car body restoration School!!

Ive just started restoration classes at tamworth college, covers welding painting, metal fabrication and all of the relevant skills for restoration

the tutor used to restor rolls royces amongst other things, ?47!! for 11 weeks , access to a fully equipped garage while your there

only the third sesssion but ite very good so far

Worth checking out your local college to see if they have a course near you

?47!!!!! 8O

Right, where's my local college……

Thats a good deal - I had to pay over ?100 just for a basic 10 week evening welding course at a North London college - it was very good though.

Before folks get too excited though, the bad news seems to be that fewer and fewer local tech colleges are running this type of course now, especially the car resto ones that run evenings.

I had to look long and hard to find a course and I live in London where you would have thought there would be a higher concentration of colleges and so more courses. What I found was that many colleges seemed to be dropping this type of course as the running costs are high compared to say the IT or language courses, and the college charges about the same for each course… so more cash in the cheaper to run courses I'd guess, hence the trend.

Walthamstow college in outer NE London has good facilities and a car resto course, but its booked up about a year in advance at the mo  :cry:

I did notice at the classic car show at the NEC that a few companies offer intensive 1 & 2 week full time courses teaching traditional bodywork skills (panel beating, welding, general body finishing etc.), but they weren't cheap (hundreds of pounds upwards).

If a local college does a course like this then do yourself a favour and sign up - they really are excellent value and often the lecturers are very knowledgable with years of industry experience.

Seem to remember an article in the likes of Practical Classics last year saying how the restoration business was in crisis as far as skills went. SUpposedly no-one is interested in learning the skills these days and as the older guys retire / die off a lot of the knowledge is lost. Its certainly an area I would be interested in moving into and training in, but most restorers seem to be based out in the countryside in converted farms etc. which isn't ideal for me at the moment living in central London.

Does anyone on here work in the restoration business? Care to comment on how you see its future? Is it something worth taking up a career in, or is it more of a dying industry…..

Chris

I'd be interested in this as a future career change (once the mortgage is knocked on the head). No courses around down here in Kent that I'm aware of unfortunately. Would be interested in hearing more about the state of the industry too.

I might be able to get the premises Chris, fancy a partnership in about a decade or so? :wink:

Cheers,

Drew.

I briefly looked into trying to find a spraying course but couldn't find anything that wasn't a full time 2-3 year course miles away  :cry: and it wasn't cheap!

Always wanted to get into spraying but it's not looking hopeful now, might just keep it as a hobby

I tell a lie. Just found one at Mid Kent College, Maidstone…

http://cs.midkent.ac.uk/malive/cs/details.aspx?datakey=438

Starts October this year. ?355 for 30 weeks, tuesday or thursday 6:30-9:30 pm. ?11 an evening effectively.

Might do that!

Cheers,

Drew.

Drew - I kid you not I would *LOVE* to train and get experience in car restoration. For me it would be one of those dream jobs - doing something you would normally spend your spare time doing and getting paid for it  8) .

I was thinking about going down the IT contracting route short term to maybe enable me to have more control over my hours and allow me to do a course like the one in Maidstone.

I was put off the paint / spraying side of things mainly on health grounds originally. Its probably OK to get exposed to small concentrations of some of the stuff used in the painting process on an occasional hobby basis, but day in day out, even with Pro breathing gear it can't be good for you  :? . However with tighter enviro legislation and advances in paint technology it now looks like most pro paint shops are switching over to water based paints in line with what the manufacturers have been using for a while. This should hopefully mean the health issues are greatly reduced.

I think the great thing about car restoration skills is that with experience and practice you could get to the stage where the bodywork side of any resto was practical. This might really open up some interesting car ownership possibilities.

I'd still love to hear from anyone in the trade - their experiences, how they got into it, where they see things going.

Personally I think the resto business is very closely tied in to the fate of the classic car market in general. This in turn could be significantly affected by safety and environmental law changes. Having said that even if true classics get banned over time there might still be a huge market for "pseudo" classics using the same bodyshells (or kit replicas), but with modern engines and running gear. I guess the skills needed to build such cars would be similar to the car restorers skill set?

Need to get a plan together for making the career transition  :wink:

Chris

chris keep it to a spare time hobby because when you do get into the business full time you will soon regret even starting. it was always my dream job and i spent 5 years training as an apprentice restoring, repairing vw's in the  80's. i then left because the pay as a fully time served panel beater/painter was not worth getting out of bed for compared to other trades(and i was taught by an older man and learnt parts of the trade that you just can,t get done know ie leading and wood resto) i then left and became a bt engineer(now that is boring)but it pays a lot more than car resto and you don,t get your hands ripped to bits, parts of your body burnt by either grinding or welding, sore ears from all the hammering. so from my experience keep it to a hobby and you will enjoy it and you can also earn more money were you are. regarding your concerns over painting it would not afect you greatly as a hobby as long as you use a decent mask during prep work and an air feed mask during painting

Not wishing to hijack this thread, but I'm interested to hear more Alex. I'm sure those of us thinking about getting some training etc. would find your experiences of interest?

When you say the pay was pretty poor, do you think that was just to do with the particular places you worked , or an industry wide thing?

Looking at it from an outsiders point of view I think after you had "served your time" and got your skills up to a decent standard then it seems the best bet is to go into business for yourself - start small and build up the business via referrals?

I would guess the skills needed to restore a low value car like the golf (for example) are likely to be similar to those needed to restore more valuable machinery like classic Porsches and Mercs. To my mind you have to look at the finished value of the car as a guide to what you can charge for work you can do on it. I wouldn't have thought even the most dedicated VW nut would spend more than a few thousand getting a specialist to restore a Mk1 GTi for example. However I could see someone spending several times that to restore a nice early 911 for example as the final value of the car would make it worth while.

A few friends and one of my rellys are in other more traditional trades (plumber, electrician and a builder), and almost without exception they tell me the only way to make a decent living and avoid continually struggling against new competition is to aim for the higher end of the market and do a quality job, but charge people for it. Certainly a lot of people won't use you as they see you as "expensive", but charging more for the work enables you to do a higher quality job and sepnd more time getting it right. After a few years hopefully you will have enough repeat customers and referrals to make it a goer and you build a rep as someone who whilst not the cheapest does quality work..

With any business its not advisable to compete purely on cost as there is always someone out there who will try and do it cheaper - in my area of work, (IT development) there is always someone who claims they can do it cheaper or quicker. Sadly a lot of people learn the hard way that quality costs and that in the long run getting it done right the first time is actually cheaper than getting it done cheap and then having to have it done again…..

In some ways I am quite lucky as the wife and I don't have any kids (or plan to either) and she has a decent job she enjoys. Although we do have the ever present mortgage to support I could afford to take a much lower wage and we could still get by. I guess it all depends on what sort of pay levels are achievable?

Alex - Do you think its possible to earn ?20K - ?25K in the resto business as someone with spraying and welding skills and more general mechanic skills after you have a few years experience? If this was realistic I'd be willing to train for a few years to get the skills to be able to do something I really enjoy.

I know like every job there are duff parts to it and good and bad days, but believe me when you have had jobs that take over your life and stress you to the point where your health is affected, and you dread goiing in everyday the money really is just not worth it. All I need is enough to get by on, and if I am restoring cars all day I'd be a pretty happy bunny most of the time  

If you don't mind telling us a bit more I'd really like to hear how you decided to try it out as a career, what age you started at and what you had been doing before. How did you go about getting training and any of the pitfalls you came accross.

Oops - bit of a long post there, but this is really interesting for me as its something I am seriously looking into, and you can't beat the experience of others for those useful insights!

Cheers,

Chris

right chris were do i start with your questions. firstly if i put my skills to every day body repair/ accident repair i could earn in excess of 25k a year but as that does not interest me as it is not got an end product as such. as for restoration i am afraid there are not enought vw nuts out there to keep everyone going in business as this forum proves with everyone trying themselves or knowing people who can do it after work at a fraction of the cost because they have no overheads, no wage bills no tax bills and no vat bills(bills bills bloody bills).

and yes there is a market out there to restore top of the range classics but there is also a lot of overheads there because people with money do not part with it as easily as the average working man so you need a lot more working capital cause these type of customers normally pay at the end of the job and not in installments when they are 100% happy.

i did have a go at the garage industry for a number of years and found it to be a constant struggle between dealing with customers, suppliers etc and found myself working almost 12-14 hours per day for very little for the hours worked were as now i work 8 hours a day and that is it i go home and forget all about work and work on my gti and enjoy it,when the kids let me between bike rides, swimming baths and visits to the park.

if you wanted to train for a couple of years you probably would be able to make a go of it at the lower end of the market. unless you had a load of cash to invest then you could go into a higher bracket. but as in my previous post and reading your posts keep it to a hobby and then when you have more experience and other peoples cars to work on  then branch out little bits at a time.

car restoration is not a money making machine as a one man show.

if you can get your hands on a copy of vw motoring from april 95(p63)

I know it's slightly different but I have had jobs to do with my hobbies in the past, about 6 years in fact. In some ways it's ok but I agree with Alex it's nice to keep them as a hobby.

Peter.

I guess thats that one thing that worries me a bit - its all very well doing something you enjoy under no time pressure and at your own pace, but I guess maybe it loses some of the "shine" when you have to complete things to tight deadlines, make a living and deal with awkward customers.

Still I get all those things in my current line of work, and at least with working on the cars I'd get trade rpices for stuff and probably access to the facilities to do big jobs on my own cars…….

Ah well - I think for now I'll plan to take a few more courses over the next couple of years and keep going with the IT stuff for now.

Chris

if any of you still interested, here is a site http://www.restoredclassic.cjb.net/
that list all the colleges that does it.

Good link, cheers kaizer :wink:

Thats a good link for starting off your search, but be warned I think its not been updated for a few years. I looked at that site when I did my search for resto courses last year and a lot of the links were broken and many of the courses are no longer running.

The best way to find out is to get a list of your local tech colleges and then trawl their websites as most of them have the latest course listings on them.

I think there is a website that lets you search all the local college courses in the UK called something like "searchlight" or "floodlight" or something like that. A Google search should turn it up.

If you live anywhere near Leeds I believe the automotive engineering department at either the uni or one of the colleges run some very good resto courses - both evening and full time 1 and 2 week courses during the summer hols.

Cheers,

Chris