Garage business: how to make money on unusual metal sculptures

For any type of business, the main goal is profitability. A metal trading business will not be an exception, since this is precisely why the entrepreneur invests money and spends his energy. The main thing in this matter is to choose the most suitable field of activity for yourself, draw up a clear business plan and take into account various factors that can negatively or positively affect further work and income generation. If a businessman decides to engage in such a complex business as metal trading, first of all he will have to take care of drawing up a clear business plan, a premises with the necessary equipment and the selection of qualified employees.

Where to start your own business selling metal?

Metal trading is a complex business and requires careful preparation before investing. First of all, you need to study the market and understand which products are most widely represented and which are in greatest demand. This will allow you to analyze the competition and calculate investments with return on investment.

Obtaining information about companies that occupy this niche is an important condition, since the product must be competitive in order for business activities to bring the proper profit.

In any type of trade, seasonality plays an important role. Selling metal is no exception. It is important to take into account that at certain times of the year the sale of metal products (for example, metal siding) will be more active. This is due to the fact that construction opens much more often during the warm season.

An important issue is the markup that an entrepreneur can set on his product. In order to understand the approximate cost of the metal, you need to monitor prices taking into account all nearby competitors. In addition, it is worth viewing data from the World Wide Web. On the websites of metal sellers you can find a lot of interesting information that will be useful when organizing a business.

Once these issues have been resolved, you can start looking for premises. It should be large and best of all, if it is an industrial zone. It is necessary to immediately select qualified personnel. A significant part of the success of the entire enterprise depends on the work of hired employees, so everyone, from the loader to the manager, must do their job efficiently.

Think before you decide to open a business, weigh the pros and cons. Perhaps another type of activity is more suitable for you, for example, opening a coworking center. We invite you to learn more about the correct investment of money and make money from it.

Manufacturing of metal products: where to start?

Starting a business requires paperwork. Next you will need to rent a room. If you own your own garage, then you can implement business ideas related to metal products right there. This way you will save on rent. The main stage is the purchase of equipment. You will need:

• welding machine;
• compressor;
• welding table;
• Grinder;
• slipway;
• cutting machine

The total amount of equipment reaches 350,000 rubles. Do not be afraid of such costs, because when your first clients appear, your business will begin to bring in large profits.

Market analysis is one of the important components of implementing this idea. Find out which metal products are popular among residents of your region. The more interesting the products produced, the more customers you can attract.

What can be made from metal is described below.

Will ferrous metal products be in demand?

This type of material always sells well; at the moment, ferrous metal products are one of the top positions in the construction industry. This material is reliable and durable. In terms of price and quality ratio, it simply has no competitors. For this reason, investments in the metal trade, or rather in products that are manufactured by cold or hot processing of this material, will be very profitable at any time.

A construction site simply cannot do without metal products. The demand for such products is consistently high, but a metal trading business will also require certain investments. This needs to be taken into account before you think about opening a metal sales outlet.

What metals are best to trade? Product range

Metal products that are then traded by businessmen can be made of various metals. These are not necessarily ferrous metallurgy products, although this option is in great demand due to its relevance in construction. But we can’t help but mention products made of non-ferrous metals. In this case, the most popular type of product can be called a corner, which is made from non-ferrous rolled metal on special machines. It is widely used not only in construction and repair, but also in creating artistic compositions. Many street art objects are made using metal corners.

Blanks of various sections and widths are produced from steel. After this, they are turned into building materials used in the construction of houses. As a striking example of this type of product, we can note rolled metal of a square section, which will be twisted in the form of a rod. Afterwards the workpiece is cut, and standard fittings come out.

It is used not only in construction, but also for the manufacture of nets, street benches, and gates. Metal profiles are in great demand, which is used to form reinforced concrete structures and create elements in mechanical engineering.

The range of metal products is quite wide. This should include solid metal wheels, balls and much more that sell well and are in demand. Given the wide range of possible products and the dimensions of the goods, it is necessary to take care of the premises for storing and selling metal. Most often, entrepreneurs organize a warehouse store. It's convenient and profitable.

We must not forget that products such as metal products are very bulky and heavy. Most customers buy it in large quantities and ask for delivery. To do this, a businessman must have a truck.

Types of metal structures and their purpose

To ensure exact matching of parts during installation, special equipment is used during their manufacture. Frames and metal structures used in construction are made from steel or rolled steel. The introduction of modern production technologies contributed to the production of a wide range of standard assembly kits. When ordering products in this form, the time for design and construction work is significantly reduced, and approval procedures with RosTechNadzor authorities are simplified. In addition to those metal structures that are most often in demand, the production association is engaged in the manufacture of capacitive and reservoir equipment. Such equipment can also be made according to standard or individual orders. Metal structures of this type have been developed and used mainly in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries. In addition, capacitive equipment is used in other areas, these can be:

• Drainage systems;
• Containers for various liquids;
• Capacitive devices of any shape;
• Receivers;
• Various tanks.

The structures have single-wall and double-wall buildings. Depending on the purpose, the necessary coating is applied. Depending on the type of installation, they can be installed vertically or horizontally. Heat exchange equipment has also become in demand today in various industries. This type of device is also manufactured at the production association Remstoymash LLC. The high quality of heat exchangers produced at the enterprise guarantees good performance throughout their entire service life. The company's engineers have developed original circuits for filtering equipment that is produced at the enterprise. They allow you to capture solid inclusions as small as 0.2 microns. In addition to the production of filters for liquids, the association has established the production of filter systems for gas purification. High-quality management and the introduction of innovative technologies into production processes allow the association to maintain selling prices for its products at a low level. Factory production lines are systematically modernized without stopping work processes. The new technologies being introduced make it possible to produce high-quality products that meet all necessary requirements and reduce production time.

How much can you earn from metal trading?

In general, you can earn a lot by selling metal, but to do this you need to properly organize your business and arrange wholesale supplies from profitable and trusted suppliers.

It is with the choice of a manufacturing plant that there are often problems, since you need to choose a company that will offer products at a low wholesale price and in no case will disrupt deliveries. The correct location of the warehouse-shop, that is, with access roads and away from competitors, and competent advertising events will do their job and the business will certainly become profitable.

How much money do you need to start a business?

Metal trading is a rather expensive type of business, requiring large initial and monthly investments. According to conservative estimates, opening a warehouse for storing and processing products, together with the initial purchase of metal and necessary equipment, will cost 3-5 million rubles. Separate expense items will include: registration of permits, salaries of personnel, contracts with transport companies for transportation, etc. In addition, the amount of initial investment will also depend on the choice of the type of metal that is intended to be traded. If, after drawing up organizational and production plans, it turns out that it is profitable to work with non-ferrous metals and products, then the initial amount for the implementation and promotion of the business will be from 10 million rubles.

Production stages

The production of metal structures is carried out according to the following algorithm:

• creating a drawing - developing a project on the basis of which a future product will be manufactured;
• preparation of necessary raw materials - selection, purchase, delivery;
• metal processing - marking, cutting, giving the desired size and shape;
• welding work - making the necessary holes, welding elements using special devices;
• final work - coating with anti-corrosion agents, priming and painting.

Finished products are moved to a warehouse for storage or immediately delivered to the customer.

Manufacturing process

What equipment to choose for metal trading

To trade metal, both ferrous and non-ferrous, you will need to purchase a large number of different equipment and tools. The most common ones at metal depots include:

• Tap.
• Loaders.
• Welding.
• Installations for plasma cutting.
• Hydraulic presses, etc.

Inside the warehouses, you will need to equip special racks and shelves on which metal, its scraps and all kinds of metal products will be stored. It is imperative to have several scales, including for trucks. You also need to purchase hand-held mechanical and power tools, protective and safety equipment for working personnel.

Garage business: how to make money on unusual metal sculptures

Andrei Kazantsev, one might say, has been preparing for the last 10 years to start his own successful and unusual project. Of course, when he exchanged the manager’s chair for the position of an apprentice in a motorcycle service center, he did not imagine that over time he would begin to create metal sculptures worth tens of thousands of rubles. Andrey Kazantsev told the Biz360.ru portal about how a hobby became a business and why people in Russia are not ready to spend money on handmade products.

Dossier

Andrey Kazantsev

, 34 years old, entrepreneur from Yekaterinburg, founder of a workshop that produces polygonal metal sculptures. Born in Sredneuralsk, he received his higher education at the Faculty of Automation of Technological Processes of the Ural State Mining University. He started his career as a manager in a bicycle shop, worked in a motorcycle service center, and at the Rival plant. In 2022 he founded his own workshop. Married, family has three children.

From the office to the workshop

For the last 10 years, Andrey Kazantsev has been working with metal and welding: making accessories for cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles and ATVs. Just a couple of years ago, he had no idea that he would get real pleasure and a good income by making custom-made not car parts, but animal figurines. In the history of his project, as often happens, there is a lot of chance.

While still studying at the university, Andrei began working part-time. I was a manager in a bike shop: “I realized very quickly that I didn’t like sedentary work, an office with a computer, orders and reports. I quit my job and asked to work for a friend at a motorcycle service center. The most I could do then was change the tire. I learned everything in practice,” says Andrey.

There he also mastered the welding machine: “The workshop had equipment for argon welding, which before that I had only seen on TV. When I saw it live, I wanted to master it, I literally got excited about it. They didn’t want to teach me, so I had to watch the master’s work from afar, study videos on YouTube, and in the evenings, after everyone had gone home, try to do something.”

With the money he earned in the workshop, Kazantsev bought a garage, a welding machine and the necessary tools. He started his first business by making motorcycle accessories for friends and acquaintances on weekends and in his free time. “I have always put quality first. If I did something, I tried to make the client happy, and I was not ashamed of my work. Therefore, word of mouth started working very quickly: friends recommended me to their acquaintances, orders grew more and more,” he recalls.

After some time, there was so much work in the garage that Andrey decided to leave the service. And after another six months, he stopped coping with orders. “Eventually, over time, it all turned into a workshop with an area of ​​350 square meters, in which eight people worked. We made all sorts of things for motorcycles, snowmobiles and ATVs. Once they even assembled a life-size model of the Abrams tank. It was ordered by a company that organized airsoft competitions. Then I didn’t know any 3D modeling programs, I figured it out by eye, took a piece of whatman paper, cut out parts from it, adjusted it, transferred it to metal and cut it out by hand,” says Andrey.

A company that produces accessories and additional equipment for cars, ATVs and motorcycles, Rival, learned about the master and invited him to work. Andrey did not immediately decide to exchange his workshop for hired labor. “I was invited on a tour. I saw modern production, huge areas, the latest CNC machines. Plus, they promised that I would be able to use the equipment after hours for my own purposes. I couldn’t refuse such an offer,” says Andrey.

In the new place, Andrei did the same thing as in his workshop, but at a completely different level. I no longer made models from cardboard, but mastered computer 3D modeling.

“Thanks to the fact that I was interested, studied, tried a lot and did things myself, in three years I climbed the career ladder well. I joined the company as a manager, and after a while I headed the department for the development of power bumpers for SUVs.”

Harder than a bumper

So Kazantsev worked until March 2022, until he saw on Instagram a photo of a polygonal - multifaceted - figurine, a deer's head made of paper. “I immediately realized that I had everything to make the same ones, but from metal. I could design a 3D model, make developments, cut parts from sheet steel, bend them and weld the seams. This is what I did every day, just in a slightly different way. I got excited about this idea and decided to try to make the first figure - a cat,” recalls Andrey.

It took a whole month to produce it. It turned out, says the master, that it is more difficult to make than a bumper. Plus, already in the process of work, I realized that I didn’t start with the simplest model. The cat that Andrey came up with looked to the side, so it was asymmetrical. It would be much easier to make a symmetrical model.

When he posted a photo of the finished sculpture on Instagram, he received hundreds of likes and dozens of comments and decided to sell the sculpture to subscribers. He didn’t set the price himself, but arranged an auction. As a result, the cat left for Moscow, the author received 6 thousand rubles for his product.

“When I first saw the paper head, I found several people on the Internet who were making something similar from metal. I immediately decided that I could make it cooler. My experience helped me fit all the parts so accurately that I didn’t have to adjust anything during assembly; all the parts fit together perfectly. I think that the problem of competitors is that they take a paper pattern as a basis and cut out parts from it, without taking into account the thickness of the metal sheet,” says Andrey.

Business without a plan

“In July, I met a girl who creates kits for self-assembling similar paper models. She had a very cool model of a sitting Doberman. I literally fell in love with him - he was so clear, simple and at the same time very similar to a real dog. I managed to negotiate with Natalya and get a computer model of this figure. I changed it a little, adapted it to metal and made a sculpture one meter high,” recalls Andrey. — I filmed the creation process in Time-lapse mode, edited a one-minute video and posted it on Instagram. This produced the effect of an exploding bomb. The number of views was incredible, thanks to endless reposts, the number of subscribers grew exponentially,” says Andrey.

By September, the project began to develop quite actively. In March 2019, Andrey quit his previous job and began spending all his time in the workshop. “It was after my dismissal that my hobby began to turn into a business. I could have left work earlier, but I was a little scared to be left without a stable income and take a step into a promising but uncertain future,” he says. In addition, the entrepreneur had to spend most of his savings to launch the project. He invested everything he earned into equipment, tools, and cutting out parts.

“If you run such a business in the most primitive way: cutting metal with a grinder and cooking it with a semi-automatic machine, you can start with 100 thousand rubles, but if you take everything you need, in order not to depend on anyone, you need to spend 15-20 million. I have an intermediate option. Invested about 3.5 million rubles in the business. I have almost everything except the most expensive cutting machine. For now, we order this work from a third-party company.”

Andrey doesn’t know when the investment will pay off: “I don’t have any business plan. I don’t like planning or structuring anything at all. Yes, this is wrong, and if I had done everything wisely, production would have had completely different scales. For now, it’s more of a garage workshop than a full-fledged business.”

Dogs, deer and Trump's head

Now creating new models for Andrey still takes quite a lot of time. It takes two months from idea to finished product. It takes a month to develop a model, a month to implement it. Now Andrey orders all his models from designers: “I met the guys who make models from paper. Now I order visualization of each project from them. Afterwards I make a reamer for the metal myself. It turns out much easier, faster and more beautiful.”

After the development is ready, it is turned into a file for a CNC machine and sent to a factory where the necessary parts are cut out of the metal. All that remains is to bend them using a special machine - a sheet bender, weld and sand all the seams.

“Then I process the sculpture based on the type of metal and the client’s wishes,” says Andrey. — For example, I polish stainless steel to a mirror shine or burn it with fire so that it takes on different shades, depending on the degree of heating: from golden to blue. Regular steel can be painted or also fired and varnished, rusted and waxed.”

The workshop can produce an average of 30-40 products per month. Now it is loaded with orders to the maximum. There is even a small queue of those who ordered unique products.

As for popular models, the workshop tries to keep them in stock. “Making sculptures of the same type in parallel is much easier than jumping from one model to another. As a rule, we make several identical products at once. For example, we haven’t made dogs one at a time for a long time, the most popular sculpture. We order a batch of five sets of blanks and assemble them immediately.”

The price of workshop sculptures, first of all, depends on the complexity of the product. 80% of the cost is labor and only 20% is the cost of materials. A small sculpture with 300 facets can easily cost the same as a large one with 10 facets.

The smallest sculpture in the workshop’s assortment is a piggy bank with a diameter of about 20 cm. This is also the most budget model: made of polished stainless steel, it costs 15 thousand rubles. The most expensive figure sold to date is an eagle for 110 thousand rubles.

The largest sculpture that Andrey had to make was a Staffordshire terrier 130 cm long. Now Andrey is working on a 1.7-meter-tall rooster and a three-meter-high deer. Perhaps the most unusual order that the workshop received was the head of US President Donald Trump.

Sculptures from Kazantsev’s studio are bought as gifts for weddings, birthdays, and housewarmings. Most often, products are found on personal plots; less often they are purchased for decorating residential premises.

The majority of the workshop's clients are dog breeders. “They usually love their pets so much that as soon as they see something related to them, they immediately order and are ready to give any money,” says Andrey. — Some people ask to repeat their dog exactly: if their dog has erect ears, then they want to see the same ones on the sculpture; if the dog is more “pumped up” or thinner than our sample, they have to adapt. We have already made several versions of bull terriers. Now I try not to take on such custom projects and insist that they take what they have. Even minor modifications lead to changes in the entire project and entail a large amount of work.”

Course for foreign clients

“We have few clients in our country who are willing to pay that kind of money for manual labor,” says Andrey. — I immediately understood that foreigners were ready to pay for this, but they were often stopped by very expensive delivery. In order for DHL to deliver a sculpture worth 1 thousand dollars, you need to pay the same amount. There were no sales abroad until I found a way to send parcels more inexpensively - through Russian Post.

The first foreign client came to Andrey through a marketplace of hand-made products. “I created a store on this site, posted a photo of the first cat and dog, and almost forgot about it. One fine day I heard an unfamiliar notification on my phone, similar to the sound of coins pouring out of a machine. It turned out that someone ordered and paid for the sculpture,” he recalls. So the first foreign order went to Australia. After the first sale and review, the ad began to appear more often in searches, thanks to which views increased.

The next order went to Norway. “When it came time to send the dog, I was faced with a new problem: the post office did not accept the parcel because it exceeded the maximum permissible dimensions. I had to imagine. Through a travel companion search service, I found a person who was traveling there from St. Petersburg and paid him 8 thousand rubles.” After this, Kazantsev entered into an agreement with the post office and deliveries improved.

Now the Etsy store regularly brings orders, but still much more often - in 85% of cases - customers find a workshop through.

“When the first clients received their sculptures and I posted their reviews on Instagram, people were convinced that I was real, the goods were reaching the clients, there was good feedback from them, and orders poured in.”

As is the case with Etsy, on Instagram the majority of customers are foreigners. Only 10-15% of the workshop's products remain in Russia. 80% of the remaining share of orders goes to America and Canada, the rest to European countries. In Russia, of course, orders often come from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but there are other cities in the geography of supplies. It’s interesting that during his entire work, Andrey had only two orders from Yekaterinburg.

“At first it was very difficult to work with foreigners. I studied French at school and college, and two years ago I didn’t speak English at all. I started learning it at my previous job, plus I started taking courses myself and studying online. When I received my first orders from abroad, I was a little prepared. Now I can almost freely correspond with clients, but when they call and start talking quickly, sometimes I get lost,” says the entrepreneur.

Soon, to the two main two platforms for selling sculptures - an Etsy store and an Instagram account - another sales channel will be added: your own website. “We wanted to make it in Russian and English, but we encountered difficulties when choosing a payment method and calculating delivery. Therefore, we decided to leave only English; our main client still does not speak Russian.”

In the longer term, Andrey will have representatives in different countries. According to his idea, he will supply figures to partners in bulk. “They will have showrooms where people can come and touch and look. In real life it all looks completely different from the picture. When you see it with your own eyes, you immediately want the same thing for yourself and are ready to give any money. Usually, when a sculpture arrives to a client, within a couple of days two or three more orders arrive from his friends,” explains Andrey.

There are already inquiries from several people who want to become dealers. Andrei is stopped by difficulties with delivery: “Collect the container, correctly declare the goods, send... So far I don’t have a very good idea of ​​how to start moving in this direction. I see this way out: find a person who understands this.”

Next year Andrey plans to participate in exhibitions dedicated to interior design. “I was invited to go to London this year, but I realized that I couldn’t do it: paying for participation, travel, and delivering the figures would cost a lot of money,” he says.

Promotion without a budget

So far Andrey is not investing in promotion. The audience on Instagram is still growing only thanks to interesting photos and videos. For example, Andrey often walks his dogs, cats and other animals in the city center and takes pictures of sculptures against the backdrop of local attractions. “I really like this process: putting up a sculpture and watching the reaction of passers-by. They look, take pictures, try to climb in, someone kisses and hugs.”

Another interesting idea helped Andrey tell about himself. At the very beginning of his journey, he made a sculpture of a Doberman for the singer Glukoza, whose popularity came, among other things, thanks to a song about this breed of dog. I received an unusual gift from Glucose during a tour in Yekaterinburg. Pleasantly surprised, she posted a photo of the work on her Instagram and mentioned the workshop.

“In general, I clearly understand that it’s time to get busy with promotion. I know that you don’t have to waste your time on this - you can hire a manager who already knows how to do everything. I’ll probably come to this soon, but for now I’m just filming, editing, coming up with and implementing ideas for photos,” says Andrey.

Gambling and strategy

In general, Andrey says, the main thing that distinguishes his current work is passion and the opportunity to create something interesting with his own hands. “When you work for someone else, you have stability, but there is no excitement. Although I don’t play computer games, I can compare my business with them. Your own business is a strategy. You need to build a team around you, guide the process, think through the steps so that everything starts working and produces results,” he says.

“Plus I really enjoy the process of creating sculptures. Goosebumps run through your skin when a piece of metal is created from a piece of metal. Despite the fact that I can already afford to hire welders and grinders, I like to work with my hands myself,” says Andrey.

Looking at how inspired his father worked, Andrei’s eldest son also became interested in welding. He watches what dad does and creates his own works. At the age of six, he had already cooked flowers and fish, and even earned his first money by selling his creations.

Sales technology

At the first stages of business, you must have on your staff: an accountant, a legal consultant, a logistician and a sales manager. You should also start an advertising campaign, place a large banner on the building and advertise on the Internet. When concluding contracts for the supply of metal, pay attention to the certificates provided; if they are missing, you may have problems in the future. It is better to make the product range wider, including products made of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The most popular is the corner, which is used not only in construction and repair, but also in creating artistic compositions. Since metal rolling involves the purchase of bulky and heavy products, it is advisable to have several trucks at the base with the possibility of delivery, which will also entail additional income.

Are you looking for other earning opportunities? Watch our free courses on real estate and making money. You will learn not only about what type of investing you can do today, but also how to get maximum profit with minimal investment.

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Selection of premises and personnel

The area for the production of metal structures will not be limited to one workshop with equipment. The company will need:

• WC;
• room for personal needs of staff;
• warehouses where raw materials and finished products will be stored.

The production workshop includes several sections, each of which performs a specific type of work:

• preparatory work;
• treatment;
• assembly;
• painting.

The workshop area will directly depend on the types of products produced and production volumes. For example, the manufacture of fences, fences, gratings, etc. You can practice in a garage connected to electrical communications. For the production of large metal structures, an area of ​​300 m2 will be required. Prices for renting premises differ significantly from each other in different regions. In a small town, rent starts from 150 rubles per 1 m2, there is no upper limit on the price.

Production areas must be equipped with all necessary communications:

• electricity;
• hot and cold water supply;
• heating;
• ventilation system.

The production workshop should be located on the ground floor with convenient access roads for transporting raw materials by trucks and transporting finished products.

The production of high-quality products helps to increase the customer base and expand the business. Therefore, when choosing personnel, it is necessary to take into account the level of qualifications of employees. The staff of the enterprise will consist of:

• manager;
• purchasing and sales manager;
• storekeepers;
• technologists;
• shift foreman;
• metal working specialists;
• cleaner;
• watchman;
• accountant.

To deliver finished products to the consumer, a driver with personal transport is hired.