I have a question gentlemen

[mgbrv8]

I have a young 15yr old nephew that I have been chopping at the bit to get in the shop for years. Well he has been my apprentice for a year and a half now. And is soaking up knowledge faster that I can recall it. To say he is doing me proud is a understatement. Now I offered to buy him his own lathe cause he has been doing hours of research to see which one he would want to be his first. Now he floored me when he said that he wants to earn his first lathe and dosent want to take my money but make his own. Now his idea is very noble he wants to make a product on my lathes and mills and sell them on ebay to earn enough to buy and tool up his own machine. I offered to loan him the money for materials at least, and he agreed to that. Now that is were I would like your help. What to make?? Any suggestions?

Dave

 

[kustomkb]

Put an ad on your local, "craigs list", type, website for a turner for hire.

They will have all kinds of odd, profitable, requests which will challenge his skills.

 

[DickDastardly40]

What a creditable young man; nice that he wants to make something, I'm not sure if my nephew has ever made a cup of coffee.

As to what to make to sell, I would suggest something so that he can make it within his current skill set to a high standard, and something which doesn't have too high a materials cost to maximise profit and reduce initial outlay.

How about something along the line of finger engines or sterling engines of which several exceptional examples of both types are shown on this site. Rather than Ebay which may need careful research to sell his wares so that a search for something else pulls them up, he could make several and sell 'em at a craft fair, market stall or show.

It might be easier to make a batch at a time to make set-ups easier with jigs and fixtures.

Good luck to him, I would like to see what you come up with.

 

[pcw]

yeah, teens at that age can realy soak up knowledge if they want to.
i am teaching a kid here in town how to weld, i was welder all my life till my legs got messed up. he is known as problem kid and is in special school cause his IQ is on very low side.
well, he realy isnt the brightest kid, but he can weld better at his age, also 15 than lots of long year welders ive seen.
trying to get him on a normal education where he can skip theory and just do the welding classes so he can get a grade in that so he maybe can work as welder.

thumbs up for your nephew. i would say, buy him nice used lathe and give to him for the work he did for you. would be great teaching experience to rebuilt/repaint the lathe?

idea maybe. those arty turned cubes make lovely pieces of art.

maybe they can be sold quite well. "tiny" steam on nice display, with engraved nameplate on request maybe that too. sterling engine might sell as well.
pascal

 

[t_ottoboni]

I vote for a stirling or finger engine too, because he can sell it for a good money and it don't require a boiler or an ir source to play with.
I don't know the size of parts he is used to make, but jewelry is also a nice thing, like these:

 

[mgbrv8]

These are good dose anyone else have any good ideas?

Dave

 

[Mainer]

Try for something with high saleability that takes a relatively short time to make, so he doesn't end up spending 40 hours making something that can reasonably be sold for at most 10 dollars or whatever.

I like the finger engine idea. Another thing along those lines would be the gadget that is a square block with two captive bars sliding in grooves at 90 degrees to each other, connected by a crank handle.

That turner's cube is beautiful and would probably sell well, but the price/time ratio might not work out favorably. However, if you got tooled up to make them with an appropriate fixture to hold the block for rapid indexing of the faces (as per Guy Lautard's directions) you might be able to turn them out at a profitable speed. I've made one, and it took me longer to make the fixture and grind the special lathe bits than it did to make the cube.

Candlesticks, maybe?

 

[tattoomike68]

Teach him to cold hand forge rings made from coins. Mom, grandma and all the girls will want one. he will crow like a rooster. 8)

Lots of youtube videos showing how. One is mine. Its the one with the drunk guy with foul language, :big:

 

[Tin Falcon]

Dave : A 64 K$ question. I like the kids style.
I did the pen and pencil thing when I started out. I guess I have made something over a 100 sets over time from Corian and wood. We gave a lot as gifts sold some to friends.here is one supplier I have used. http://www.pennstateind.com/
check out the kits section for many more ideas.
I also have purchased supplies here.
http://www.woodcraft.com/Category/1001056/Pen-Kits.aspx
Tin

 

[steamer]

I would think a pen/pencil set would sell...

Dave

 

[Tin Falcon]

Doll house folks and miniature collectors might like something like this.

Tin

 

[mgbrv8]

Good thinking with the pens . And I would have never thought of the Doll house accessories.. Great ideas guys keep them coming.

Dave

 

[MachineTom]

A simple thing to make is double faced quarters, materials cost $.50 and two soft collets. To make the qtr, bore a collet .003 less diameter of qtr, depth.090 less than QTR measured at the rim, bore out the tails side of the qtr up to the inside of the rim, and .070 deep, a solid carbide boring bar with a sharp edge is needed for the nickle clad copper, the last cut after size is.001-2 infeed only, this to create a taper of the bore, and is the key to getting an invisible joint. Now measure the bore, and bore another collet .002 less that D, and a depth of .060, 2nd qtr face out turn to size of bore +.001, now face in on the 2nd collet, turn off the tail face leaving a piece about .060, clean the burrs off the edge, if you measured right, heat up the bored qtr, press in the turned face, 180° to the other, and Bingo you have a double faced Quarter. It may pop apert if thrown on the floor, if loose acouple drops of CA, then make another that fits correctly. About 1 hour of less, after the first couple.

I've done various NUT puzzles, simplest is 2, 5/8 12L14 rods because they thread so nice, a 3/8 LH thread to join, thread the center 2/3 lenght, leaving unthreaded each end, outer 5/8 nf, make or buy a nut. Those are quick to make. If you want complex send me a PM.

 

[mgbrv8]

I have always wondered about making those and selling them. Cant you get in trouble for defacing currency? Well not that the present Gov. isn't doing plenty of it on there own. I really like that coin idea. I am putting all this together and let him choose I want him to do decide on this on his own. I really appreciate all the great ideas.

Dave

 

[Dan Rowe]

Dave,
A simple puzzle that can be a lot more complex than most people think is the burr puzzle.

There is a lot of information here. I have one in wood that takes 9 slides to remove the first piece.
http://www.research.ibm.com/BurrPuzzles/index.html

Dan

 

[iomnick]

It would possibaly be a good idea to tap into amature motorsport.
I do a lot of alloy bushes and foot pegs for motorcycle racers. Standard front and rear wheel bearing bushes are steel on most Japanese bikes and racers like to reduce weight so can be made in an inexpencive alloy, they dont take bearing load just hold alignment. Race bikes also normaly ditch the speedo drive from the front wheel so need a custom spacer to replace it with.
Foot pegs can easaly be made and turned out buy the dozen to a standard format with a 8mm threded mount.
If he gets ingenious he could make his own rearsets. Same with faring mounts these get busted in a acident and are farly standard for 250 and 125 machines.
If he does the first one for free and the biker comes along with the bits or bike for your nepheu to measure then he has the patern to market them on Ebay and can make them as he sells them.
I would stay away from high l;oad items like axels and spindels unless he and you are confadent in selecting the correct grade of material.
Cheers Nick

 

[NickG]

I was considering this at one point. I was going to design a small oscillator with common parts that could be build basically into any configuration - vertical, inverted vertical, horizontal, twin cyl. etc!

Oscillators are great beginners engines but also very rewarding when you get them running. It needs to be something in my opinion, high value low volume. Otherwise it will be incredibly tedious churning out loads of the same part.

Looking at your avatar though - why not just make a lathe?!

Nick

 

[mgbrv8]

I sure like these ideas. This is why I love machining, it makes one think outside of the box. We are truly few and far between. This is why I want to nurture this mindset with my nephew. Keep them coming gentlemen.

Dave

 

[mgbrv8]

He is designing and building a wobbler engine right now. I dont have the heart to tell him that it is too complex for resale right now. I am using this project to teach him a little CAD. I want him to finish it and take note of his time and see what can be done to speed it up and let him decide. He is loving your ideas though. He commented "You have alot of really smart friends" I commented "a smart man has smarter friends then him"

Dave

 

[crab]

How about some lathe or mill tooling?I made one of these QCTP for a unimat db200 I had that worked very good.I made 2 tool holders and a boring bar holder for it.I sold it on ebay for 65 bucks.
http://homepage.mac.com/bhagenbuch/machine/pages/freeby.html

Crab