Inventing for Boys

by A. Frederick Collins

In this respect a manufacturing concern is very like a human being in that it has a brain and a body. You and those interested with you are the brains of the organization and those who work for you, to the end that profits may pile up for your benefit and behoof, form the body.

On your head, most likely, will fall the responsibility of turning out a high-grade product at the lowest possible cost and to do this the right way and to the best advantage you must begin at the beginning and think and scheme out how you can obtain the best results with the least outlay of time, labor and money.

There are many ways to start in manufacturing your product but the efficient way will depend on what you have to make, the number you are to make and the amount of capital you have to do it with.

Farming out the Work.—In the beginning you will often find it much cheaper, and hence more profitable, to give a contract to some manufacturer—who has a big factory fitted out with thousands of dollars worth of machine tools and a capable force of skilled mechanics—for a given number of the articles, or machines, you want to have made and delivered in and at a certain time.

By this arrangement there is no initial time, effort or money spent on buying machinery and getting a factory into running order, neither is there the work and worry of keeping a shop force going and besides you know exactly what each device will cost you when the lot is done and delivered. Still this scheme is not one that appeals to many inventors especially if they have, or think they have, a genius for mechanics and shop management.

Another way to start operations in an economical manner is to have some one or all of the parts of your invention done by outside manufacturers, or farm them out as it is called, and then assemble the parts in your own shop. Scattered all over the United States are shops and all sorts of factories where you can get a lower price quoted on a certain part or parts made of wood, brass, rubber or any other material than you could possibly make it or them for, in a shop of your own in the beginning.

Of course the larger the quantity of a given piece you can order at a time the lower will be the pro rata cost, that is the cost of each piece; for instance suppose a brass founder quoted you a price of $1 each on a certain casting in lots of ten, he might scale the price down to 50 or 60 cents each in lots of one hundred, and if you ordered a thousand at a time you might get the price down to 35 or 40 cents each. In figuring cost things like this must be taken into consideration.

In many cases it is not the mere material put into, and labor put on making a part that brings up the cost of the first lots but before the part can be turned out a special die, or jig, or fixture must be made for duplicating the part and very often a special machine must be designed and built for making a certain part. Such special tools and machines are very expensive and their cost must also be reckoned with.

Starting Your Own Shop.—In starting your own shop the question of what you are going to make and the quantity you intend to make will fix very largely the kind of machinery, the floor space and everything else you will need, nearly.

In this age of cheap electric power you can have an electric motor installed, to run your lathes, drill presses, shapers and other machines, almost anywhere you happen to be located. And besides it is better, as a rule, to start and operate your plant in your home town. For a shop on a small scale, wherever it may be, it is cleaner, less troublesome and cheaper to use electric power than it is to use gas or steam power.