A Work in Progress;

[taggat]

The idea, a common shop for a band of brothers.
A place full of the tools to get the job done, quickly and efficiently.
A place big enough to fit all of the needs, repairs, inventory and even paint.
A place were people of common interest share common ground.
A place were people become friends and friends become brothers and or sisters.

How it would operate and be successful?
Would it be ran like a motorcycle club or a business, possibly a bit of both?
I know all I want is what is fair to all.
Id give you the shirt off my back...
but if you steal your ass is out with interest.
Of course any persons sole belongings belong to them.

Any ideas or interest?

I keep imagining this on my property, for obvious cost considerations.
3 acres out in the sticks, quiet, away from town but close within half hour.
Nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away.
A pole barn built on top of existing slab of concrete.
Eventually being insulated and heated with Internet.
Its own dedicated line for multiple 220 connections for those nice welders and such.
A dedicated paint booth for some quality jobs!
The building maybe 8 grand in materials.
Itll be built hopefully this year if financing goes through.
But the building, taxes, insurance etc would be solely my responsibility.
Open 24-7 for everyone's convenience.

Or a rental on existing shop that continues to just drain funds?

Does someone own a building? What can you offer?

Just putting my thoughts out there and didnt want to hijack "I had a dream" last night. haha

[550fi]

Tha sounds really cool and I commend you on the gesture and effort to put more vintage bikes on the road.That could really help some of the guys that have to work out of apts or under carports and such,you are a humanitarian.

[Deleted]

Sounds great! Now move to the west side! jk

I had a friend who did that in N. Carolina and he says it works out great for everyone.

[cb500bobber]

Awesome idea I love it

[tango911]

Its def a cool idea. But would only be good for local peeps. I wouldnt travel 45 mins one way to work on a project, id never get anything done. But for local peeps that dont have all the resources available to them it would be a cool club. have a monthly dues. And any bike fixes that come through the garage can be used to pay for the facilities. Or profit sharing.

[leadkrm]

I have also wondered about something like this. It would be great! But I'm not sure how we would be able to operate and not go under. There would have to be something like a bar or restaurant as well as a repair shop because all anyone would have to do to have access is join the free group we have and suddenly help and tool use are free. We should spit ball ideas and get this idea going because we could turn this group into a great thing with a resource like this.

[leadkrm]

Doing some thinking and had an idea. We could start building cafe and bobber kits and open a website store. I know when I look online there are a handful of stores that have the market cornered so I don't think it would be a hard market to break into. And all those distributors are on the east or west coast which takes shipping to the middle of the country a long wait. So the idea is that we pool some money to buy supplies like fiber glass and resin and start making seat pans and things like that. I am good at upholstry now but to be able afford the vinyl we will have to sell unfinnished seats for a bit. And I don't see it being hard to measure out some dimensions to throw together a couple different hard tail kits. I have planned on sculpting out and fiberglassing full race fairings for the old cb bikes for a while now just because I can't ever seem to come accross any on the net. Some more artistic members should start doing designs for our club such as signature Indianapolis vintage products. Unique cafe seats and components tanks and headlight buckets. Those items would be a good place to start.

[leadkrm]

I also don't see clip-ons and headlight ears being hard to fabricate either. Simple rear sets may be possible but I'm not sure. I work at a fastener business so I should be able to get anything we need if I order the minimum quantity from our suppliers

[leadkrm]

I don't know much about what goes into bobbing or hardtailing a bike so maybe more experienced members can think of products that would be good to make for those styles of bikes

[cb500bobber]

Its a good idea but I think you are getting a little carried away with trying to sell parts it might be better if you did something along the lines like Taggat said have a shop with everything in it and then whoever wants to be in the club would pay monthly dues and any work that comes in from outside the club will help pay the rent. Once you start trying to sell parts you have to have a business license and file taxes with everything you sold

[taggat]

Digging the ideas Lead! Is anyone an accountant? Or business major?
Fabricating parts would be a breeze once the jigs were made.
UPS account would save us and are customers on shipping.
Definitely a positive idea there, a business ran like a club, lots of details, taxes and such, lets work on the foundation though.


Thanks for the interest guys. I bet we could go round after round on this subject.
I know my place is a bit out of the way, half hour drive north of fishers, I-69 till sr13.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t mine something more local myself, I work in Fishers so something closer to there wouldn’t be bad either. It would though cost too much to operate regardless unless one of us actually owned the property.

Was thinking of the benefits of partnership here….
I’d say most of us don’t have a lot of extra cash.

I know I don’t, that’s why I have to buy and sell to keep my hobby, education and tools growing.

But together acquiring bigger and better tools would be easier on the pocket books.

The knowledge shared amongst us would be priceless.

A “Dues Tax” and “beer” soda machine would be nice.
Hell I bet it would be cheaper than a bar tab!

It could help pay for nice items such as a higher capacity air compressors that could actually power the air cutters, grinders, paint guns, etc.. and lots of other tools you know we could on and on here.

Think of how much faster projects could be turned around? With a few extra hands on deck could be turning out light customs in a week maybe two, full customs in a month if we’re getting better at it.

I for one don’t want to be the 80 year old man with one prized piece because it took me that long to get it there. Wouldn’t mind having a few really nice things and had the time to enjoy them before my hip or knee blows out.

The only true cost, would be the building (once paid its clear skies for more projects, I might just foot the bill as I plan on having one, one way or another), electric bill, whatever the increase in taxes and insurance (just in case one of you knuckle heads tries to burn the place down we would get enough to cover everyone’s belongings). Hell its Madison County and the taxes are cheap, that’s if they ever come back out to appraise.

[taggat]

Got to many toys, never get enough "you" time at home, need a place to paint?
Need some help because the damn thing is to heavy.
Dont have the garage or the space due to all the little ones toys?
Man could I go on and on.
Its like the Legion for Veterans except for this has the potential to be much more.

[leadkrm]

Feb 7, 2012 14:42:11 GMT -4 cb500bobber said:

Its a good idea but I think you are getting a little carried away with trying to sell parts it might be better if you did something along the lines like Taggat said have a shop with everything in it and then whoever wants to be in the club would pay monthly dues and any work that comes in from outside the club will help pay the rent. Once you start trying to sell parts you have to have a business license and file taxes with everything you sold

You have to have a business license and pay taxes to service and repair bikes too so either way that is an obstacle.

[taggat]

Dues could even be paid by tools that dont get enough use... That plasma cutter that sits and collects dust to be used only once or twice a year. You know you have a few laying around that you bought thats a one or two time use during the entire build. Just another idea.

I was raised in a family of contractors and have spent six years of my work history doing just that, building, remolding, plumbing and some electrical. Just another way to save money on the actual building itself we could put it up.

Might just do a cost comparsion of that vs. just having john doe put it up. Any of you up for the task? Boom would need to be rented for the trusses but after that I have all the neccessary tools.

[williamc89]

ok let me say i like the idea, but im on the east side and its hard for me to drive a hour a way, and im a tech so im good at fixing things so fixin bikes wood be great to do in spare time , but to karl, you dont tax labor, so if any one asked , the custamor buys the part, if we just charge labor then there is not tax, no state liesens, because its a club like and were just fixing bikes, there are ways around things, state law is you cant tax labor so ,,, i like the idea but wood like it a little bit closer,


and the dues, and money, me and the wife was in a railroad club and they had a yearly dues and sold pop and water , and they sold box cars at shows they went to, agin this was a model train club but they made some good money just from selling pop