive. I was on vacation after spending two years in Australia, in China, at the time so that time flew by but when I was done with that end, I realized slowly, that with every project, I needed more!

More equipment, more supplies, more suppliers, more material… it never ends and this continues to this day!

Customers can take their time, you can’t!

My days at CNCKing.com designing project files for all of you to buy and download where rather relaxing and straight forward.

Decide on a project, boot-up the computer, design, then animate, make assembly instructions and repeat.

My days at CNCROi.com are quite a bit different, check email, answer questions, give quotes, answer more questions, give out more quotes, thinking of an easy way to do a project within customer’s budget, more emails, more quotes, finding suppliers… repeat. Sometimes I get lucky and can start on a project right away as the correct files are at hand, budget is realistic and material is in the shop!

Regardless of how long it takes the customer to get back to me, I have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice for two reasons, first, the customer wants their stuff yesterday but also, I can’t have projects build-up in the shop as I never know when I’ll get go-ahead on another project that may be huge and I have to focus all my energy on completing.

You want to succeed in CNC? You need to be on the ball!

I couldn’t have thought of a better training ground for what I do now than CNCKing.com, I spent YEARS talking to CNC owners, big and small, getting a feel for what the real business of CNC entails.

I talked to lots of great manufacturers to get an idea of what is good and bad in a machine and what price points where worth going after and those that weren’t.

I taught myself how to design, an invaluable skill for CNCROi.com’s customers. That by far is my biggest differentiator as whatever a customer throws my way, after designing over 200 3D puzzles and models myself, I can always one-best them. What I mean is that regardless of complexity, I can actually give good advice with REAL EXPERIENCE to back me up.

Physically building stuff teaches you valuable virtual design lessons

With CNCKing.com, just about the entire process was entirely virtual, from design to animation, there was nothing ever built-in real life. This was great but I’ve learned so much since then actually building projects both for myself and customers.

I was great at half the game, now I’m even better at the other half, which makes everything dramatically better overall! I wrote 5 books BEFORE I actually started REALLY building designs in the physical world. Teaching people how to design for CNC machines, when I didn’t have one by the way, it quite a learning experience in itself but having the machine in the shop with as much access as I want to learn has made me a far more efficient and “smart designer”.

Materials never end!

Do you know why just about everything on CNCKing.com was a plywood design? Yes, it was consistent but also, that was the ONLY MATERIAL I KNEW! My ShopBot Desktop is fantastic with plywood and that’s all it ever did. Bits? Just one bit, always the same, each and every time!

Corian, MDF, veneer etc… I had really no clue until my last volume the diversity of materials available out there. Being self-taught in literally everything I do has great advantages, you don’t know what you don’t know and quickly master what you do!

Most people don’t understand the power of CUSTOM

Before starting CNCROi.com, I spent about 8 years building and designing stuff for CNCKing.com. Each and every project was custom, each customer was in the same business and it was great!

What I didn’t realize was that most customers really don’t fully appreciate what’s possible using this machinery, much less design for them. What I consider easy and straight forward, is a deal breaker to them. How?

Most people are comfortable issuing the same PO each time something is needed in the business, whether it’s pencils or corporate awards. This works great as there is no thought involved, there is no challenge and doesn’t rock the boat. It’s easy!

Going full-on custom, now we need to establish volumes, budgets, volumes, design etc… oh oh, customer suddenly realizes that they’ll have some work to do, approvals to receive and meetings to make sure their decisions are the proper one for their boss and company.

My goal with CNCKing.com was to how “easy” this stuff really is and with CNCROi.com, my ongoing goal is exactly the same. Custom isn’t hard, send me your budget, material preference and a sketch and we’ll handle everything else. You can be as involved or hands-off as you wish.

The possibilities are ENDLESS!

In all reality, CNCKing.com is a never-ending business, there is always “one more design” that can be made, one more book published and one more customer wanting something. CNCROi.com is exactly the same, the difference is that instead of me coming-up with something, the customer has an idea upon which I must grow a project from.