It is so hard to get anyone to do anything

[Drbrown]

Jack E/NJ: An indoor pot is a far cry from an outhouse. If you want a snooze in the indoor one you can lock the door, and at least you have a water source, probably a light, and hopefully an exhaust fan. When I was a kid in the '40s we had a 4 foot square outhouse. Hated going out there during the night .... the bears use to hang out around it. Guess they liked the "perfumed" smell. It was a 70 foot dash back to the door of the house, hopefully with a working flash light. Them's good old days !

[cas3]

i still have an outhouse near the shop. the smell is nothing if its used seldom. now more whining on topic, i forgot the main point of my story, that is these guys that have so much talent is why you hire them right? but, if the shop is behind, and the wallet is empty then they rush thru the last stages to get it out of there because the next guy has already started to bitch. so you went to a special place, and got half ass results. my motor guy did work long hours and produced great motors, just not mine. the 34 project is a tough call. i feel if i bitch too much it will get done, but perhaps a rush out the door job. if i dont bitch at all it may not get done. i have had a few conversations along the lines of...we have tornados, is the shop insured? even if it is, i doubt i'll ever see a check for the gobs of money i have in it. fire? i had a shop fire in 2010, fire is a bad thing. death? people die in short times daily. we are old, this winter my best friend, 71, had me over to help go after some junk, i was hooking up the trailer stuff and he said "you drive", and went up the side of the truck and got in. 30 seconds later, i went up and opened the drivers door and he was laying there dead, heart failure gives no warning, you are done...now. i have had two friends die from pancreatic cancer which gives you about two months from time of discovery. so, these are the sad facts of life especially for us old guys. so, i say, do your kids know thats my car if you die? do i have an international law suit ahead of me? car accidents? thats any of us, any time. so, my deal is not good, i will never do it again. i had the chance to buy a 3 window and have the body fixed right, so after 2 years of looking i went for it. now, i wait, dont want to push too hard, and dont want to just wait for the call that its done. be gentle, push a little, but never again, another of those lessons in life.

[slowforty]

"Forty Yards to the Out House" A Story By Willie Makit and Betty Don't.

[rotorwrench]

A good friend of mine worked for a restoration shop here in the SA TX region a fair number of years ago. The only type of work the shop would do was concours restorations. I think he worked there for near four years before he finally got a lot better job (and Pay) somewhere else. In that time, the resto shop never completely finished a car. The shop would string the owners along till they finally got tired of waiting and paying many thousands of dollars with no end in sight then they would eventually wise up and pull their cars to stop the dumb. The guy that ran the place was nuts. He would use calipers to measure door gaps and crap like that. if it wasn't just right and he couldn't adjust any better, he would weld on the edges until they were all perfect. If he ever finished a car I imagine it would have been close to perfection but the cars weren't that nice when they left the show room floor and I don't see the point other than to bilk the customers of their money.

[J Witt]

People get completely nuts over cars. Beats anything else I know about (not me, though ).

I watch Carini and his TV show about classic cars. It's interesting to watch some of the moneyed people who buy/sell/restore cars on the show and some of the absurd things that are done. But one of the things that impresses me is the occasional look at some of the craftsmen he finds to do the work.

The really good ones have a secret and that is to raise the price until the work load is at an acceptable level. I found that out years ago when doing custom model building.

[GB SISSON]

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Caliper? If a door gap looks good to the eye, that's all that matters. If you can't tell a .016 points gap by eye, you have't grown up working on old cars.

[rotorwrench]

I never could tell in the dark after the bike quit on the way home but I found that a match book cover was about .016" thick so I always carried a book of matches with me. A Harley owner always has to be prepared.

[TStiles]

I have a many-years friend who is a machinist by profession (retired) and can fix ANYTHING. After retiring, he found his calling doing yacht repair - something that he loves to do and is extraordinary at. His problem, as J Witt mentioned, is his rates. FAR too affordable. This kept him overwhelmed with work and with huge backlogs. He finally raised his rates. The impact was a workload that he could keep up with and a lot more money in his pocket. These guys are out there, but they're rare, for sure.

[cordbob]

the biggest problem today is people have no Integrity if they would just do what they say they're going to do life would be so much easier I always do exactly what I say I'm going to do no matter what it is like today I'm still waiting for a package that was supposed to be shipped out 10 days ago and still waiting for the tracking number That was supposed to be emailed to me yesterday. ...

[Paul Bennett]

My recent experience was getting a bathroom remodeled. Got the first contractor started in May and the final one was in December. And that was top dollar. They can take on too many jobs when the weather is good and make excuses missing schedule dates. But what's the alternative?