Time for a change

[ulpilot]

I had a conversation with my shop landlord 2 weeks ago. Been renting the building where my shop is from him since 2007, and never has he raised my rent. He is retiring, and transferred ownership of his company to his son and daughter last year. As of December 31st of this year they are also taking over the property my shop is on. He told me that they have some big plans, which include either using or removing my building. So I have to be out by December.

I started looking for another location. Currently I have 1000 sq ft. Looking over the market right now I find rents for that size range from 55 to 300% higher than my current rent. The lower rent spaces are located in areas of the city, that I don’t want to visit on a daily basis, and especially after dark. Add to that, right now I walk from my house to the shop, all new options will require the added cost of driving. Kick in the cost of moving machines, equipment, and all the other accumulated stuff needed to do what I do. Well, even at the lowest rent I found I would need to raise my prices at least 60 to 70%.

Another factor is I am now 70 years old and my personal plan was to retire in the next 1 or 2 years. After running the above numbers through, I think December 31st is now the time to close my business and move on to retirement.

This hurts me personally as I have really enjoyed all the work needed to research, build and restore all the WWI stuff. Been a great challenge working with and for some really wonderful people.

If anyone is interested in purchasing the various tooling, CAD and CAM files let me know. If there is no interest I will probably scrap all of it.

Vet Thomas

[Jeff Brooks]

Vet,
please list all the projects you have been involved with.
Although many of the older posters know who you are, the new guys probably don't know.
What you have done over the years has been a benefit to the WW1 builder community.
The new guys need to know your talents and maybe they would be interested in picking up the torch.

Then again ... the guys at the Vintage Aviator might be interested.

[gipsymoth236k]

I for one (an old guy) knows that Vet Thomas ("ulpilot") does some AMAZING work when it comes to fabricating various WWI aircraft components over my many years!

Good luck Vet!

-Gary Sewall

[MattS]

Hi Vet,

I will second Jeff's post as one of the newer guys, it will be really interesting to hear a summary of the projects you have been involved in.

With regards the tooling where are you based? I'm picking you are not in NZ