Moving forward with the Princes Trust

Yesterday I completed the Princes Trust four day course which I feel has been another eye opener in to what it might be like running my workshop as a business. Now that I have completed this course I am moving on to the next step of writing up a Business plan and hopefully getting a business mentor who can advise me on my next steps. I even got a certificate for attending the course, it may not be much but its proof I went to the Princes Trust to help me with my business. 

Princes Trust

I've been attending the princes trust meeting now for two days and I will admit I had my doubts but its been good to have a refresher on the business studies that I had in my second and third year of college. It has made me think about time management, costs and extra marketing, I have other two days on this Enterprise course and then I will be assigned a business mentor which will be very helpful in the long run. It has made me think about how I'm going to market my business as well as the products I make. Although my time is taken up here and not at my workshop, I am finding that this is going to be worth it in the end.

Cold working days

The past couple days I've been in the workshop painting the walls to try and brighten it up and make it look fresh but as you all probably know its been the coldest couple of night this winter and so the workshop has been freezing. I got so fed up with the cold that I pulled out the forge from its covers and got a wood fire going, I was very pleased with this fire as I had very little supplies to light it with and really only had one shot at it and behold a perfect fire which kept the workshop nice and warm through the day and as a bonus smoked out all the spiders too hahaha!!!

The powerhammer is made!!

 One of the biggest jobs on my to do list is finally been ticked off and that was to reassemble the powerhammer. I spent the week organizing several people to give me a hand on the friday building this beast back together again. There was only me and one other friend of mine there who helped take it apart in the first place to bring it to the workshop, remembering how to put it back together was very interesting. The first task we had was to build a sand box for the sleeper to sit in as it was uneven the sand box would help even it on the floor. We built it out of old scaffolding planks as it didn't need to be overly thick, once the sleeper was placed into the sandbox we began the mammoth job of building the hammer back together.  

There were five major components to this hammer the frame, the arm, the anvil, the wheel and the pedal as it had been nearly a month since we dismantled it we had to think carefully which order the pieces came off.  

The anvil being the heaviest piece of the puzzle was not fun to move around, I called in some extra muscle to help me move  the anvil on to the sleeper. As you can see it was not as easy as it looks.

There was alot of parts being moved and taken back off again for other parts and so on but even with the few hiccups we had we still got the hammer built by the end of the day all it needs now is a new motor and it'll be reborn again!! I thank everyone who gave their time to give me a hand putting it together. It was a long day and I am very grateful and it was an experience I'll never forget !..!,

First post of the year and a long catch up

I guess first off is to apologize for not keeping up to date on this blog and I thank those of you that have been continuing to check on it. there's alot to up date you on the workshop now that the powerhammer is in the workshop I'm working towards putting it back together and powering the workshop.

One thing that has made my workshop a little official is the new sign that went up on the side of my workshop. I asked to have something simple, something bold, something that you couldn't miss when you came around the corner and I didn't want to over complicate it straight away. Now this signs up it really starts to feel like we're finally come towards to end and the next beginning. Believe me I was alot more happier than I seem in this picture hahaha!!    

I also took the step of having new lighting and plug installed in to the workshop this will allow me to power the whole of my workshop now and light it all up as the days are still pretty dark at the moment and I don't want to have to use candle light. Slowly as the weeks go by the last of the pieces are falling in to place even if it slower than I imagined it would be.

The next step is to get this powerhammer put back together but first I'll have to build a sandbox for it to sit in so that I don't have to bolt it to the floor, which I intend to get done this week and begin planning people to help me build the hammer the week after. As I'll need all the help I can get.