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I am in Sedalia, MO doing a large RV event. One of the vendors has a setup I have never heard of or seen. He makes solar screens for motorhomes on site at rallys all over the country and then installs them on customers coaches. His is not the first operation I have seen before like this but has to be one of the best thought out ones.

He has a big coach himself and travels with his wife and teenage son ( who is homeschooled ). He tows a large pickup behind him ( 4 - door crew cab ) which has a tall fiberglass cover on the back.
He stores all of his textilene fabric and supplies in the back along with his portable folding sewing tables.

But what was interesting was his machine setup. You cannot use a cheap light weight machine for sewing these solar screens because of the double layer binding so he uses a Pfaff. His machine is mounted to this steel platform ( heavy duty platform mind you ) which has large arms and the entire assembly is bolted to the bed of his truck. The machine and assembly rises up and then out the back end of the pickup bed and then lowers into place. He then sits his tables around the perimeter of the machine and commences to sewing.

It actually is one cool setup. He travels constantly from one show to another and him, his wife and son live life together on the road. Since we started our company in 2006 with a solar screen product line I know the margins in all of these products and they are slim. We dropped our entire screen line due to the market being so crowded and the prices not being strong enough to support staying in that business.

Still I give this guy kudo's for his setup. I have seen traveling sewing stations before but this one is pretty awesome.

I will try and get pictures if I can.

Mojo

One of my passions in life has always been airplanes and flying. You can tell my love for flying because both of our company logos have wings in them. Due to my health issues I can no longer get a medical certificate but I can still fly if I have safety pilot with me. My son for Christmas last year bought me some flight time in a twin engine. I have never flown a twin with a glass cockpit before so it was a real buzz.

The kid ( safety pilot with more hair then me ) sure enjoyed the flight as he handed the controls over to me during the takeoff roll and sat back taking in the view of the Gulf of Mexico. Ingrid went up with me and did some sight seeing and video taped some of the segments of the flight.

I didn't get to see much below as I had a lot of traffic to contend with and I got in to some rough air. You can tell by the camera / video bouncing around and when I got around 1,000 ft coming in on final Ingrid started getting nervous because she was getting jostled around pretty good.

It is the first time I have flown since 2003. The last time I flew was in Duxford, England and that was a 1942 Dehavilland Tiger Moth. I had so much fun Sunday that I will start doing this more often. It is one amazing stress reliever and gives me a chance to leave all my headaches on the ground and get up into the sky and buzz around. It isn't cheap but then I do not golf, bowl, drink alcohol or spend money on any hobbies so I can throw some money at flying now and then.

The flight was out of Clearwater and the water below was the Gulf of Mexico.

Here are the videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0GMCgwWiP7uc59jIzOb2dQ?view_as=subscriber

I still have a smile on my face and was amazed at how well I did considering I had been out of the cockpit for so long. Just thought I would share my passion with ya'll. :)

Chris

If there is one thing that is constant with our companies it is constant change.
I still cannot believe we started all this inside a 22 ft enclosed trailer with a cheap ass chinese machine. I used the ramp door on the trailer as my cutting table. :) All I wanted was a little part time job. Yeah right. Be careful what you wish for.

This is the latest press release that came out today.

https://rv-pro.com/news/stone-vos-moves-forward-expansion?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170907_RVP_eNews+%281%29&utm_content&spMailingID=18038745&spUserID=MTgwMTk3MTY5MTU2S0&spJobID=1100416577&spReportId=MTEwMDQxNjU3NwS2

Mojo

WHat is going on with these massive advertisements ? Did the site get hacked ?

Since we first opened our doors I did the book keeping and filed the taxes. But as we grew things started getting more complicated and harder for me to manage. We hired an accountant last year and she has taught us all kinds of things with book keeping and additional tax write offs.

We use Quickbooks and the first thing she did was get our books in order. We ended up hiring a student intern who was a former student of Ingrids. She did all the data entry and got our books caught up. To be honest we had a helluva mess as we were running a lot of transactions for our manufacturing company through our awning company. The accountant went nuts over this and we ended up splitting the two, getting new bank accounts, etc. so now the two companies stand on their own and are 100 % separate.

We had to start at ground zero and pull all of the transactions for parts and manufacturing items out of the awning company and put those into the manufacturing company. Last week Valerie, our high school student intern completed the task. I might add Valerie is one very smart girl and did an amazing job.

I have been screwing around with Quickbooks and found that it is quite powerful. Once properly setup it can generate reports for us that nails down all kinds of things including costs, sales of various products, etc.

I never wanted to hire a private accountant but this gal is sharp. She is saving us all kinds of money and also restructuring assets so we have more liability protection in the event of a law suit. In other words despite us being a corporation she is shielding our personal assets from the company and potential liability. The other thing I am happy about is that she knows exactly how to close doors with these assets so the IRS doesn't have a leg to stand on. Very important since the IRS hates me and has audited us 3 times in the last 6 years.

I do have to say she has been very clever with write offs. She has saved us a lot of tax money by making personal assets new write offs for the company. One huge change was the coach we own is now a full write off under the awning company. Payments, fuel, plates, maintenance, etc.

My question is do most of you do your own taxes or do you hire an accountant like we do ? Are you using quickbooks ?

Mojo

I was just wondering if you furniture guys see a fluctuation in business like we do. I know Marine folks have slow periods in the winter time when people put their boat away. But what about you furniture people ?

Since we started this company we have always seen a weird drop in sales during July and August. In some ways it is a blessing as we spend that slow time in the summer taking a vacation, going through our machines and performing maintenance, and essentially catching our breath. By the time July rolls around we are both so burnt out after getting pounded with orders throughout the winter and spring months. We run 6 and sometimes 7 days a week to keep up so the break is much needed.

My wife and I just went over our budget and we need $ 10 K to open the doors every month at the shop. This includes rent, payroll, utilities, restocking inventory, etc. What we do ( and I learned the hard way years ago ) is keep a cash reserve we can draw off if we have to during the summer months when things get slow.

In a production setting downturns always happen for many different industries. We are working on coming out with a new line of products to sell that will hopefully stabilize our summer production schedule. I have tried for years to flatten our production cycles with sales, etc. and nothing works. Our customer base has a distinct pattern they all seem to follow and not much will move them from it. In a nutshell their summers are filled with all kinds of activities and travel while their winter months are spent lounging around in sunny destinations. In other words they have a lot of free time to kill and catch up on coach maintenance.

I find these sales cycles a PITA. I have yet to be able to get a handle on smoothing out production instead of these rollercoaster rides we take. I talked with RiCat the other day and he is booked out till ( I think he said ) October. He has been slammed with boats and cars and that is amazing considering we are located in Florida, home of the snowbirds.

Do the rest of you fight these cycles ?

Our other company has not seen these cycles yet. We manufacture custom made stainless and plastic parts for coaches that are more structural in nature. People can put off buying awnings for a while but when structural issues arise, they need to get on it right away. A lot of the time the problem is so serious they have to have it fixed right away so they order our parts. That must be the reason why our manufacturing company sees steady sales with no dips.

Mojo

I loaded our bus up in April and drove up to do a big RV Rally in Elkhart, IN. After that show I drove to Michigan and left the coach at my sons for some much needed maintenance and flew back to Florida. I flew back to Michigan and got the coach and headed to Celina, Ohio to do another RV Rally. After that show I drove over to Indy and did a massive rally at the fairgrounds. From there I headed to Bristol, TN to put our 2nd home on the market. I finally finished everything and headed back to Florida.

Remember that Industrial Stool I bought from Kodydog ? Well I planned to stop in Gainesville to see Ed & Rose and get the stool. I assumed he lived in Gainesville but it turned out he lives a half hour north of there. So we missed each other. My Bad. Will have to make a trip up to see Ed in a few weeks. 

The funny part is I called and Rose answered. She yells to Ed " Hey, it's Mojo on the phone ". She caught me flat footed as I sat there and wondered " who the hell is Mojo ? ". Then I remembered it is my handle here. I laughed the rest of the way home. ( Actually Mojo is one f the nicer names I have been called ).

So I learned never to assume someone may have a second name for you and also people do not live exactly where you think they do.

See ya in a few weeks Ed. Tell Rose Mojo will be back again. To the proper location. :)

Chris / Mojo

I am one of those people who is constantly seeking new information, techniques, latest fabric weaves, fabric finishes, etc. I am blessed to have several experts from manufacturers to suppliers that I consult with on a monthly basis. I do phone calls with them monthly to keep me up to date on quality problems some mills are having, changes in thread as well as educational tid bits and new techniques.

During a recent conversation I learned that polyester thread actually has a shelf life. I do not know if any of you knew this but I sure didn't. I had never read about this anywhere. When we got our serger I called our Thread consultant and he said to use Poly thread but to buy only what we needed for a 6 month production run. When I asked him why he said " because of the shelf life ". Apparently they have run tests on Poly thread lots of varying ages and found that poly thread degrades after a period of time. In some cases the thread looses considerable strength, even stored inside plastic bags. I believe he indicated that thread that is 2 years old or more has degraded significantly.

Our thread expert does a lot of testing for manufacturers and he was telling me about a test they are currently running on landfill enclosures which require size 400 thread. Hell I never knew they made thread that big and what kind of machine could sew it ? While I have no desire whatsoever to start a pit sewing operation I find this kind of large scale industrial sewing really fascinating. I cannot even imagine maneuvering that much fabric. The weight alone would require fork trucks or other machines not to mention one massive building and pit operation to sew it in.

So there you have it. Poly thread has a shelf life. Why didn't any of you ever tell me that ?  I am going to blame my Texan buddy Dennis for that one. :)

Chris

If you have never threaded an industrial serger you have no idea what your missing. I changed out the needles yesterday to go to larger ones and we are running Sunguard 92 so had to change out the thread, all 5 spools.

After changing the needles and running 5 new spools of thread I can honestly say I would rather have a root canal then thread one of these machines again. What a royal PITA. The guy in this video makes it sound so simple but he doesn't show you that this all has to be done with tweezers because there is no room to work. Changing the needles was not fun either and required tweezers in order to set the needles in place. There is no room whatsoever to work in.

Here is the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vFcCHJ_qs&t=29s&list=FLG3OXEujJdv-HtrrRVel21w&index=3

I called Bob Kovar and told him what I was doing and he laughed his butt off. I haven't heard him laugh like that in a while. After his laughter he did have a great idea which worked well - tie the old thread to the new thread and pull it through. Now why didn't I think of that. :)

It was a great test of patience, eye sight, coordination and perseverance. I thought twin needles were bad to thread...... I tried the machine and it still is not sewing correctly. I walked out of the shop and will go back and see what little tiny guide or hole I missed. I was completely out of patience for the day.

Chris

I have been getting grief from buddies and customers alike over our latest press release. The comments have been rolling in - " Thank God you didn't put your ugly mug on this release ". " What is a beautiful Aussie doing with an ugly old man like you ? ". " By the looks of the picture I see why your so successful. Glad you left your photo out of it. " And on and on. I just thought I would post the press release here so all of you can have a go at me. :)

https://rv-pro.com/news/coachguard-fabric-coming-stone-vos

Go ahead guys, I can handle the abuse. :)

To be honest, I am extremely proud of Ingrid. She is a rockstar with these companies and since she took over a year ago our sales have continually climbed every month.


Chris

I mentioned last year that I was considering buying one of these machines. I pulled the trigger and called Bob Kovar at Toledo Sewing Machine and ordered one of these. It should be here in a week or so.

We are getting ready to launch a new awning fabric replacement product and will need this machine for that work. Am I scared ? Yes. I know walking foot machines inside and out and can do all of my own repairs. But these dang machines scare me. It will be a new learning experience for me.

Bobby, ( Bob's son ) is setting it up for us. Thankfully my wife has years of experience with sergers. It will be my first go with one.

Here is the machine we ordered - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8rE0LcTN48

Chris

I was just wondering if any of you have set percentages you shoot for when pricing materials.
In other words what margins do you routinely apply to fabric and other materials when pricing a job ?

Do you build your prices and quotes based on an hourly figure then add in materials which includes your margins ?

We work off a 45 % markup on fabric and thread/binding. Then we calculate an hourly rate at $ 50 and then take this entire sum and add a multiplier. The multiplier covers our admin costs, rent on the shop, various other expenses and then of course our profit. The $ 50 per hour is a figure we use based on hiring an employee to do the work which includes all employee expenses ( insurance, taxes, etc. ).

I know Catalina Rick is probably one of the very best I know at nailing down entire expenses for a job. He uses Excel and has it down to a science. He can calculate everything for a job including the amount of thread he uses. We use some of his techniques in calculating our costs. He was kind enough to share how he calculates everything and while I thought he was crazy at first, it really is a good way to stay on top of costs and overall pricing for jobs.

With my wife having a masters degree in Math, she has the ability to really crunch numbers and is a cost control and numbers freak. She has all kinds of ways to dissect all our numbers so we can see exactly what everything s costing us.

How do all of you manage your pricing ? Do you have set margins on materials ?

Chris

If there is one thing I learned it is anything you post on the internet can help dive sales. We have built two companies also by what our customers post on the internet.

Lately, in an effort to drive sales I am embarking on producing video commercials for the internet as well as educational and instructional videos. We have a lot of DIY'ers as customers so these videos help drive sales.

Here are three videos that I produced that have given us bumps in sales. The last two videos will probably really drive sales at our second company. The entire idea behind these is to move yourself to the forefront on peoples minds which is called name recognition. The other idea behind these marketing videos is that they are soft sell's and by doing How to videos you soon become a partner with the customers project.

While I know some of this does not apply to many of you but for a few I am pretty sure it would help.

Here are the videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALlhHRoE0Aw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNYXeBXGmI0&t=7s

Commercial: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05lvrB2KkC0

Let me know what you think, good or bad. It was very time consuming putting them together, writing the scripts, getting the pictures I needed and then doing the voice over work and mixing everything afterwards. But in the end I think it was worth it. :)


Chris

After reading this ya'll are going to be a little more intelligent. :)

          The liquid inside young coconuts
          can be used as a substitute
          for Blood Plasma.

          ******************************

          No piece of paper can be folded
          in half more than seven (7) times.

          Oh , go ahead ... I'll wait.

          ****************************** *

          Donkeys kill more people annually

          than plane crashes or shark attacks.

          (So, watch your Ass )

          ****************************** **

          You burn more calories sleeping!

          than you do watching television.

          ****************************** *

          Oak trees do NOT
          produce acorns until they are

          fifty (50) years of age or older.

          ******************************

          The first product to have a bar code

          was Wrigley's gum.

          ******************************

          The King of Hearts
          is the only King

          WITHOUT A MUSTACHE

          ******************************

          American Airlines saved $40,000
          in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive
          from each salad served in first-class.

          ******************************

          Venus is the only planet
          that rotates clockwise.

          (Since Venus is normally associated
          with women, what does this tell you?

          That women are going
          in the 'right' direction...!

          ****************************** *****

          Apples, not caffeine,

          are more efficient at
          waking you up in the morning ...



          ****************************** *****

          Most dust particles in your house
          are made from

          DEAD SKIN !

          ****************************** *******

          The first owner of the
          Marlboro Company
          died of lung cancer.

          So did the first 'Marlboro Man'.

          ****************************** *******

          Walt Disney was afraid

          OF MICE!

          ****************************** ********

          PEARLS DISSOLVE

          IN VINEGAR!

          ****************************** ********

          The ten most valuable
          brand names on earth:

          Apple, Coca Cola, Google,Miller Brewing,
          IBM, Microsoft, GE, McDonald's,
          Samsung, Intel and Toyota ,

          in that order.

          ****************************** ***********

          It IS possible to lead a cow upstairs   ...

          but, NOT downstairs.

          ****************************** **********

          A duck's quack doesn't echo,

          and no one knows why.

          ****************************** *********

          Dentists have recommended that
          a toothbrush be kept at least Six (6) feet away   ????????????
          from a toilet to avoid airborne particles     
          resulting from the flush.

          (I keep my toothbrush
          in the living room now!)

          ****************************** ********

          And the best for last.....!



          Turtles can breathe through their BUTTS!

          (I know some people like that,

          don't YOU?)
         

I haven't posted very much lately as I was busy building a new music studio at our house.

Business has been awesome and I am really enjoying this semi retirement mode I am into.
The wife, who owns the company retired this spring from teaching and took over the awning company. She was very unsure of herself going in but has knocked it out of the park. She has doubled sales in some months and out performed other months by leaps and bounds. Makes me wonder how many sales we lost under our previous manager.

We just finished the biggest January in our history so she now knows she is a natural for this business. She has been sewing on machines since she was a kid but had no business experience whatsoever. The customers love dealing with her and she is now getting a great name across the RV Industry. I am happier then a pig in mud. I am also real happy she hired an accountant who will be doing our books quarterly and also our taxes as I hated doing them myself.

As for me, the stupidest thing I have ever done was start another company. We started out manufacturing some obsolete parts which took very little of my time and then I hit on an idea for a new product. That product now is taking off. I can see some major time commitments coming in the very near future and it added two more educational seminars to my already booked out schedule. I know I should be happy but I should have left well enough alone and just eased into retirement.

Now on to more important things. The music studio was a major undertaking. I wanted to create an old 1920's/30's barn room feel. It came out very well. I have spent the week unpacking all our music gear, decorating with our antiques and getting our instruments out of all the areas in the house we had them stored.

I will post pictures on here soon. Glad to see everyone seems happy and healthy here. I hope ya'll are busier then heck.

Chris

I guess I never posted any pics of our new shop. I thought I would post them in the event someone may need a couple ideas. While what we are doing will not work for everyone, there are a few storage ideas maybe that might help.

The shop itself is 1,600 sq ft and includes two offices, a reception area, bathroom and kitchenette.

The main table is 12 ft x 24 ft and has double sewing stations. A twin needle on one end and a long arm on the other. I should have made this table 10 ft wide instead of 12. The reach across the table is too long. Opp's.

The second table is 14 ft long by 6 ft wide. This also has a double sewing station. A twin needle at one end and our Chandler 406 at the other. There are two working carts on wheels we use that has all of the tools we need. We duplicated each tool for each cart. These things are so handy and dirt cheap at Harbor Freight. Everything we have ( except the cutting/sewing tables ) are on casters so we can move things around easily. Each table has a hot knife station and the knife is stored on a little shelf under each table. Both tables are wired with 12 ga wire and have multiple outlets around the tables. The edge of the main table is covered in 18 ga stainless steel 3 inches wide and runs 20 ft down one side and 10 ft down one end. We use this as our cutting surface for the hot knife and razor knife. The table tops are all made of 3/4 inch melamine.

Both tables have storage underneath and one serves as our fabric cut storage with double racks that are vinyl surfaced to keep from snagging fabric. The tables are all skirted with scrap acrylic cuts to keep the dust from settling on everything. There are two industrial racks that are 10 ft tall. These hold storage items such as vinyl cut's, shipping boxes, parts, etc.

We have a shipping station with a dedicated computer and our UPS label printer as well as the floor scale for weighing shipments. Next to this table is our vertical box storage. Speaking of shipping almost all of our fabric comes in full rolls. Some of the vinyl weighs 65 lbs and our UPSA drop point is in the reception area. So I bought an oxygen tank cart that we set the rolls onto and wheel them through the shop to our storage racks. I bought this cart off E-bay for $ 80. It was brand new and a back saver. Miami liked it so much they are buying them for their warehouses. The rolls sit perfectly in the cradle with no chance of them rolling out.

I built a fabric rack on one wall that is elevated. This holds our most common fabric that we use daily. I had no room at the ends of the tables to make a horizontal fabric rack. We have wooden production boxes on casters that are all lined with carpet and they hold fabric that have been cut for orders that are in progress. Of course we also have our order board as well. We use color coded clipboards for each order with red being priority, blue is needs to be done soon and black is for non priority. When we have numerous orders lined up it helps us distinguish what needs to get done right away.

The reception area has cable TV and comfortable leather chairs for customers to sit in while waiting. We also have a product shelf with parts and other items we sell.

We have a nice kitchen with microwave, cabinetry, fridge, Keurig and counter space. All the cabinets were given to us by our next door neighbor who is a cabinet maker. They were all brand new but he needed them out of his show room because he was moving new ones in.

The entire shop is air conditioned as is each office. Of course the Boss ( wife ) got the big office and I got the small one. I built the offices myself as the shop when we got it had none. The bathroom was gutted and completely redone as was the reception area.

In one corner of the shop is the equipment we need for manufacturing parts for the new company we started a few months ago. That has my metal band saw, chop saw, grinders, drill press, etc

There are a series of pictures here that shows the different stages. It was a boat load of work but well worth it. We needed this space badly.

Here are the pictures:  http://s181.photobucket.com/user/throgmartin/media/New%20Shop/Curting%20Table%20Frame_zpsszz3gu8y.jpg.html

Chris

Just seen this and thought I would post it. Myself we use wooden bobbin racks that we buy at Joann's. We wind 30 or 40 bobbins at once using a bobbin winding machine and then put them on the rack. I put the tail of the thread through one of the holes and call it good. For loose bobbins that are half used we put them in a tray to the right of the machine where the bobbin winder would usually go.

But I guess this would work for some people. Especially those who have the time to make them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzj4gGEgEos&feature=em-subs_digest

Chris

I just wanted to once again tell all of you furniture guys how much respect I have for ya'll. Rick and I discussed recovering the dinette chairs in our coach and he gave me some awesome ideas. They all have upholstered backs and to make it worse I am NOT a furniture person.

I have never pulled so many bloody staples before.  Good Lord. These factory people are staple happy. I think when I am done I would rather have a root canal then do another piece of furniture.

I am doing these chairs all in leather and haven't a clue as to how the hell I am going to do it but have Rick a few miles away to get me through this project. I have a feeling I am going to do the first one and then throw the others in his driveway and have him do the rest.

So, to all you furniture guys I bow to you. It is a segment of this trade I would never consider going in to. I am happy doing awnings. :)

Chris

We had a visitor at the shop the other day - RiCat.

I asked Rick to stop by the shop to look over an issue we have been having with a center seam.
He stopped in and worked with Ingrid and the two did the center seam based on a few suggestions that Rick made which really helped.

He got to see the new shop, reception area and our operations. I think he really liked our massive cutting table and came up with a good idea for that.

I am blessed to have two good friends ( Rick & Mike ) that I can go to for input. Mike helped us out a couple weeks ago with an issue we had on an all white patio awning. His suggestion worked as well.

I look at these two guys as an extension of this forum where I can pick up the phone and call for advice or input since both have a vast amount of experience doing canvas work.

Just wanted to give a shout out to them both here. Thanks guys for all your help but especially your friendship. Your both rock stars.

Chris

We are expanding our product line and this will include having to buy a serger. I dread it but it is a must.

The serger will be used on awning valances as well as the edges of canvas pieces. My question to the gang here: Does anyone have any experience with one ? This is probably a machine I will buy new versus used. From what I can understand they can be a mechanical nightmare buying used.

The one being suggested to me to handle heavier thread 90 - 138 is the Juki MO-6900G . I am just wondering if anyone has any feedback and experience with sergers. I assume a 3 or 4 thread serger will get the job done.

Thanks,

Chris