Manufutures Workshop Project
Life got pretty crazy in 2018, I had worked at Ford for 18 years as a Prototype Fitter Machinist in the Reasearch and Development area and they were looking to downsize. My life had been upside down for a while, I would rest at work because things were quiet and then I would spend 5-6 hours in the garage per night doing all the projects you see on this page. The events I was doing was stretching my friendship with my employer and it seemed like the right time to answer the question I had rolling around in my head….. Can I make it in the real world?
Manufutures is a facility designed as an incubator for startup businesses working with technology, it’s housed within Deakin University and just down the street from my house. I rode past the building on my mountain bike and I had wondered what it was, it coincided with my exit from ford and I sent them an email to get some more information.
Next thing I knew I had the keys to a space with a workshop and an office, NuLook floors stepped in to seal and flake the floor and I was planning my fitout.
When I started at Ford it was my job to deburr huge dies that pressed panels for cars, it was a dirty job but the benches we used were huge cast iron items made in Australia in the 1950’s. During the decline of Australian manufacturing areas in Ford were shut down and these benches were put outside, stacked up and rusting away.
I couldn’t stand to see them treated that way and offered to buy one. Because of the red tape that was not possible so a few slabs of beer for the security guards, a rental truck and some careful planning I dropped it off at the local sandblaster to take the 70 years of paint off the surface.
It was the perfect base to work on, perfectly flat and at over 5 tonnes in weight it took about a month to change tempreture so its thermal dimensionality was reliable.
I used the table to build all the furniture for my new office and workshop.
The office fitout turned out really nice, I bought sheets of birchply for the bench tops and then made all the table frames from TIG welded ERW Mild Steel Square Tube.
I was selling merch, designing an electric motorcycle, developing my fabrication courses and generally having a good time in my office.
Spaces like this help me to be motivated although the opportunity’s I had were difficult to manage.
Head downstairs and the workshop was coming to life.
I built walls, partitions, benches, lockers, added sound deadening for filming and a whole lot more.
I filmed some content with Sidchrome and for payment I requested tool box’s, lots of them. The guys from Chorgi wanted to have a tyre machine displayed too and it has been one of the best tool’s I have ever owned, Falken Tyre also supported me for a while with all the drift demos I was doing. It was a lot of work on its own to keep these supporters happy but it has been well worth it as their products allow me to operate at a level my budget wouldn’t.
It was around 2019 and the rise of influencer’s forced companys to diversify their spending to people who had amased a decent following, I fit into that catorgory and I was able to barter on some deals and that allowed me to have a suite of DeWalt tools at my disposal.
The space allowed me to do some incredble things, I ran TIG classes, employed some very bright up and coming engineers, worked on some very cool projects but it wouldn’t last.
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The dreaded Covid arrived, many of the streams of income I had dried up, the place got locked down and I moved back home, 3 years work, $150,000 in rent and a lot of time and effort just evaporated. So I guess I didn’t make it in the real world but I sure did have a crack and I learnt a lot about myself, other people and life in the process.