Well, this year has been a good year for our small welding shop. Really considering the current manufacturing economy in Michigan, it was a great year. Having a "real" job as an engineer in the auto industry and a "hobby" job running my fab shop makes for some long days and busy weekends, but finally I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I refuse to go into debt to finance my "hobby" shop, and that has held us back some from an expansion standpoint. I don't plan on working for the man for too many more years before I go into fabing for good. Once the little one's are in school and Momma can go back to work for insurance I should be golden.
We have outgrown our little shop and have cleared the site for our new shop. It's not huge at just less than 2,000 sq/ft with 16' ceiling and (3) 14' bay doors. Our current 1000 sq/ft shop will then become our paint room. This will help us process work much better. The way we are now is to fabricate, finish, prime, and paint all in the same building and before we can move on to the next job. Finish, prime, and paint ties up the current shop for two days and really eats up our delivery time on the next job waiting. Not to mention the clean up afterwards, no matter how well things are tarped off painting still coats the shop in dust. Our new shop will allow me to keep the guys fabing while the paint shop is going, and no more paint dust on everything! I think we will cut our standard deliveries by two weeks or more.
I'm not bragging about how much we make since this will totally tap the shop account funds, but I am very proud of my guys, my wife (she runs the books and chases parts around all day), and my business partner for the seven years of hard work and sacrifices we have all made to get to this point. I am totally blessed to have such a supportive staff that has stuck it out with us and made this possible. Thanks to all of you here too for the valuable information that has been passed on and the support of everyone willing to share their vast diverse experiences with total strangers.
If any of you have some fabricated work that is being outsourced I would sure be open to quoting it. I need to fill this new shop up and keep the guys busy for the months and years to come. 8-10k fabrications are about our size limit for handling currently.
Thanks,
Mark