Most profitable use of your table

[ssutton]

Our machines are very versatile in all the things that one can do with them, I am curious as what others have found to be the most profitable use of their machines?

Crafts?

Furniture?

Custom carvings?

Photo work (lithographs)?

cabinets?

custom wood work?

others?

[dertsap]

for me it's the little everyday things
for example : I promised my wife I'd build her some adirondack chairs , so after downloading some free plans I was preparing to use my power tools , tape measure and pencil , then it came to me " what the #e77 am I doing " , I spent a hr on the cad/cam and drew and cam' ed out all of the parts , the arcs and contours are perfect and pretty much idiot proofed from a single bad cut , I could whack off a thousand clones with no effort , and unfortunately I'm sure I will be after friends and family see them

[louieatienza]

I still havven't recouped my investmet yet! Though I did sell a few things that I did well on. The aluminum Harley logo from my Solsylva build, and I've sold a few guitar bodies and actually a couple CNC cut guitar templates as well. Otherwise I'vev been looking for more ways to SPEND money on my machine, rather than MAKE it!

[CarveOne]

So far for me it is just seeing something I built actually work, and exceed my expectations of it. Then seeing the looks I get from others for showing them the Aztec calendars. I'm just starting to see some paying work coming in for my three years of working on these things. I have a long way to go on the software side though.

CarveOne

[ger21]

I won't do any paying work for less than $50/hour, so everything I do is profitable.

I'm getting ready to make 12 2-1/2"x2-1/2" corner blocks/rosettes, @ $20 each. $240 for 3-4 hours of machine time.

[Phife]

Ive had some nice jobs done on my machine, I made 3 wine room doors for around $2200 each, bunch of signs for $80-200, but Im similar to Ger, i dont do work for anything less than $50/h + materials and design/CAD-CAM

My most regular work is making 8x5" ovals from 1/2" plywood, I make 100 at a time for $1 each, takes 30mins to make and the customer supplies the material and does all the sanding and finishing. Easy money..

[allradteam]

I made a cockpit for an ultralight-airplane

Tom from germany

[jsheerin]

I paid for my machine on my first job, but I really built it for myself, not to make money. I have a 40hr a week job that doesn't involve routers. My machine enabled me to do work that otherwise would require tons of manual effort - I could make curved shapes easily. Having the capability to do this kind of stuff let me get a job where 75% of what I billed my client was design work and used specialized expertise I have. But at various points along the way some of that design work had to get translated to reality via my router (and some of it was for electronics that didn't have anything to do with a router). Similar to the other guys, I charge $50/hr for my time + materials. If you know what you're doing you might be able to make money by quoting part prices and then figuring out how to streamline the production process, but that's usually where I get into trouble as I always underestimate how long something will take me. If you have the experience of making a couple of parts like that previously, you could already have a good idea and know how much to charge.