wenter dub zen

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unzenfull day

This is part of an on going email conversation that I am having with some one who wants to start a company
a bug shop no less
The biz side of things 
You need to look at at the hidden cost that need to be factored in to you pricing. You have the paint, abrasives, fillers, thinners, cleaners, cost, ( your cost) do you mark up your cost to the client?, or do they get it for what you buy it for? If thats the case, Do you charge them for the time to order it, and get it? What about the fuel that you pay for when you pick it up?or the time that it takes you? What about the cost of the power that you are using while working on the client car, you pay that... your tools, how do they get payed for? who pays when the compressor goes down. what about the building that you are in, does it need maintaining, who pays for that. both mat and time? Licenses, insurance, how bout the te-shirts and jeans that get ruined , ( thats why we went to dickies work shirts) It all ads up All that stuff is overhead, the cost of doing biz. Then there is your time, what is it worth? What is your knowledge and skills worth to you?How many years/decades of learning do you have under your belt got to figure all that up something to think about.....
Then can you really charge what it should be vrs what the client will pay with out going in to shock If you want to make a living doing this, then this is the price, If you want to do it on the side, or as a hobbyist then you don't need to think about any of this. It doesn't matter what a company does, if it doesn't pay for it self, then its the government.............. i.e. you pay


This got me pondering..
With out the priv sector none of this crap is posable . My job at AirkooledKustoms is to make sure that the company has enough coming in to cover what's going out. Just like every other company, with out that basic job duty the company will not exist...


Now with all that being said
I have to do that part of the job to
do the fun parts

zen

A moment of Zen, Fridays at the shop



got to love being at the church of the wholly dub

prunes are tastie

Marc and Dena's , ( really Dena's ) 77 SuperVert is finally out of polish. Color sanding

is a great process , but time consuming , and physically demanding. Just think of it as a

solid two week isometric work out, but with pruney hands and wet feet.

Bugs N Brats IV

Well it is the last sat of Sept. That means that it is time to host our shops show. While it is a pita

it is kool at the same time. I have spent the last week cleaning sorting putting away all the extra

vw parts that just seem to accumulate in the dark corners of the shop. I swear it is like the reproduce faster than rabbits. Which would be kool if they were good parts, oh well.Not only do we clean and sort, but I also try to set up displays of some of our processes , still got to do that. Most people do the mass/thorough clean in the spring, but since the show is always in early fall, we do it then.

Our show is a bit different . We don't do registration, trophies , entry fees or anything like that . It is a cookout, bbq, bring what you got kind of show. I suppose that we will have to change that at some point. but not yet.

See you here

fall cleaning

Well we are almost a week away from Bugs n Brats IV. I have been doing a 'fall cleaning' this week and installing a few pieces of equipment that we have bought and not installed, and uninstall a few old pieces . Cleaning out the misc pieces of VW's that seem to collect and multiply all over the shop and get tucked away in the dark corners of the building. I started in back area of the shop and just worked along each wall and keep going till its all done. As of this morning I have on more wall to go, then the front pad. This process takes about 60 to 70 man hrs for the whole shop. the nice thing is I have to do this anyway, ( for my own sanity) . But with Bugs n Brats IV fast approaching, I have to stage the shop with what we have been working on and what process its in and how we do things. We will be having quite a few guest , clients , potential clients and lots of friends over. I like doing this little show. I would like to get our parts room cleaned up and organized my if I get my office cleaned up that would be kool.

On a personal note, Congrats to My brother and my sister in law , they are going to parents again. I love you guys.

interior on the cheap part 2 sound deading and carpet

part 2 on the shop trucks interior, in part 1 I made interior door cards and trim panels on the cheap, less than 100.00 USD. in keeping with that theme , the carpets needed to be done, and while I was there I wanted to deaden the sound, cause this is a huge steel can that I sit in, very noisy , not in a bad way, but it does ware on me. Doing it on the cheap above is the materials I used for this all bought at Lowes 5 rolls of roofing patch ,it is a alum backed polybutal tape that comes in rolls , It in the roofing repairs section of the store 2 rolls of indoor/outdoor carpet, this amount is enough to do the entire cab, (62.5 sqft) contact cement and a chip brush the metal needs to be clean I used mild soapy water and a rag next I wiped down all the surfaces with Alc and a lint free rag measured and applied , I did have a heat gun to help with the rolling It is not a nessary but it does make it easer.

[

I am doing the whole cab so take your time get it looking good it should take about 7 hrs to do this to a single cab next comes carpet I made my 'kit' in 8 pieces . Behind the seat, there are an upper and lower

wheel humps get one each, stopping at the welded seam, one for the center of under seat

and the floor for your feet

there are two more smaller panels that go in tho the tire well on the insides of the wheel arches and one for the 'floot for that area I made each one of the pieces and left about 1/4 inch extra on all edges test fitting as I went next come gluing, I would suggest getting a cheap pressure pot spray gun with the largest tip you can find then spraying all all the surfaces that are being put in place.If not, than using a brush is fine.

now it is just a matter of installing the carpet. I like working from the top down and in sections . Making sure that the glue is dry to the touch start with the center and working your way out pressing comes after it is were you want.

as you work towards the edges you will need to remove the extra, a stiff putty knife helps,just work the edge and cut as you go usins a sharp box cuter

now come the reinstall of shifter

with the seats and shifter installed looks like it should

all in all not bad, day and a half labor, under 150.00 UDS and a very quiet truck

new panels..... Material List 2 sheets of 1/8 masinite 1 quart contact cement 10 sq. yards of backed exterior vinyl 1 china brush, (cheap) this is what I started with, after I removed the purple fur material that screams 70's All of the interior panels looked like ass. before I threw them in the trash I traced them on to the masinite . after tracing all of the panels and cutting them out, I used an air shear for the cutting and a belt sander for the smoothing , but a jig saw will work just fine lay out the new door cards on the vinyl and cut out leaving a min of 1/2 " extra around all sides coat the face of the panel and the back on the now cut fabric with contact cement, you can use the stuff in the can and spray it, but it is cheaper to to buy the qt can and brush it on. let it dry. If you want to put any designs in the panels now is the time to install them, We went with our logo. after you have that down, coat the top face of your design with contact cement and let dry to the touch,I usually let every thing set up for 30 min. place you material on the card and remove the air bubbles then press the material on to the card. I like using a wallpaper roller. now wrap the edges around the back of the cards and press the edge down, once again using my wall paper seam roller. next I like to compress the cards a vac press is ideal for this, but if you don't have one , stack the cards in pairs in-between two pieces of plywood and set weight on them, and leave them for a min of 12 hrs this is what they look like when them come out of the press after you clean them with IPA notice the inserts I used some scraps of the vinyl for mine, you can use foam but I am doing this on the cheap

one more milestone

One of our long time restos is nearly complete, a 75/76 vw transporter, Nice ride, We have had our share of issues with this resto. Some time projects will fight every step of the way, and this one has. But one more step is completed. M Harney aka Dr. Dell has made a few trips down from his shop in Nashville to help out with this build, from re-casing the motor, ( new block for a already new motor, with a crack in the case. to building the carbs, to tuning. Today he did the drive test, where he hooks a AFM to the tail pipe and drive the bus around watching the air/fuel mix, and stopping a few times to make small adjustments till he is happy with what he is feeling and what he is seeing on his meter.

As far as stopping..... new master cyc is on its way up from the parts house in huntsville.

FORE

back at it after a strange trip, I have heard that expression before, but never lived it. I have now.

As we grow up and have kids of our own, gasp grandkids now. our family ages with us. perhaps more so. My folks are getting settled in to there life after kids,  and I have been going through that as well. My kids are all grow and moved out, making my wife and I empty nesters .This is life, so we live it, good, bad , ugly and pretty , but watching my folks it hit home for me. My step mom has been getting ready for her chemo, and Nana is well Nana, just a bit slower. Then there is Dad..... It was watching him that had the most effect on me he works to much, and loves it, I think

So after watching that for a week, I have redoubled my effort to balance my life between work and home. Not so easy when the walk from my home to my office is a real short sand wedge.

FORE

B O P 11

even more pics  here

and here

Is the car clean , is there gas in the tank?

In e-mailing with my first cousin, bob the climber, dude is crazy for climbing, but I write about him at a later date. He let me know that he to has one of these blogthingies , but hasn't updated in a while. So it made me think that I need to do updates, but updates would imply going back and bringing current some of the items that were in the past, being that this is my 5th post, there are not to many things to up date.

 Show prep......

 Getting ready for a show used to be, is the car clean and is there gas in the tank.......? Then it was need to get the canopy and chairs, and then there is camping shows, all that is there, but as I do this more for the shop  and and less for me, them more shuff I have to get ready. there is the displays of beams, weighing any where between 10 lb to 40 lb, there is the canopies ,tables, chairs, flyers, coats, brochures,trike trailers , patches, stickers, and on and on. Part of the night mare is the gathering up of all the  shtuff . Being that we out source most of our swagg, to local venders, all that has to be done, and gathered up, payed for,priced and sold. 

 Don't misconstrue , I still enjoy there shows, the little boy is still inside me, and there are alot of shiny cars going to be in one place, and, I get to hang with my friends, 

That is the best part

back to work

Mad Props To Just Jim

Let me tell you about my buddy Super beatle JimJust Jim, or JJ .

he is one talented dude!!! He is a car guy, he owns a 69 camaro ,

lifted stepside 4X4, and a 79 convertable bug. and all are nice, but

that is just his hobby. In real life he is a defense sector graphic artist .

 I don't really know what that is , but I do have an idea of what he does

cause of a promo vid he did for the shop. 

 See we are growing a bit, and  are helping to sponsor a few shows

this season. the first one will be Bug a paluza 11 anyway... part of the deal is

the shop gets a vender space, and need draw peeps in, this is in all fact a 

temp store for the shop, so After talking with Master Gumby, the other 

owner of the shop, we decided to get a dvd made for display of the shop,

a 5 min commercial if you will. Now  Jim is a member of the vw club

and hangs out at the shop once in a while, and I was talking about this

in passing about 1 month ago, and he offered to help out and give it a try.

 well this is the result .