Selling the ScopeRoller Business is Like Breaking Up With a Girl

I am negotiating the sale of ScopeRoller to a reader in Europe.  You have a some very good memories and a few bad memories (in this case, dealing with unhappy customers and an unfortunate interaction between a spinning drill bit and my thumb), but the fit for your life now just doesn't justify keeping it going.  You start going through stuff that you shared in preparation for shipping it its new home and you feel a sense of loss, even though you know the breakup is the right thing to do.

Time to Hold a Going Out of Business Sale for ScopeRoller?

I have been doing this for 13 years now.  I am glad to have made a lot of people very happy by helping them get their heavy telescopes mobile.  I have learned a lot about running a tiny manufacturing business.  But it is taking too much of my time that should be spent writing books (including two sci-fi novels that are somewhat underway, and a technical memoir: Present at the Birth of the PC Age) and teaching.  Doing all the paperwork at end of year is also no fun.

I did it for a while for the money, but I now have all the money my wife and I will ever need.  Shortly I will start removing products for which I do not have materials in stock from the web page.  I will probably cut prices by 20% to try and clear materials and parts.  The leftover casters I can return to the manufacturer for credit minus 15%.  Some of the leftover aluminum tubing and flats can likely be sold on eBay.

I will miss doing this, but there are many things more important.  If I knew someone with a drill press and bandsaw, I might sell them the business.  I have priced my products so that I could make about $25/hour.  That's just very attractive anymore to most people, now that unskilled labor often pays $15/hour.

I am thrilled that I have received purchase inquiries.

Another Useful Discovery About the Tapmatic

I've raved about the Tapmatic before, because it lets me use a drill/tap combo in my drill press to make one step 1/4"-20 threaded holes in aluminum.  But I have often had problems with the 1/2"-13 tap in acetal (and of course aluminum as well).  The tap just unscrews from the collet.  What I did not see in the instructions, or did not remember, was that there is a backjaw as well.  The square end of the tap is locked by the backjaw with a set screw.  Amazing what a difference it makes.

I just finished making about 20 parts for ScopeRoller.  These are square 3" by 1/8" wall aluminum sleeves that need a total of eight 1/4"-20 threaded holes at .5 and 1.5" from one end centered in each face of the tube.  It was amazingly fast. 

1. Mark the position of the 0.5" from end hole on the first workpiece with a caliper.

2. Put the end of the tube against the end of the drill press vise.

3. Start drill press.

4. Feed down while spraying some lubricant on the drill/tap combo. 

5. Release handle after I hear the chamfer being cut.

6. Rotate tube 90 degrees, and repeat 2-5.

7. Repeat 2-5 for each piece.

Repeat 1-7 for the 1.5" from end hole.

I feel like Eli Whitney, or Samuel Colt (but I can spell and even my handwriting is better), or Henry Ford.