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Reply to "Chesil Speedster - my planned winter overhaul of '98 build"

I've got a GREAT fab shop I use for everything (business and car stuff).

The shop has a quintessentially "Peoria" story. The owner (in his mid-80s now) served an apprenticeship as a sheetmetal worker, and started a fabrication shop 50+ years ago, catering to Caterpillar and John Deere. At one point he had a couple hundred employees and about 2 acres under roof (10+ big lasers, and attendant everything else). He sold the company at the peak, but retained ownership of the real estate.

Gary (the guy) has a different late model V-Series Cadillac for every weekday. He's got a couple of drag cars and a nice (but unassuming) house.

The new owners ran the company into the ground, and Gary bought everything he wanted back on auction. He moved the machine and fabrication tools into one of the smaller buildings (maybe 300x100) and hired his "number 1". He's got a full powdercoat line in addition to the fabrication shop.

He futzes around in there, just for something to do. People from all over the Midwest bring him cars to do metal fab work, and he does it (if the muse strikes). They do a lot of one-off and small batch laser work for specialty shops. There's no sign on the door. You need to know somebody to know they're in operation.

GMH Fabrication's work is almost perfect and laughably cheap. I think they are billing at south of $50/hr, but I don't know-- I just pay whatever Gary's wife bills me, and am happy to have it.

That vane would run me at least twice the cost of a new alternator at GMH, and that's assuming it would work.

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