we're setting up shop
 

David Sanchez and I have been throwing around the thought over a year now and have made a decision to get a shop together. We are both tired of not having enough room at our respective houses. Mine because of my mini-machine/welding/powdercoating/flame spraying etc. stuff and David with his race cars.
Early on David was inclined to want to do general automotive work and that was not appealling to me for numerous reasons.

It is hard to describe this shop because there is a huge amount of variety we are wanting to do.
A lot of the things I've posted threads on will be what we will be doing. So it is a fab shop but there will be fiberglass and composite work too.
Making motor mounts, pport'ing housings, intakes, seat covers, impact powered bearing presses, mini bead rollers, small part powder coating, welding, T-bucket frames,
narrowing rearend housings (I've done Ford 9's) are some of the type of work we could go into right away.
Things I have done outside the auto related field is copper work like hanging pot racks (kitchen) lamps and other household gizmos that the ladies go goo-goo for ;)

At some point we want to get us a good fiberglass/composite man to build T-bucket bodies and radiator covers/fender kits to start. If that goes well we would go to some body kits.
Both of us are keeping our day jobs and I have the equipment to get us started. We are looking at the beginning of February to open.
A lot of the stuff will be sold through Ebay and we are planning on ads in some publications for the T-bucket stuff.

My goal is just to get room to actually do something without spending and hour or so moving shit around. I like to develop things but I hate the production end of things. I will be content just to cover shop, material, taxes and labor costs but of course we want it to do well.
We have one guy that is David's longtime mechanic/driver (his name is Orlando)on his racecar that will be working for us. He will be my trainee :) as far as showing him how to make the different parts for production and handling shipping etc.
Right now there is no method to the madness and we are playing this by ear. :eek:

We will see what works best for generating revenue and profit percentage and set production accordingly.
I will be aiming most of my time outside of training Orlando to finishing the mandrel bender, testing the ceramic flame spray process, any welding, and whatever else seems to pop up. David drives a truck during the week so he is limited to what he can do in the shop for now.
If things go well he will not be on the road though unless it's delivering parts ;)

So for all those who keep up some some of my weird ass projects I wanted to let you know what is coming down the line..... and yes I know I have said before that I really did not want to deal with a shop :confused:
I still had room left in my garage then though ;)

Here is David and Orlando. David is in the middle in the black shirt and Orlando is in the red with his hand on the trophie.

http://nhraimport.com/2001/events/ra...os/photo12.jpg

Bout time, Mike. Let me know when you guys need some help moving and setting things up and I'll be right over.

B

Hey Brian did you get moved into yours yet?

Good luck with everything !!!!!!!!!

find a name yet?

hell we haven't even decided on that yet. We talked about carrying over "Scalliwag Performance" but this is a joint venture and I think it's important that people don't associate my nickname and think this is just me. After all if we suck I don't wanna be the only one looking *stoopid* here ;)
We will probably have to have a name that is more universal because a pot rack from Scalliwag Performance sounds a little weird :confused: Or we may have a second name in cases like that.

Scalliwag Productions

my 2 cents worth
and if you like it my fee is affordable:)

matt

Nice GLC!!

That is David's little "hall of Famer" That was the first year and first race of the year the NHRA had the import series. He won the All-Motor class.
He keeps talking about selling that car with the trophy. It is running a 9" with an aluminum pumpkin and a solid spool so it hooks up real hard.

Congrats

Yep. Tony and I got most of the stuff moved in but we're still lacking the air tools, etc. We're partly moved in. It's gotten in the way of some of my work, too, that I need to finish up. :)

B

Yep the transition can be pretty rough. Just ask Steve. While Rich was goofin' off in Iraq ;) (j/k) Steve was getting all that in order.
But adding lifts, a showroom, restrooms, etc. made for most of that headache.
Hopefully you are not trying to take on anything more than getting a shop area in place?

Hopefully the only prep work we will be looking at is plumbing out air outlets. We have trailers and pickups/vans since David has a little hot-shot delivery going on the side so we can move everything in one trip.
We also have the luxury of this being a side project so it is not interupting our incomes during the setup.
Between the two of us we could pay the shop expenses without any income from it. Not that we would want to.

Knowing you as soon as you got started five people called wanted their motors built! See what happens when you post up those shiney ports, dyno sheets, and time slips?!?!?!?! :D
Just remember that being busy is great. My Dad always said you have plenty of time to rest when your're dead.... and something about "no rest for the wicked". ;)
I need to come check out your shop. Need anything fabbed or welded?

You need to buy my MIG Welder
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2581961057

But I need a big one now. I already have a 110 unit :(
Most likely I will find a used wire feeder that will handle up to at least 1/16" wire. I can run it off my AC/DC stick for the time being.
The shop will have 3 phase so I'll probably get a 300 amp power unit. I could play with that thermal arc spray wire with that :D not to mention I could toast some heavy ass plate with that if the project ever required it.

Congrats Man! :bigthumb:

Thanks dude. The shop we have had our sites on my not be the one we end up with. I was cruising the business park area that is about 4 miles from home after work just to check. Most of the shops there are 5000 sq.ft. up and even at a good price it would not fit the startup budget.
I found a 2000 sq.ft. with a rent/buy sign on it and called and fortunately it was not a realtor type so I actually got an answer. He told me that the rent would be $600 per month. The floor layout is about 35'x55' with a 10'x10' small office in a front corner. It comes in just under 2000 sq ft but close enough. It has one bay door which bites a little but I hope we don't work on many cars on a daily basis anyways in there and no customer type cars.
It has two walk in doors, one to the shop and one to the office. Anyways I am going to get a tour of the place tomorrow and if it looks good we are going to make a deal on the spot :)
I will post pics if that works out.

if your not really looking for a business front shop, i would go more on the outskirts of town. you should be able to find something alot cheaper than that. theres a place in town that i was lookin at just to store all my crap, it was 5000 sq.ft. and had 3 10x10 offices, a 30x10 storage area over the offices. a 50x30 enclosed 'workshop' with 3 huge bay doors, i could of fit 3-4 rv's inside, and 2 coverd huge overhangs on either side that were concreted. it was going for 300$ a month. but it was about a 10 min drive from where i live and to get to it you kinda had to go a little offroad.

-Daniel

Property costs even on the outskirts of DFW are higher than where you are at evidently. You can't rent a beat up barn with a leaky roof for $300.
There is some places in really rough neighborhoods that are cheap. As a matter of fact to guys two guys a couple of weeks back were cleaning up a warehouse their company was leasing for extra space and someone came in, robbed and killed them. That was in Dallas.
So that's a cheaper alternative just not one I'm willing to do. Even property on outskirts is not cheap. But if somebody hears of something I am definately open on it. Cheap can be good too ;)

good luck

hey scalli.....i haven't been on the forum for long....congrats man....if u ever need an extra man.....i'll move from club icicle without thinking twice.....i could be an errand boy.....an amateur welder.....i can do almost all automotive jobs other than taking motors and tranny's apart and putting them back together......just a thought....good luck anyways and take it ez man

Mr. BiG G :cool:

Haha!!! Club Icicle is not a bad place to be in a Texas summer I can assure you. But right now I bet it does suck.

I met the guy at the shop and he wants to sell the place so renting would be on a month to month basis. That would suck to have things going good and then have to pack up and find another shop in a 30 day period. So that is not going to work. Good thing the original option is still in place. ;)

hmm....yea it's good u got the original option still...keep lookin u might find something better....see scalli i was born and raised in the middle east where we had temperature's of upto 52 degree's celcius....after being in that for 16 years i can take any heat summer can offer :D

Yea buts its more the humitity that makes the problem. here it gets like upwards of 110*F and 100% humitity. That alone makes the heat index like 130*F

I really hate cold. Bundling up really sucks and it is awkward to work on stuff like that. Not only that but when you are cold it is painful. Your hands get a little cold and you barely hit your finger on something and it hurts for days. If it would have been warm you probably would have shook it off in less than a minute.
Being hot is just miserable ;)

An idea that would be nice would be to find about 5 acres in as close a unrestricted area as possible where someone put a trailer or small house and a nice shop. Buy the property and rent the living quarters out preferably to a shop helper.
Since this shop does not rely on visibility for walk-in customers it would be fine. It would be wide open what you did with the property as far as adding on shop space or putting more living quarters, storage facilities or whatever.

Those are future options that may be practical. I've done enough structural steel that I could save money on future building, except for the concrete and electrical work. As far as welding anchor flanges to beams and frame up goes that is simple. I just need a helper to help me grunt stuff around.
But buying property with at least one descent size shop already in place and not having to pull permits and fugg with code inspectors would definately be cool. Extra land to keep parts cars :D

Congrats and best of luck. I would love to be the guy that you're going to be training, if you move to MD and set up shop let me know. ;)

Milan