Time Changes Everything

[Mojo]

I didn't want to hijack another thread so decided to start a new one.

On the other thread there was talk about sewing in non Air Con shops. It got me thinking about how many of us have come through some tough times since we started our trade.

I can remember the day ( and I am sure many of you also remember me griping about it ) when my shop was a 20 ft enclosed trailer. I spent many days in the summer inside that trailer being baked from the heat while sewing. I can also remember days being in the trailer sewing when it was freezing cold outside.

I used the rear ramp door as my cutting table and my back has just now healed from bending over making cuts, folds, doing layouts etc. My tables inside the trailer were plastic Walmart specials. I had a 6 x 8 work area for my tables and machine.

Speaking of machines my first was the e-bay special "Tuffsew" that I wanted to turn into a boat anchor. Many of you here helped me with that worthless machine and got me sewing with it. Still every morning I went into the trailer had me wondering if the machine would sew that day or not.

The rough times I had back then with the horrible working conditions made me appreciate what I have today. When I think back to the crappy conditions I worked under I often wonder why I ever stayed with this business. My current setup could be much better ( and larger ) but it is a long ways from what I started out with. :)

I am sure many of you have had to work in some pretty bad conditions as well. I would love to hear some of your horror stories.

Chris

[needles eye]

My first, recent,  job was a pop top camper trailer and i used 12 oz canvas on the sides instead of 8 oz. To heavy! Did it with my 2nd hand Adler 269 cylinder bed machine not long obtained. The thread kept breaking and with help from the Forum worked out the shuttle hook was jammed up with little bits of thread offcuts.

Somehow over many hours late one night managed to pick hundred of little pieces of broken black thread out of this little hole in the flat bed shuttle hook bobbin holder mechanism. The machine was ex saddlery, the work had gone off to Vietnam and they wanted Jukis .. .

Didn't realize that if you pressed the foot pedal down with the machine turned off it would disengage the clutch and make the machine turn by hand real easy. Kept turning and turning the handwheel to rotate the bobbin holder trying to extract pieces of broken threads ... my hands were like claws for weeks and weeks afterwards ...
To make matters worse i decided to to make things easier by pulling the mechanism out of the bottom loader after a time  .. well could indeed get the threads out easier with a magnifying glass and upholstery pin from this tiny little oil hole for the next few hours.

Sewing machine oil helped when drizzled in. A smoke, coupla cold Toohey's ale slid down well ...

But i didn't know how to put it back in correctly, and, had diligently moved the timing God knows where in my enthusiasm. Double damn! Frig.  Luckily down loaded a 269 mechanics service manual from the internet, reckon that's another tale to decipher it 'though..  Somehow battled on through that long night [that i would rather forget] and i was pretty cut and bent simmeringly frustrates and decidely petulant and blow me down but afterwards the bastard of a thing worked better than it did when i had bought it ..

Well, now, after all the supebly styled wonky canvas sides with the crazyily sewn windows (wild radius) were somewhat on had a go at some interior boxed welted cushions therein, crikey moses they were purple and rough as a cane toads back, horresco referens (L.), I shudder in relating.

[JDUpholstery]

I count myself fortunate, because my horror story only lasted a few months working out of my house, completely overran the living room, dining room, basement and carport....got lucky when I came across the shop I currently own, perfect location, 2400 square foot of air conditioned goodness....have a 16' X 6' cutting table with sewing machine built in so I don't have material drop off issues with a smaller table.

The only thing I need to change is the addition of a 12' garage door on the front so I can get these 8'6" big beamed boats inside where it is cool! but that will have to wait until I have the expendable income for it.

[Mike]

When I first started sewing marine covers I had a perfect location  it a work space a out 12'x16
I had to store my top tubes outside on my porch. My bender inside I bent one leg of the now had to go outside to turn sround snd bent the other the. Run it through my crowned fron my canvas room and into my small bait shop. But all my. Oat were steps outside on trilers or at the dock.
Then after I moved to Florida I worked out of a trailer 8'x16 chris.
But.quickly got a shop space but had to lut up wall around the sewing tables for ac. Then I moved to a different location where I could have ac at the table  it did have a ac office. Now I have a shop building g of my own just big enoughg for my ta me. NOt as big as I'd like but I freeze the place with two window ac's. And woodwork and such I do in my garage. And  bending   The real sucky thing is I had it. Axe up north all the boats right at my shop   Now I have to go to every boat it did t pay for a shop with space for boat parking as I probly did t have 50 boats come to me  overall in the 6 years I could.

[sofadoc]

I 'spect that most stitchers started from humble beginnings. Growing up in the family upholstery business, we had a building that was a real sh##hole. My current building is a Taj Mahal compared to that old dump.
When we needed to cut foam, I would have to run to the house around the corner and fetch the big butcher knife from the kitchen drawer. Both my mother and grandmother had arthritic hands from cutting with the absolute dullest scissors in America, simply because they were too cheap to pay a guy 2 bucks to sharpen them.

And to add to the non-A/C, we also had a sterilizer for mattresses. It was a giant oven that baked the germs out of 6 mattresses at once. Even with all the doors and windows open, the shop was still a toasty 120 degrees when the sterilizer was running.

I still see shops in small towns that are real crapshacks.

[byhammerandhand]

I'm in a major metro area and most of the upholstery shops I've been in are crapshacks.   (Gene's Studio excepted)

I still see shops in small towns that are real crapshacks.

[JuneC]

Let's see.... what I remember (with my 2 leftover brain cells..)

-  Discovering Rochford Supply and YourAutoTrim and thinking that they had the best pricing and quality I'd ever find. 
-  Applying for multiple business credit cards and getting turned down by all but one (which I still have and use exclusively  :-X ) So there  :P all you others!  I've run tens of thousands of dollars through Cxxxx, maybe more.
-  Down for 3 days once when I totally f'd up my machine hook timing, pulled it out (the hook) and couldn't figure out how to put it back in properly.  Imagine my surprise when I pulled the hook out and a gear!!! fell on the floor. Oh my....  Now I can change a hook in about 15 minutes.  Gregg, you need a southern hand? 
-  Down for 3 weeks with hurricane Rita (no electric) and trying desperately to figure out how to turn an industrial into a hand-crank sewing machine.
-  My first bimini top took me about a week to pattern, cut and sew.  That's right Mike, a week!  Oh, and it was baggy on one side.
-  Taking on a job for a 20' x 25' cover that required me to do my templating in quadrants in the back yard because it was the only space I had big enough to lay it all out.  The cover weighed, when completed, about 60 pounds.  No more with the big stuff.  You young guys, knock yourselves out  :-* :-*  It's all yours.
-  Running my index finger through twice with the sewing needle.  That's right folks, twice.  As if once wasn't enough. :-[  Bones are pretty tough stuff, though.  Last time the needle bent seriously rather than go all the way through.
-  Neighbors stopping on the sidewalk while walking their dogs wondering what I was doing, day after day, in my garage.  I was cutting Starboard, PVC Board, foam, stapling on covers, constructing in general.  Luckily, the neighbors across the street have impact (hurricane) windows and can't hear a thing inside their house.

I'm sure I'll think of more.  I should go back through my very early invoices and quotes and see what the heck I was charging for my work.  Probably so far off base my customers thought I was on something.

June

[Mike]

Just thought of one of the dumbest things
I made and got paid for it  one of my first big boat a 38 carver aft cabin   I recovered the flybridge Bimini and windows  it had to build a top and enclosure onl er the aft raised deck. I did t know how to. End tubing get and had been using thoose 3 piece rivit together  is frame kits. MSL how to make a tall enought top on a 12' of so beamed aft cabin deck. I used multiple kit and each. Ow had 2 horizontal top now sections so 4 pieces per bow rivited togeher out of 7/8" thin wall aluminum.tubing  the top was about 9' long and on the rear Bose to make it more surrey and support the weight especially with the rear enclosure panels I installed vertical supports legs to cover/ hide the rivited spea Ed teo joint on the frame on the front  ow I felted on a connector window panal zipped from the flybridge bimini down to the rear deck top to hold it up from sagging
It was a real learning experience

[JDUpholstery]

lol June, I related to that cover story...made a 12' X 28' cover tarp and had to move my sewing machine into the driveway because it was too large to work in the house....



the customer brought his own material, several pieces of 32oz tarp material, to get the size he wanted I used a 9X20 piece then added 1.5 X 20 to each side and 12 X 4 to each end to end up with a 12 X 28...sounded easy in my head but feeding that beast thru and doing semi flat felled seams on all of it was a nightmare!

[kodydog]

Our first rented shop was the old train depot in Conover NC. I could look out the back door, over the tracks and see a huge Broyhill plant. It had no ac and just a wood burning stove for heat. I remember one August it got about 100 degrees outside so we closed the shop and headed to Blowing Rock in the mountains. We found a nice cool mountain stream and just chilled.

The shop was once used by the owners wife as an drapery store. In one large corner was all her stuff which he promised to remove so we could have more much needed space. We kept bugging him about the stuff to no avail and one day he just flat out told us he wasn't moving it. So lets see, draperies and upholstery are similar right? Some interesting stuff we found in that corner.

[gene]

I was going to name my business The Crap Shack, but I thought folks would think I was a plumber, not an upholstery studio.

No big horror stories. Maybe I haven't been doing this long enough.

My biggest disappointment is that upholstery takes soooooo long. There aren't many short cuts that you can take. It just takes time. A sofa that takes 20 hours takes 20 hours and there's no way to get that down to 10 hours, for example.

Growing this business beyond a one person band is probably not a realistic endeavor, especially with our current economy. Growing bigger would mean taking on additional types of work and if I'm spending all my time taking care of my current business load where do I get the time to grow?

After having my biggest month ever in terms of gross sales in June, this August is going to be my slowest.

Also, when I started I would get aches and pains. Now I have aches and pains all the time.

gene

[Mojo]

Oh boy June did you hit on something. Rochford........lol..... I thought I hit the big time when I signed up as a customer till I started getting bled to death with outrageous shipping costs. I wont even get into the fabric I got that was junk. My call's to customer service fell on deaf ears.

Rochford was my first supplier and then I found Bry Tech in Florida. I thought I died and went to heaven. Their customer service as compared to Rochford was much better, quality was good and the shipping costs were sane.

Then I kept reading about some dude named MiamiMike on this forum and decided to call him. The rest is history as we have become fast friends. Outside of a few incidentals
( Polycord, textilene and hand tools ) I source everything through Mike. The customer service is phenomenal, their prices are awesome and all the little things they do with hooking me up directly with the manufacturers, supporting me with seminars, etc. has made switching to them a huge blessing. I hate to mention the flat rate $ 10 shipping on any size or weight package is also a HUGE bonus. 5 yards or 60 yards, doesn't matter it costs me $ 10.

Actually this forum has been a Godsend. While hooking up with MiamiMike I also became close friends with Bob Kovar who sold me my first REAL industrial machine. He has taught me so much about machines and has helped me become proficient at timing, troubleshooting, repairing machines, changing out parts, etc.

The many members here who have helped me get started has also been awesome. The ones who have constantly provided advice and all the members who have become friends, this place has saved me from walking away from this trade and saying screw it. The members here have helped me with major frustrations on projects and also on a personal level as well. When I have been sick I got support from the people here. When I screwed up a project, people here helped me fix it. And when I needed laughs to get through the day our many comedians here were there to provide me all the chuckles I needed.

Without Kens site I would have probably never stuck with this trade. This place rocks and so do the people.  ;D   8) Thanks Ken and thanks to all of you who make this place a stitchers heaven.

Chris

[Mike]

Bry tec I'll have to. Hack them out it alaays good a have another sour e when young need it.
Flat rate $10 bu is you vot I so good with that  blue  streak.  I really hate shipping. I see $45 to $55 every to
D I older a roll 5yds or 20.

[JDUpholstery]

Brytech was my first distributor until I cut myself short on a job and called to order more of the same color and he told me they don't stock that was just a roll they picked up buying an upholstery shops supply...so had to go hunting for someplace that carries a specific line that I can reorder more if needed...used Perfectfit for a while, but it was insane shipping cost and the 7 day wait from washington to arkansas, then found rushin supply in arkansas and regular UPS is overnight so thats nice, and shipping is cheaper

[Mojo]

I no longer use bry tech. I heard they are in financial trouble. Don't know if it is true or not. I ordered some outdoor fabric for lounge chair cushions from them a few months ago. They screwed the order up. ......lol

Chris