For this thread to make much sense you will have to hear a little bit of my life story. Some people may know me already but I'm sure many of you don't. I grew up in Suffolk and as a kid i dabbled in racing various bikes and karts. My dad bought me my first road car in 1998 aged 12 (a certain green mini which did eventually make it onto the road in 2006!) in 2000 he officially started is own engine building business www.radcoengines.co.uk which proved quite handy too! By 2004 i was 17 and had passed my test. Over the next 10 years or so i took full advantage of having a nicely kitted out workshop at my disposal and built various cars you may or may not remember. By 2012 however i was getting bored of living in a small rural town and decided to take a job working for JLR in Birmingham.
Now every aspect of this move was pretty good apart from one thing. I no longer had decent access to any workshop space. I sold off most of my cars to make the move work in the first place but i soon got bored of decorating and was dreaming of having a 4 wheeled project again. The house i had moved to had a large garage on the side which i naively thought would be good enough to keep me happy but in reality it was always full of junk from the house, grinding at 10pm on a residential street upsets people and curse word doing stuff without proper tools, id rather just not bother. Next plan was to share a unit with my mate who was starting up a small lighting component distribution business. We got hold of a place and split it down the middle. Within a week i was down to a quarter and within a year i was forced into a tiny corner, he had started to rent the one next door too and was asking when i was moving out! Never even had a chance to put a car in there! Cue the start of this saga!
By now it was clear i would need somewhere of my own. I looked at renting but to hell with paying £500+ a month for a unit, its just money down the drain. (I cant understand why anyone rents anything tbh!) I decided to look at what kind of thing i could afford to buy and was presently surprised. It took about a year of searching to find a suitable place. It was up for auction and after it didn't meet the reserve i ended up making an offer and handing over a fat wedge to take over.
The long and the short of it is ive been working on the place for the last year and its just about starting to look like a workshop so i though id share some photos of what s been going on. I'm always hearing people making excuses what they cant have this or that. Rubbish If you want something go make it happen!
So once i had picked up the keys this is what i was greeted with (minus transit and lathe and a few bits). The unit is 24M long by 6M wide with a 6x6 mezzanine level at the back over the top of a makeshift spray booth and a grossly over sized toilet. The previous occupants appeared to have been using it to strip down stolen cars so it was full of expensive German car parts. Mostly curse word i guess but some gems like the R8 front diff unit that made £450 quid on ebay. What i found paid for the solicitors put it that way and I'm sure most people would have just hired a skip!
Also scored a bonus Sthil saw which came in handy later on!
On top of the mezzanine we found a classy city view office
And underneath the makeshift spray booth complete with plenty of curse word to sift through
I set about moving my kit across. Id have liked to have had a chance to work on the building before moving anything in but in reality i had to get out of the old place and the trucks MOT was running out and it needed some attention to go through another so i just had to move everything while had the chance and worry about it all later
Do you even lift bro?
I decided to set up a small temporary workshop under the mezzanine floor to allow me to crack on with the rest of the work and still have access to tools and a bench.
Now onto the first big job. One thing that had been apparent since day one was that the floor was on quite a steep slope down towards the front door. You might just about be able to see it in this photo. This was an annoyance in itself but the worst bit was that it finished 6 inches lower than the ground level outside and would fill with water when it rained. The quality of the floor was also pretty suspect and it was hardly ideal for getting low cars in and out so i decided to do some remedial work.
So i got digging
Several weekends later, this wasn't a pleasant job it has to be said!
You can see how much lower the floor was than ground level
Rebar in
And done! It was the end of May by this stage and i took the workshop over at the beginning of Feb if you want an idea on time scales. Things don't happen overnight :/
With summer approaching we decided to have a tidy up and have a party. I had always wanted to do a workshop party so with my 30th birthday coinciding it seemed like an opportunity not to be refused. Cant seem to find any other photos at the moment but i will add some when they crop up!
After tiding from those shenanigans i turned my attention to the electrics. Everything in the place was wired dangerously so decided to start from scratch. Again you don't realise how labour intensive this stuff is. Heres where we stood in January. New DB, 3 phase feeds in for lathe, mill drill etc. New lighting over the main shop, bit of single phase in.. Wheres 6 months gone??!
Well the eagle eyed of you will spot a bit more has gone on that what ive mentioned so far but Hopefully i shall cover a bit more as i go.
Now every aspect of this move was pretty good apart from one thing. I no longer had decent access to any workshop space. I sold off most of my cars to make the move work in the first place but i soon got bored of decorating and was dreaming of having a 4 wheeled project again. The house i had moved to had a large garage on the side which i naively thought would be good enough to keep me happy but in reality it was always full of junk from the house, grinding at 10pm on a residential street upsets people and curse word doing stuff without proper tools, id rather just not bother. Next plan was to share a unit with my mate who was starting up a small lighting component distribution business. We got hold of a place and split it down the middle. Within a week i was down to a quarter and within a year i was forced into a tiny corner, he had started to rent the one next door too and was asking when i was moving out! Never even had a chance to put a car in there! Cue the start of this saga!
By now it was clear i would need somewhere of my own. I looked at renting but to hell with paying £500+ a month for a unit, its just money down the drain. (I cant understand why anyone rents anything tbh!) I decided to look at what kind of thing i could afford to buy and was presently surprised. It took about a year of searching to find a suitable place. It was up for auction and after it didn't meet the reserve i ended up making an offer and handing over a fat wedge to take over.
The long and the short of it is ive been working on the place for the last year and its just about starting to look like a workshop so i though id share some photos of what s been going on. I'm always hearing people making excuses what they cant have this or that. Rubbish If you want something go make it happen!
So once i had picked up the keys this is what i was greeted with (minus transit and lathe and a few bits). The unit is 24M long by 6M wide with a 6x6 mezzanine level at the back over the top of a makeshift spray booth and a grossly over sized toilet. The previous occupants appeared to have been using it to strip down stolen cars so it was full of expensive German car parts. Mostly curse word i guess but some gems like the R8 front diff unit that made £450 quid on ebay. What i found paid for the solicitors put it that way and I'm sure most people would have just hired a skip!
Also scored a bonus Sthil saw which came in handy later on!
On top of the mezzanine we found a classy city view office
And underneath the makeshift spray booth complete with plenty of curse word to sift through
I set about moving my kit across. Id have liked to have had a chance to work on the building before moving anything in but in reality i had to get out of the old place and the trucks MOT was running out and it needed some attention to go through another so i just had to move everything while had the chance and worry about it all later
Do you even lift bro?
I decided to set up a small temporary workshop under the mezzanine floor to allow me to crack on with the rest of the work and still have access to tools and a bench.
Now onto the first big job. One thing that had been apparent since day one was that the floor was on quite a steep slope down towards the front door. You might just about be able to see it in this photo. This was an annoyance in itself but the worst bit was that it finished 6 inches lower than the ground level outside and would fill with water when it rained. The quality of the floor was also pretty suspect and it was hardly ideal for getting low cars in and out so i decided to do some remedial work.
So i got digging
Several weekends later, this wasn't a pleasant job it has to be said!
You can see how much lower the floor was than ground level
Rebar in
And done! It was the end of May by this stage and i took the workshop over at the beginning of Feb if you want an idea on time scales. Things don't happen overnight :/
With summer approaching we decided to have a tidy up and have a party. I had always wanted to do a workshop party so with my 30th birthday coinciding it seemed like an opportunity not to be refused. Cant seem to find any other photos at the moment but i will add some when they crop up!
After tiding from those shenanigans i turned my attention to the electrics. Everything in the place was wired dangerously so decided to start from scratch. Again you don't realise how labour intensive this stuff is. Heres where we stood in January. New DB, 3 phase feeds in for lathe, mill drill etc. New lighting over the main shop, bit of single phase in.. Wheres 6 months gone??!
Well the eagle eyed of you will spot a bit more has gone on that what ive mentioned so far but Hopefully i shall cover a bit more as i go.
) Puts out some air tho! Essential for blasting.
