Well yesterday after a hard days work, I bumped into a guy I used to know
here at the university. He used to have a fantastically restored frogeye
sprite which he used very successfully for racing purposes. I knew that he
was a expert welder, but he's now running a course in car restoration at the
local college. Anyway, after chatting about my importation and finding out
about his 2 healey 3000s, couple of sprites, and multitude of minis.... he
asked if I would be interested in going on his course - it only started last
week. I decided to go and have a look and he showed me around the facilities
- huge welding facilities, metal forming tools, lead filling - well basically
everything except spraying. And in the workshop lay parts of a Healey 3000
and a sprite. People on the course gradually floated in with healey wings
and various door panels - it was great - and each one with a story to tell.
My only dissapointment is that I don't really have a car to work on myself.
Dave did show me some bits of his Healey which I could sort out as part of
my learning process and showed me some "simple" forming he'd done for inner
wings of his healey - quite fantastic. So, if I can get the cash together
before next week, I think I'm going to learn some serious metal bashing and
welding skills while I've got the opportunity. Hopefully I can retain some
of these skills for when my cars reach the restoration state.
Paul.
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