[SamClose]

Hi fellow Aussie Machinists,

I have been extremely annoyed with what the retail price is for end mills, even more so that if I want to buy endmills at a good price I have to import from china and wait weeks at a time.
I have been saving up for a while and contacted a company that sells in bulk. I would like to import a bunch of endmills in for cheap and sell them for cheap. I am a student looking for a few extra bob to get me through the week. I would import the basics for most hobbyists like myself.

My questions are;
Is anyone looking for an alternative, less expensive source of endmills.
If so what prices would everyone want to see?
What sizes, and types would you need most?
Solid Carbide or HSS?
Any questions I havent asked but should?

Like I said im a student if I made $200 a week off this it would make my studies allot easier (thanks Abbot). Only want to do this to make machining more affordable and to help the hobbyists like myself.
Thanks guys.

[aarggh]

I wish you the best of luck in this and it's great your having a go, it will be very hard competing with the Chinese on their own products but if you actually have it in stock and can supply quickly I think you might do okay!

A bit hard to tell if your talking end mills for cnc or for milling machines, I'm assuming cnc. I would think 1 and 2 flute carbide for general work to be the most popular, and 3 flute spiral carbides for aluminium also. 6mm shank I'd suspect to be the most popular, followed by 1/8th shanks. Ball nose in HSS in both shanks would also be a commonly bought cutter.

cheers, Ian

[Zenji]

Metric endmills 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 HSS and Carbide
Ballnose cutters 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 Carbide only
Ripper cutters 10, 12, 16, 20 HSS high grade!!!
Counterbore sets for metric capscrews HSS
Reamers which cut the proper size and cheap.
Gun and spiral taps which don't snap, and well priced.

Don't invest more than $10k, you could get burnt on this venture with everything being so quiet in manufacturing.

[SamClose]

I really appreciate the input guys.
Im working on better prices with the company currently!
What prices would you guys like to see?

Im thinking of just starting with the basics, a range of HHS bits and a few Carbide and if they sell ill be placing a bulk order for a wider range in both HSS and Carbide.
I want to do this to try help everyone out BUT i dont want to jump into it and screw myself.

Im looking less to sell to the industry and more to people machining at home that don't want to wait a month for stuff to arrive from china.
Iv had a look at shipping and it seems like I can express ship from here (Perth) which means I could sell across Australia and people can expect to have their endmills in under a week.
also on a side note I took the endmills I ordered to test I set them up in a Rockwell tester and they matched their specifications, next I want to take them to a machine shop and see if they will compare mine to US imports for quality of cuts and life span! - I DONT WANT TO SELL JUNK!

Cheers Guys.

[daniellyall]

test any cutter size you get so you know they are good there are ok ones a bad ones out there
if you test a cutter and its good as gold then you can say you test it at what ever speed and feed and it lasted for x amount of time

[pippin88]

Are you looking at stocking end mills for metal or for wood routing?

[SamClose]

Metal, that said if this venture does well I would accommodate for both.

[aarggh]

You may find it less costly and time consuming, as well as less risky by catering more for woodworking first then metal as you grow? Unless your planning to really plough quite a bit of money into it? Metal cutters aren't as forgiving or general as cutters for wood and plastics.

cheers, Ian

[SamClose]

Hey good idea Ian, but I don't know too much about wood bits... Are you referring to single flute endmills or do you mean router bits? I went to Bunnings yesterday to buy some.. what a scam!

[aarggh]

Both! I think starting with metal cutters opens you up too much for costly bits that may or may not sell, or may sell in such small quantities that the time consumed means your slowly going backwards.

General cutters for wood and plastic are dirt cheap, so that's where I'd start myself. Large quantities of decent cutters bought as cheap as possible. I buy cutters in fairly large quantities myself, and you can get some great deals. I bought a while ago several hundred American manufactured 2 flute coated HSS endmills for about $200 or so inc shipping. So there's bargains to be made, but only so long as you can buy cheap enough, and in large enough quantities to turn a profit.

Most people will want to pay via paypal, this will cost you greatly! Add to that once you generate $20k of revenue, your then considered a business by Paypal and taxes and other costs come into play. Not to mention the fact there's so much leeway for paypal customers to rip sellers off now. The forums are full of horror stories about sellers who lost their goods and money to scammers, it's not anywhere near as rare as you may think. You need to factor in that one bogus, or even a genuine claim, can wipe out a months revenue.

$20k might sound great, but if it takes you $40k worth of stock on hand to generate $20k of sales over a long period, your costs are going up dramatically and you still haven't turned a profit. Remember, for every $500 you spend on costs, you may only move $200 or so if your lucky in the early days of a venture like this. Given the markets, it's definitely not a "if you build it they will come" market anymore.

Maximise profit as early as possible so you can keep affording to plough money back into it so it becomes a real investment and not a noose.

cheers, Ian

[SamClose]

CHEERS!!

Ill get together a list of bits and what I plan on selling them for, over the next week or so.
The plan is to buy in bulk for sure! I just want to research on what to get for wood, also need to setup a nice site, ill try link it to ebay to double the chance of people finding my site, that said ill also pay google for clicks! haha.

[aarggh]

Don't do the hosting yourself would be my advice unless your very, very, familiar with Linux. Check out Build a Website - Squarespace, they're dirt cheap for commercial hosting and provide a merchant gateway, and they have insanely low cost plans that you can upgrade as you grow.

Godaddy will be about the cheapest and least fuss for a domain name, and they do the .com.au's now, although they are still somewhat artificially inflated pricewise, but they're still cheaper than a lot of OZ registrars.

cheers, Ian

[RCaffin]

Any questions I havent asked but should?

Yes, the most important one: can I compete with
* China: very high volume and cheap end of market, with 'free' labour and free postage,
* Hong Kong: medium volume (or more), medium to fair quality provided you know what you are doing, cheap postage,
* Taiwan: high volume, good quality, low labour costs, moderate postage costs

Note that the latter two may have quite significant financial backing. The Chinese ... who knows? Probably as well.

Cheers
Roger

[daniellyall]

I get a lot of router bits of trademe I think you have it over there it`s aus owned now, anyway its a person doing the same as what you are thinking of doing his cutters what ever the size they are only a dollar more than getting them from china he sells a lot he only sells a limited range of sizes the size everyone uses1/8, 1/4, 1/2,3/8 so on

[RCaffin]

He is still selling imperial cutters in Australia?
Blimey.

Cheers
Roger

[aarggh]

He is still selling imperial cutters in Australia?
Blimey.

Cheers
Roger

I think the Aussies buy them as presents for their mates in the States! ;-)

cheers, Ian

[SamClose]

Hey!

Yah I have been looking at china and trying to see if I can beat their price. The more I bulk buy the cheaper. But the way I want to beat them is more with speed then price, if you can have your bits within a week vs up to 45 days from china what would you do? you can DHL from china but that gets rid of the savings.

Currently Im looking at importing Bit sets rather than single bits as it seems more viable, if it does well I will begin ordering single bits in bulk for selling.
Like I said if I can make enough to help my ass out as a student ill be happy! work case Ill liquidate stock for cost!

still trying to find best prices, one I do ill let you guys know!

Thanks again for all the input!

[SamClose]

So I im still trying to get a better price but currently I have a supplier who will ship me a 15pc router set in a wooden box in bulk, a single box ends up costing $15 incl shipping, GREAT!
but here is the problem, the cheapest person selling these in Australia is selling at $38 - Free shipping! One of these weighs 900 grams, and to ship a 1kg box from perth to lets say Melbourne is going to cost me roughly $13.50. I was aiming to sell these at $30 to be the cheapest on ebay, also on my site but at this shipping rate plus googles 8% deduction im looking at negative profit!

DOES ANYONE KNOW A BETTER SYSTEM FOR SHIPPING!!!

Cheers!

[daniellyall]

just do half prices shipping or sell at 36 dollars if you can I am in NZ not aus

[RCaffin]

have your bits within a week vs up to 45 days from china

Typically only 2 - 3 weeks for me so far. That's tolerable. I plan ahead.

importing Bit sets rather than single bits

In my experience, the most valuable part of such sets is the box. The stuff in them is usually the cheapest and nastiest junk. As for those boxed 'drill sets' - absolute crap!

Somehow, I suspect it is all going to be much harder than you think. Try, by all means, but limit your capital outlay.

Cheers
Roger