Hi guys. Been lurking here and there for awhile and figured it was time to get active. Brass_Machine has been after me to get on here for some time now and I guess I've been busy making a mess in the shop. I'm a recovering race mechanic and I've been clean for almost a year now. I had a great time in racing and made good memories and friends, but the little girl my wife and I had in 2011 convinced me that working 3000 hours a year just isn't worth it. I am about to start a new career as a fire fighter with the Air National Guard unit here. The pay stinks, but the schedule will allow me time to spend with my family and to work on side projects. My experience and connections from racing have allowed me the opportunity to be a part of some interesting projects and I hope to expand that into a small side business as soon as I can begin outfitting my shop properly.
Most of my experience has come on the fly and in most cases I've had no formal training. I hope to eventually fix that through the Guard ( I would have enlisted for fabrication, but there were no openings and therefore no full time positions and the fire station isn't subject to the sequester). In the meantime I hope to glean some knowledge from here in regards to equipment choices and the skills I have yet to master or even try. I enjoy sheetmetal shaping, lathe and mill work, general design and fab and, most recently, TIG welding. I was always proud of the fact that I seemed to be the guy that the team would look to when they got stuck. Working at the track for so long makes you get that MacGyver mentality
Anyway, I'll be posting some threads here soon with pics and details of some of my projects. I haven't done much customer work lately, but I have been making some billet pieces for my personal car that I'm pretty proud of. Look forward to sharing and getting your feedback.
