Well, that went by quick!
Sorry it has been a while, there has just been ALOT going on around here – even more so than usual. And on top of that, the inevitable finally happened – I dropped the the good camera and broke it…
The thing about the camera is, that when I started the website and the blog almost 5 years ago, I naturally started taking alot of photos, and used the best camera at my disposal, which was Janie’s… She, of course, had no issue with that, but over the years I think it started to get really old… The camera was ALWAYS in the shop, got dirty, I lost the lens cap twice, and on top of all of that, it was a gift from her father.
I “get” all of that, and you would think I would have bought an official company camera by now – actually, it REALLY is crazy that I never did that – I mean, I DID buy a company E-Type! Several, actually!
But I just never got around to it, took tens of thousands of photos with Janie’s camera, and eventually dropped it right onto the lens… It was a Nikon digital with the big removable lenses, and it wiped the lens out. Let me tell you, I felt REALLY bad about that. I drove straight down to the camera shop in town, and bought a brand new lens – which was a better lens, but there was no hiding this screw-up, and I just felt so guilty about dropping the camera, that I kind of kept my hands off of it for a while – that was about 8 weeks ago…
Which happens to be about the time that things just got CRAZY around here! This business gets bigger and busier every day, and I just can’t stay on top of it! I need more space, more people, and more hours in a day!
For starters, the Winter weather finally broke, and I got out the MM company car and started driving that around on the weekends. Also, Spring brought with it alot of new chores – yardwork, etc…
Then, I went on a “machinery buying spree” – I decided that we needed a few new, bigger toys around here to increase our capacity and abilities…
Next, I continued the “E-Type cars and parts buying spree” – I just can’t help myself, and we have alot of incomplete project cars in the works, and so it seems that although I HAVE lots of stuff, it just means that I NEED lots of stuff! And, a ’65 OTS appeared out of nowhere – close to home – and that just HAD to be purchased as well, of course…
With all the buying, did I buy a new camera? Hell No! I’m such an idiot… But I did “buy” one more thing…
I signed a long-term lease last week on a new shop. That’s right, we’re moving – and growing! I was going to put that all in capital letters like I usually do, but I’m a little freaked out, and I’m also kind of sad that I NEVER EVEN GOT MOVED IN to the “dream shop” that I had built next to the house! SO many people said I would outgrow this building, and I never believed them… But it will make one hell of a “toy-box” for Cooper and I in the years to come!
It just became time to make the move – actually, it’s past time. This business is growing by leaps and bounds, and that just can’t happen here – we need more space – LOTS of it! And so that is what the new building will provide – it has approx. 5 times the square footage of the “new” shop here, and EIGHT times the square footage of the little space we are working in now! It will allow us to get all of the machinery, cars, parts, and office space under one roof, and I believe it is going to make us MUCH more productive! We hired a new restorer who is working part time now, but will be ramping up once we move into the new space, and we might even hire a couple more people as well!
So that’s the big news – this cottage industry has finally burst through the walls of the cottage. The new space is a short 3.2 miles down the road, and is in a beautiful location in the country, where the view out the back of the shop looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. The building needs work, but it is essentially a blank canvas that we can build up any way we like. It’s also a great space to have small get-togethers and tours for E-Types – something I have had in the back of my mind for a while…
So – it’s EXCITING – but it’s also going to be one hell of a wild ride this Summer! We really only have a few months to spruce up and outfit the building, move in ALL of our stuff (literally TONS AND TONS of it!), and get things up and running – all while continuing to keep the business going and cash flowing!
I’ll probably have a few mental breakdowns along the way, but what the hell, you only live once, right!?! And I can see the end result in my head already, and let me tell you……….., IT…. IS…. AWESOME!!! And with any luck, I’ll have enough extra time at night to blog things as they happen – which should be REALLY cool!
So stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, here are some cool photos that I DID manage to take over the past few weeks.
P.S. With all the action planned for this Summer, I’m thinking that maybe tomorrow I WILL go down and get that camera… Enjoy your Summer! – Chuck
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- This photo is from the 2015 maiden voyage of the MM company car – 1967 4-speed 2+2. It was a late start this year for the old girl – in November, the clautch slave cylinder went bad, and it just sat downstairs like that all Winter, and the first half of the Spring too… Plus, she had a BAD exhaust leak from a giant hole in one muffler, and so need a whole new exhaust as well…
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- But after a new slave and “new” exhaust, she was back on form, and purring like a kitten!
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- Our first trip out was to this Mill, over an hour away. This is “Sickman’s Mill” just south of Lancaster, PA – I highly recommend checking out their website – it was SUPER cool in there! Buiult BEFORE the Civil War, ALL of the original machinery is still intact – and WORKS!
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- I also snagged this complete 3.8 E-Type engine earlier this Spring! This was a FAST deal! It went from an email, to a phone call, to a trip to the bank, to the guys house all in about 2.5 hours – I got the feeling that ALOT of people were after it and that if I wanted it, there was ZERO time to waste! I was just running out the door when Janie was coming home late that afternoon, and I just walked right past her, yelling something like, “Can’t Talk! E-Type engine! Bank! Have to go! Have to buy! Home later! I love this shit!”
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- The first of the new toys – this is a Diacro 18-station, powered turret punch. It punches MORE holes, FASTER, in BIGGER pieces of sheetmetal, with ZERO time wasted on changing out the punches!
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- This is where I started taking leave of my senses, and what ultimately led to “the big talk”, where we decided that Monocoque Metalworks – which started as “amateur”, and then moved to “professional”, had finally pushed it self over into an “industrial” concern… I had seen the building available a week before this photo was taken, and made the phone call the following morning. This is a Diacro Press brake – 35-ton, hydraulic, with full 8-foot blades. There is no piece of an E-Type that we cannot make with this machine and the proper tooling – in steel OR aluminum…
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- Here’s another shot with Brent in it – in case you aren’t “getting” how BIG this beast is! 3 inches shy of 8-feet high, and at 5600 lbs, this was a BIG moving project! As I’ve said before on stuff like this – actually buying the machine is the EASY part! Moving it was a real nail biter from start to finish – and it wasn’t cheap either! Now, it is going to have to be moved again before it is even plugged in! But I’m certain already that the new building is going to be worth ALL of the pain and suffering – I can’t wait!
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- And here’s another “FIND” that we haven’;t dragged back here yet. Under this pile of junk, resting on wooden blocks, is a 14-foot, blanchard ground, uni-body jigging and assembly table from the now-defunct Delaware GM plant. It was used to set and spot-weld body shells for Chevy Berrettas and Corsicas. At 14-feet, it is going to make the PERFECT basis for an assembly jig for NEW E-Type body shells!
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- At one machinery dealer, I mentioned that I was looking for a roller larger than my current, 4-foot, 16-gauge unit. This is what they had to offer – though it WAS tongue-in-cheek…
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- Then in the midst of everything else going on, this old girl decided to show herself – about 15 miles from home! This is a VERY early 4.2 OTS – all numbers matching, and still carrying MANY 3.8 pieces from the factory. In addition, ALL of the metalwork was completed by a reputable shop nearly 25 years ago! This photo was taken just as found, and a lifelong friend and dream of the owner – who purchsed her as a used car in 1967! I quickly agreed to buy the car, and place her safely in the hands of the best E-Type restorer I know.
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- So two weeks later we pushed her out of her little one-car cocoon, and she is actually being picked up tomorrow on her way to sunny Arizona! No more rust for this old girl!
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- This is another early 4.2 – though about 1,000 cars later than the one above. This is the chassis, suspension, and body shell that we pulled together to house the remains of the “body-less” E-Type that we purchased in Florida earlier this year. THAT E-Type is also going to see new life back on the road! That’s what I love doing the most – gathering up parts and pieces from various sources, and re-assembling E-Types. I call it “parting out in reverse” – it’s my pennance for all of the E-Types I disassembled in the afternoons in high school – at the shop where I worked as a kid. I HATED to see those cars parted out, and there’s nothing more fun for me than buying the picked-over bones of an E-Type parts car, and putting back ALL of the removed and missing pieces, then finding the project a new, GOOD home where she is brought back to life! After the move is completed later this year, I have ALOT more of this work to be done – there is a MOUNTAIN of E-Type parts in our storage warehouse!
