Changing to fabrication , how feasible

[Oh4Tahoe]

Let’s look at this objectively, I’ve spent my life doing jobs that I enjoy a little bit, but at the end of day like a lot of people I’ve always chased dollar bills. I’ve done cool things, have worked my ass off and have made a good living. But…

I would love to be in the fabrication world , here’s the deal I have 0 experience in off-road fabrication, but I have good fabrication experience and the skills to thrive doing it.

As an almost 40 year old man , what’s the reality of getting in to the world of off-road fab, with zero connections, just a skill set and a passion.

Saturday morning meanderings

 

[exp24]

If you have the basics of welding and fitting parts for a presentable product, that same concept carries over to any type of industry. I would look at a smaller style shop and start getting experience there and work your way up to a reputable shop. Where are you located?

 

[the bodj]

start with side work and build up your reputation and name, then switch over if you want. I’m not doing fan full time for a variety of reasons, but a big one is I’m not beat at the end of every day. Also, I work in a heated/ac building, guaranteed paycheck…

 

[Dirtfiend602]

Speaking from experience I definitely enjoy it more as a hobby now than a full time job . My 2 cents .

 

[Mullen]

I ponder the same question quite often. I’m also almost 40, have a lot of off-road fabrication experience, still have a following even though I closed up shop 10 years ago, and still have a hard time justifying quitting my job to open a new shop.

My financial metric has always been if I could open a shop and have it gross 3x my income by year two, it would be worth it. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), I’ve continued to advance in my career and salary, pushing that number higher over the years. I still think it's possible given my exposure to off-road, but there are many questions to be answered. Here is what runs through my head:

• Most importantly - Do you work to live or live to work? Running your own shop, you'll definitely be in the ladder for a few years.
• What does your current career do for you? Do you make enough money to enjoy the weekends, support your family, etc? Do you work in a field where if you took a step back for a few years to have a shop, it fails, can you get right back into it?
• What hobbies do you have? If you do anything remotely risky (ride dirt bikes, rock climbing, heavy gym work, etc.) you'll constantly be worried about getting hurt and losing business.
• Do you have an exit plan? Most fabricators, myself included, enjoy doing the work themselves which makes an exit plan difficult.
• What's your goal? Do you want to be the next Mazzulla or Morgan Clarke or Camburg? All very different goals and very different mindsets.
• Are you currently financially secure? Could you live for a year without money? How about 2 years?
• Does your wife have a lucrative, stable job with medical insurance?
• Do you have kids, a house, etc. that rely heavily on your income?
• What are you willing to sacrifice? Nights and weekends must be on the table for many years.
• What's your business plan? Think bread and butter vs. enjoyable work.

I maintain a list of possible bolt-on upper arms, kits, etc. that would be the bread and butter of the shop, with the more exotic full-builds reserved to scratch the creativity itch. For what it's worth, I almost went full kill on fab when I graduated from college. A mountain of debt really held me back, perhaps for the better given my current career path and financial standing.

For some insight, I can answer all questions above such that opening a shop sounds like the obvious conclusion, but I still have decided to keep my current job. Perhaps if the company decided I'm no longer economically viable (thanks Falling Down), I will go full in on a shop. Short of that, it's a tough sell for me personally.

I still dream of opening a shop one day. That one day just keeps getting further and further away.

 

[Oh4Tahoe]

I ponder the same question quite often. I’m also almost 40, have a lot of off-road fabrication experience, still have a following even though I closed up shop 10 years ago, and still have a hard time justifying quitting my job to open a new shop.

My financial metric has always been if I could open a shop and have it gross 3x my income by year two, it would be worth it. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), I’ve continued to advance in my career and salary, pushing that number higher over the years. I still think it's possible given my exposure to off-road, but there are many questions to be answered. Here is what runs through my head:

• Most importantly - Do you work to live or live to work? Running your own shop, you'll definitely be in the ladder for a few years.
• What does your current career do for you? Do you make enough money to enjoy the weekends, support your family, etc? Do you work in a field where if you took a step back for a few years to have a shop, it fails, can you get right back into it?
• What hobbies do you have? If you do anything remotely risky (ride dirt bikes, rock climbing, heavy gym work, etc.) you'll constantly be worried about getting hurt and losing business.
• Do you have an exit plan? Most fabricators, myself included, enjoy doing the work themselves which makes an exit plan difficult.
• What's your goal? Do you want to be the next Mazzulla or Morgan Clarke or Camburg? All very different goals and very different mindsets.
• Are you currently financially secure? Could you live for a year without money? How about 2 years?
• Does your wife have a lucrative, stable job with medical insurance?
• Do you have kids, a house, etc. that rely heavily on your income?
• What are you willing to sacrifice? Nights and weekends must be on the table for many years.
• What's your business plan? Think bread and butter vs. enjoyable work.

I maintain a list of possible bolt-on upper arms, kits, etc. that would be the bread and butter of the shop, with the more exotic full-builds reserved to scratch the creativity itch. For what it's worth, I almost went full kill on fab when I graduated from college. A mountain of debt really held me back, perhaps for the better given my current career path and financial standing.

For some insight, I can answer all questions above such that opening a shop sounds like the obvious conclusion, but I still have decided to keep my current job. Perhaps if the company decided I'm no longer economically viable (thanks Falling Down), I will go full in on a shop. Short of that, it's a tough sell for me personally.

I still dream of opening a shop one day. That one day just keeps getting further and further away.

If I’m being honest , I don’t want to have my own shop. Perfect situation would be to make a good living hammering cool shit out for a cool shop . I don’t have the entrepreneurial bug in myself and I could be happy just building cool machines

 

[the bodj]

If I’m being honest , I don’t want to have my own shop. Perfect situation would be to make a good living hammering cool shit out for a cool shop . I don’t have the entrepreneurial bug in myself and I could be happy just building cool machines

I think it would be hard paying bills while working FOR someone at a shop

 

[Cleandezert]

i am curious of the people who do fab work for a living... do you loose your passion for it? about 20 yrs ago i got a job offer from a fab shop, and i turned it down as i wasnt sure i wanted to turn my hobby into a living.... I often times saw people stop working on thier own toys as they worked on them all day at work and didnt wanna do the same thing after hours.

 

[FENDERFAB]

I do some small side fab jobs here and there. My full time job is construction.

After being involved in the offroad world for the past 15 years this is my thought on it.

A job will always be a job- I have learned that even doing small side projects i dont really enjoy working on peoples projects, i prefer to work on my own stuff. I work hard enough at my day job i rather have offroad stuff be my hobby and nothing more.

With the offroad industry i feel that everyone wants the nicest shit but wants to spend the least amount possible. Yes you always have a handful of people with big pockets but they all have their own operations and whole program situated. They are going to go to high level fabricators and spend the money for top tier work.

The market is pretty flooded- theres alot of good fabricators out there now. 15 years ago you only had a handful of shops out there building suspension kits (Camburg, H&M, Blitz) and very few "Fab shops" Now a days theres a ton of pretty talented guys that are affordable as well.

Most fab shops dont pay nearly enough to be able to be successful working for someone. You might get 30-35$ an hour working at a fab shop. Your not going to get rich or even be able to support a decent lifestyle working as a fabricator in a shop. Thats why you see alot of guys that have been down this route starting their own shops. Even then, to actually make it you need to put out some cutting edge work (MCD1 level) or be killing the market with on the shelf parts ( upper arms etc). Again this market is pretty flooded- theirs TONS of options for pre fab parts for almost any platform. The only way to set yourself apart from the competition is to have a unique part or have cheaper pricing. As we all know everything is really expensive these days.

Anyways just my .02 on the topic. Interested to see what others say.

 

[DP_Tundra]

If you’re looking to get into fabrication just working for a shop, keep in mind that the highest paid guys top out around $40 an hour. And I mean the highest level of the weld porn TIG guys working for the big name shops. The guys doing all the fab work are slightly less than that.

Also keep in mind a lot of those guys still do side jobs, weekend work, night shift, etc. A couple of the higher end weldors also give classes on occasion which sounds very lucrative.

So yea if you can provide for your family at 30-40 bucks an hour on the top end of the spectrum, get to learnin! Keep in mind it will take time to get up there if you don’t already have to skills to get hired at 30+ an hour.

 

[Dsrtrcr01]

Just throwing this out there. I enjoy fab and working on vehicles. MY buddy and I did fab work early/mid 90's and had a little business type thing going. I worked my way through school. Graduated and got a job. That whole time me and my buddies enjoyed working on trucks and all that. Fast forward a few years... My friends all own fab or automotive shops. I work in SW. I still have my hobby and enjoy fabbing and tinkering on the trucks and cars. They want nothing to do with them.

I know everyone says do what you love and you'll never work a day... but in my experience it was do what you love until you hate it. Ha.

 

[FENDERFAB]

Another thing to add-

Alot of the big name fabricators and shops out there have been around for a long time. They have proven their name and work over the years and adapted their companies to ride with the current desires and market trends. Take a look at all the big hitters (Mazzulla, Camburg, Kibbe, etc)-- first of all they have been around for years. Most of these guys started when prerunners were just getting popular and social media (15 years ago or longer) and quickly made a name for themselves by creating something that people werent used to seeing every day. Prerunners were a rare breed of vehicle back then. Now you see them mainly focusing on off the shelf parts (Billet upper arms, links, raptor parts etc). Now a days you see countless Raptors, trx, and other vehicles with bolt on Lt kits, upper arms, bolt on king shocks etc. None of that stuff existed years ago.

Along with social media there has been a huge light shed on this industry and although there are alot of people interested, anyone will be hard pressed to start a business and be able to be successful in this category. The market is flooded with parts, support, and availability.

I can go onto any spectrum of this industry with the same argument. Look at the shock game- im sure @DialedShockPrep has some insight on this. When i built my truck kevin was one of the only ones i knew of other than the SDG and KDM that was doing shock tuning. Now you have a bunch of shock guys out there offering the same services.

The industry is extremely competitive and unless you have found a missing sector of the industry that you can capitalize on the juice just isnt worth the squeeze. Kalil fab did a great job focusing on the tacoma prelander scene. Thats all he does now aside from a few bigger projects on an occasional basis.

Its no different from the weed game here in california. 5-10 years ago you could have gotten in the scene and been super successful. Good luck now opening a clinic and making it. Theres a shop on every corner and too much competition to be able to get into a profitable situation.


Anyways i beat this horse to death, just my opinion.

 

[Brett_408]

Just throwing this out there. I enjoy fab and working on vehicles. MY buddy and I did fab work early/mid 90's and had a little business type thing going. I worked my way through school. Graduated and got a job. That whole time me and my buddies enjoyed working on trucks and all that. Fast forward a few years... My friends all own fab or automotive shops. I work in SW. I still have my hobby and enjoy fabbing and tinkering on the trucks and cars. They want nothing to do with them.

I know everyone says do what you love and you'll never work a day... but in my experience it was do what you love until you hate it. Ha.

Nailed it! All my friends that fabricate or work in the "industry" want nothing to do with it in their off time and have either sold or abandoned any personal projects they had. Now they either have SXS's (GAY) or nothing at all. I've kept fab and offroad my hobby and genuinely get excited to get in the garage and build any chance I get.