Reverb, the other things that help a lot is smart purchasing & lean manufacturing. With people going out of biz fairly regularly or downsizing, if you have some capital and a sharp eye, you can p/u blanks. tools and other materials for pennies on the dollar at times. I’m always looking for new supply sources that may beat out my established ones instead of assuming I’m getting the best price. Even building materials from my shop initally came from looking in the “Free” section of Craig’s List. I got black carpet, a door, lumber and 300 fluorescent tubes that way. I bought a brand new air conditioner for $60 still in the box.
I learned a long time ago that in business EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE.
A good example of Lean Manufacturing is use of UV resin. When I do hotcoats, I walk the tape line with a Dixie cup collecting excess resin before pulling the tape. The tape is lower cost tape - not high temp. that I pull before flashing in the sun. The resin in the Dixie cup goes toward installing leashcups and fin boxes.
I use wax paper for masking off large areas while spraying colors on foam. You can do your primary tape line down, then lay the clear waxpaper out and cut with a razor as needed and tape into place. You can reuse large portions of the wax paper thereby saving even more $.
I find huge savings from time to time on chip, foam, and glossing brushes at places like Harbor Freight. The 4" brush I pay $3 to $4 at Ace or Home Depot ended up 79 cents on sale at HF. Now I have 20.
The big production drains for me are acetone, high grade tape, abrasives, and sometimes paint. That is other than the obvious material expenditures of blanks, fin systems, resin and cloth.
I drastically reduced my use of acetone by using UV resin and brushes I can throw away once they outlive their use doing service with UV resin (or epoxy). I only buy razor blades in boxes for cheap. I buy volume of foam, fins systems, paint and fiberglass. The resin is my area I need to improve on because I’m staying with 5 gal. containers to maintain a legal hobby status on my property. That jacks my gallon price up versus a drum, but I will have a drum delivered to a friend’s warehouse soon, then pump out 5 gallon containers from there.
I clear my abrasives with those gum rubber cleaners and was delighted to find they actually DO extend the life of high grade Norton abrasives. I tried the cheap sandpapers from HF but only with limited success. There are certain things you can’t go cheap on.
I use plastic containers for my resin tubs. Trader Joe’s has a V8 type drink that I cut the tops off to use for lam resin and the tops are perfect for funnels when straining paint and finish resin.
Be creative and put the savings in your pocket. It’s not always what you make as much as what you keep?
