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

Fillers

fillers

bondo- while it is a generic term for body fillers, ie plastic epoxies
the actual product 'bondo'tends to have a higher solvent content
while this make it easer to spread, it leads to more shrink, as the solvent
evaporate and the product cures.
If you are going to use plastic fillers then buy a good quality ( we use evercoat rage,and then sparingly )
while body fillers have there place in auto resto, they are usally not used
correctly. If it is applied to thick it shrink and crack as it out gasses and cures.Thin coats of correctly mixed filler is the way ,curing then sanding between coats.
There are dif types( chem makeups) of plastic filler.
talc-
most fillers are talc based,talc being the main solid component
typically use by 90% of the industry for filling small areas and feathering repairs.
alm-
also called metal to metal filled, main solid is alm power typically used in areas of the car that have a higher vibration or shock loads
we use it primarily around doors/trunks and deck lids
kitty hair-
epoxy resin filler with short, fiberglass strands and talc for for its main solids og designed for fiberglass ,it is mostly used to pack it to bad repairs.(we see alot of this.) We use it... to make molds for shaping complex curves out of steel, or on fiber glass
out of those 3 kittyhair is the only one that is NOT hydroscopic .

lead-
to og filler, old skool, not much use today, we still do lead work for some clients, while it is a lost art, it is actually very simple to do.
non lead lead-
same as above but it is a tim based alloy with no lead in it
working temp is slightly lower than true lead
(thanks EPA)

the best way to do a repair, is to do it and not use ANY fillers and metal finish . this is unrealistic for most peeps , their check book, or skill level.
(most people do not have the patience to do this).
the final thickness on filler ( for our shop) can be no more than .075" (1/16"), I want it thiner than that

glazing putty-
talc based, but with much smaller particulate size than standard plastic filler. use primarily for pin holes, ( if you use good fillers correctly you wont have pin holes) and small repairs has a high solvent content -so it will shrink if used incorrectly .
NEVER use one part glazing compound EVER

I still HATE Bondo

highs and lows

this was written by a guy I know talking about sound and vibrations in cars

Hey guys, I saw this thread and thought I'd chime in. I'm an acoustician and av designer by profession and it seems there is alot of misunderstanding about how sound energy works in this thread. So, I thought I'd shed some light for you all... Praises to the OP for actually using an SPL meter, but I think the fundamentals of acoustics are not being acknowledged. There are only four ways to reduce noise level (i.e. make things quieter) for direct sound in a car cabin, and the term "direct" here is key: 1. Make the source quieter (not many ways to make your engine quieter here aside from a milder muffler). If it's wind noise you're concerned with, then replace all your weatherstripping the right way so that it's water-tight everywhere. From here on out, I'll assume you're talking about engine noise though. 2. Move the source further away from the listener (not practical or advised) 3. Block the Sound from entering the cabin with massive material (i.e. thick metal, not absorptive padding). 4. Reduce any noises caused by engine vibrations by reducing vibration. (ok, 5 would be to wear noise cancelling headphones). Notice how I did not mention absorptive padding in this list? This is due to a couple of reasons. Sound waves are made up of different frequencies: high frequencies have short wavelengths that are easy to absorb and low frequencies have long wavelengths that are difficult to absorb. By "easy to absorb," I mean that absorptive padding on the order of 1-6" thick will reduce the level of sound energy (probably above 1-2kHz) from being transferred through the material. By "hard to absorb," I mean that absorptive padding needs to be on the order of 1-10 FEET thick to reduce the sound energy. Because absorptive padding is very inefficient at absorbing low frequencies and low wavelengths diffract around just about anything it comes into contact with, it is not worthwhile or even possible to try to absorb low frequencies with absorptive padding that can fit within the cabin. So, when you guys add all of this sound deadener and padding to your car, you're effectively only reducing high-frequency energy. This is all well and good, but lower-frequencies are typically the ones that are the most annoying when you drive. As it is, your car is naturally absorbing the higher frequencies from the engine with the stock firewall, rear set, headliner, etc. If I had to wager a guess, those of you who have added lots of padding have reduced the high frequency noise in your car (i.e. it will sound dead inside with the car off), but you're still getting alot of muffled rumbling from the engine when it runs. This has to do with the ineffeciency of absorptive padding and also what is termed "direct" sound. Direct sound is sound that travels from the sound source to your ears without bouncing off of anything. Direct sound in the case of a car cabin can be considered sound that is reaching your ear once it's in the cabin without bouncing off of seats, glass, headliner etc. If you have a ton of padding and you're still annoyed by loud engine noise, odds are you have a lot of direct noise penetrating the engine bay into the cabin and the absorptive padding in the cabin is not absorbing it very well. I.e. if you're hearing a rumbling make it to your ears in the cabin, the padding within the cabin will only absorb reflections of that sound, not the direct sound. The direct sound is coming through your fire-wall, which is a more crucial point of sound penetration. If your firewall was sufficiently massive to block engine noise, you wouldn't really need much absoprtive padding on the interior of the cabin. So! Solutions to get rid of low-freq engine noise are few, costly, evasive, and perhaps expensive. I would recommend increasing the mass of the wall between the engine bay and the cabin. For instance, you could buy another firewall and weld it onto the existing one, but even this won't help much until you're about 4 layers thick. Also make air-tight any passages from the engine bay into the car. This includes heater ducts as they penetrate into the cabin. One thing that is frequently overlooked are the vibrations that cause noise. These are often significant and can be reduced by making sure your engine hangers/vibration isolator mount rubber is fresh, free-floating, and not short-circuiting. This will go a long way to transferring noise-inducing vibration to the frame of the car. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but keep in mind you have a series of explosions happening many times a second within 8 feet of you. Keeping that quiet is no easy task... So, if I had to recommend a quieter engine, I'd recommend taking the money you'd waste on sound "deadener" and buy a newer BMW, they are quiet. Scientific enough for you?

zen

A moment of Zen, Fridays at the shop



got to love being at the church of the wholly dub

Mondays around the shop ,for the greater zen

Most people hate Mondays. that must suck
Our hours of 'open to the public' are tue through fri 6 am to 6 pm. Mon and Sat are by appt only.
This might seem odd, but it makes since from a operational perspective .Airkooled Kustoms is a restoration
shop. Our core cliental are nut and bolt restorations. That means every nut/bolt and component is eather restored to better than factory or replaced with new, and then detailed. We do do service work, build suspensions as well as build one off kustom trikes , but primarily it ocd restorations . And for that to happen
planning, timing, and part prep is critical.
  The four day work week is a good thing for us, on the personal side, 3 days off..... can't beat that, for the staff here it is a bonus day to take care of life in gen, doc appt, kids , yard work, long weekend at the beach,  less day in traffic, one less day gas cost.
 On the professional side the type of work we do lends  itself to a longer day. Before you get in an up roar
the staff is set to 10 hrs per day 4 days a week, and can set there own hrs, with in reason. I , the evil corporate owner, am the only one who puts in insane hrs. most days I am in the shop by 430 am and I try to get out by 5 p.m., at least for dinner. Plus I have 4 acres worth of yard to mow.
Sorry digressing a bit
 The longer day provides the craftsmen to lose himself in his work, For Zens  sake ,

 Mondays provide me with time to get caught up, on projects, paperwork, cleaning the shop, you would not believe just how dirty the shop gets, I know "Its a shop" but DAMNNNNNNN.
anyway
 back to pushing the broom

being that I run a small biz, certain realties are always present , cost of doing biz and compliance with
local, state, and fed.  While I haven't really touched on the subject   the feds are getting more .... lets say nosier  .
 With the passage of min wage last year ( 7.50 per hr). Our cost of op went up, sales didn't, but thats not important, ( yes it is) never mind that the actual cost of employment is not reflected in that min wage, ( add 15 to 40 % of what you make per hr, and that what it cost your employer, go figure ....
 I came across an op ed piece that is reality for most of us who are the back bone of this funding of gov parasites.
web site  http://tinyurl.com/24qp79n

article  by DON BOUDREAUX on APRIL 29, 2010

in PRICES, REALITY IS NOT OPTIONAL, REGULATION, WORK

An Entrepreneur and the Minimum-Wage

by DON BOUDREAUX on APRIL 29, 2010

in PRICES, REALITY IS NOT OPTIONAL, REGULATION, WORK

A.G. (who asks me to use, in this post, only his initials) is a regular reader of Cafe Hayek.  He’s 28 years old and is an entrepreneur in Charlotte, North Carolina.  His firm employs 25 people, 21 of whom are low-skilled workers.  A.G. just sent this memo to his employees:

To All Team Members:

The schedule for next week has been posted. You may notice that hours have been cut back on your schedule. This is across the board, not just you. I don’t want anyone to think they’ve done something wrong to deserve a cut in hours, so I wanted to explain why it’s happening.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) May and September are very slow months for our business. Anyone who has worked Sundays recently has seen the drop off in traffic. Now that we’re entering May, that drop off will continue on to other days as well, and it will get worse.

2) The recent increase in the minimum wage to $7.25/hour. Since we’ve opened, I’ve had a lot of people ask why they can’t get more hours, and it’s a great question.

I would LOVE to give everyone all the hours they want, and then some. Our customers would be happier across the board, we could accomplish much more every day, our business would grow, I could hire even more people, and on and on. However, we operate on a tight budget just like any other business, and in order to survive, we have to make money. That means our labor cost (the total amount you are all paid) must stay below a certain percentage of our total sales. If it doesn’t, we go broke and everyone loses their jobs.

Our brilliant Congressmen in Washington, D.C. decided a couple years ago that it would be a good idea to raise the minimum wage by about 40% to $7.25/hour. It just took effect last year. That probably sounds like great news for everyone – more money in everyone’s pockets can only be good, right?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way in the real world. If I’m forced to pay everyone 40% more, I can’t afford to schedule as many employees for as many hours, since our sales aren’t going up by 40%. Remember, I can only afford to pay you guys a certain percentage of all the money coming in the door. That means hours get cut, and everyone ends up poorer.

In a perfect world, it should work the opposite way: you should be free to choose how much you think your skills and time are worth (since you know best), and I should be free to pay you whatever that amount is if I want to hire you. Everyone wins in that case. I get as many good employees as I want that I can afford to pay, and you get valuable job training, references, and relationships to carry into the future.

To prove how bad of a deal minimum wage is for you guys as hard-working job-seekers, just look at this way:

I’m not being forced to pay $7.25/hour; YOU are being forced to accept $7.25/hour no matter what, even if you’d be willing to take less in order to get (or keep) a job.

You can thank our elected officials in Raleigh and Washington for sticking you with such a raw deal.

If you have any questions about any of this or want to talk more about it, please feel free to come see me, the door is always open.

(Note: A.G.’s reference to a 40-percent increase in the national minimum-wage seems to refer to that wage’s increase since 2006.  The increase since 2008 is 11 percent; the increase since 2007 is 24 percent.  But even an arbitrary 11-percent increase is enough to lead to the effects that A.G. describes.)

nice show this weekend will post pics  later,