How to Set Up a Workshop and Be Ready for Just About Any Project
As a little boy I used to get all excited about the little car toys my father and uncle would buy me, which is quite normal for a boy of that age. Usually, that excitement lasted about a couple of days, and once it was gone, I would get excited about dismantling the toys and using some of their parts (like the batteries, the small battery motors and the wires) to design and create new stuff, such as small robots or my own cars out of boxes and other materials my dad would bring me. My father almost always got pissed at me, but now I know that deep down the man was proud of his little son early developing the love for mechanics on his own.
I still nurture my love for mechanics to this very day, and after thoroughly thinking about starting my own business, I decided I should do what I’m really good at and love doing: open my own auto repair workshop. As simple as it may sound, I must tell you that opening an auto repair workshop isn’t easy at all. Plus, if you don’t have any experience working as an apprentice, you’d really come across many obstacles, because customers require an impeccable service. For starters, here’s a short list of some basic workshop tools and equipment you will need to get started with your business.
The Space
The space for setting up your workshop is very important. You want something spacious enough to keep your vehicles in it and to have enough space left to set up some shelves for the tools. Additionally, consider the type of vehicles you’d be working with: will you work mainly with cars or maybe with trucks as well? If you plan on working with trucks as well, bear in mind that this leads to another requirement – a tall ceiling – so that the truck gets in and out without any problems.
The Tools
Having the basic tool kit is a must. Regardless of what’s your expertise, you should have a really well-equipped tool kit for your workshop. Cars and trucks have a lot of small parts that could break and will need to be either repaired or replaced. So, a bolt extractor kit containing extractors for bolts of many sizes is only the obvious thing to have for starters. Make sure all your workshop tools and equipment is made of a high quality material, like chrome molybdenum for instance, as you want this to be a durable investment that will only benefit your work. Additionally, you’d want to have a bolt screw remover as another basic piece of equipment for work, which again, needs to be versatile in its use: screws, bolts and fasteners of certain sizes should work well with it. Basically, you want to start with the most basic tools needed for small and simple repairs in cars and trucks as you work your way up to offering a more sophisticated range of services.
The Air System
It’s very important to have a proper air system installed in your workshop. In some occasions, you will need to work with chemicals or use chemical substances that could be poisonous and dangerous. So, make sure you organise this part of your workshop properly. Firstly, as our friends at Hello Webz says, choose a corner where you’ll place the shelf with the substances, preferably near the exit. Next, get a ventilation fan which will serve as an air cleaner and a ventilator duct, which is actually a large pipe that sucks the air precisely from the corner where you mix the substances. The ventilator cleans the air fast and easy, allowing your work to flow without any obstacles and helping create a safer environment to work in.
