Workshop Article
Posted
by ProDev Administrator
at 5:25pm, Monday 25th July, 2016
Marty’s Panel & Paint Ltd started 22 year’s ago simply by word & mouth, as my hobby turned into a profession. After building a very radical custom Escort Van that won 23 trophies including the N.Z Super-van title in 1987,I was alway’s being asked to modify vehicles.
After working for a boss for 13 odd year’s & having a small network marketing business I decided it was time to call it a day & went apple picking 5 morning’s a week. This enabled me to work on my hobby a bit more often at home. It wasn’t long before I had to give up apple picking as there wasn’t enough Hour’s in the day,& so Marty’s Panel & Paint was born. To start with I just did panel-work but soon realised I needed to paint as well. Thing’s went well for three year’s ,even adding an employee for awhile until a couple of my neighbour’s( who are now long gone) in Manakau decided they would get the council on my case. It was easier to move premises than it was to change, to suit their requirement’s.
This is when I moved into the old modern freighter’s paint shop that was semi pulled apart to house Central automotives engineer. While they moved him into another part of the work-shop I operated out of the old tyre bay for 3 or 4 month’s, until finally I was able to move in. My first job was to put the old spray-booth back together & modify the filtration set-up, so it didn’t suck the dust of the floor. At a later date & after my first couple of winter’s of having no heat in the spray-booth, other than hiring a gas burner every time I wanted to paint, I invested in a Kroll heater that ran on waste oil. This gave me a maximum of 20% on a good day.
I then set about building up clientele in the trucking industry as our booth was now 12 metres long, doubling the turn-over every year for the next 5 year’s, creating all sort’s of cash-flow problem’s along the way .By this time I had on & off 4 staff.
IN 1997 we became a ltd liability company making even more changes.
Seven year’s ago I had a visit from mito talking about me taking on an apprentice. I kindly pointed out to him that I was a self taught panel-beater/spray-painter. His reply was well you must be doing something right to be still in business after 15 year’s. So Patrick was started & is still with me 7year’s later . He has gained momentum with panel & fibre-glass repair’s, & is now keeping the workshop flowing as the workshop Foreman. A second apprentice was started as soon as Patrick finished his. He has since qualified & has since moved on.
In 2007 I decided that I was sick of working in a work-shop that was old, had no front office or foyer with a spray booth that was 25 year’s old. I either had to move or change job’s.
It was decided to build for retirement so I started looking around for a work=shop to buy. To no avail!
The next step was to find a bit of dirt & build from scratch, but the only bit of dirt I wanted was next door which my landlord owned .I decided to pop the question ,did they want to sell it? The answer, No! but we will build you what you want. So after a lot of planning a deal was struck which would enable me the right to buy at a later date.
This enabled me to have built, one of the most sophisticated 16 metre downdraught spray-booth/60%bake oven’s in the south pacific, capable of catching 99% of all atomised paint emission.
My paint supplier Resene Automotive also set me up with all the latest technology in Dupont Automotive Paint, which is a commercial grade & is used on 85% of all manufactured truck’s world-wide. We can also back all our resprays’ with a lifetime performance warranty .
Part of my marketing strategy was to target the motor-home industry as this is the fastest growing industry in the south pacific .This also has been a blessing in disguise as with the trucking industry taking a huge economical nose dive & it being 85% of our work we wouldn’t have survived.
However we are gaining in momentum in the motor-home industry &have done a complete turn around with 60% of all work now being motor-homes. Our work-shop very rarely doesn’t have a motor-home in it & our yard often has a motor-home parked in it when we arrive at work, as we offer it as a park over property for registered motor-home member’s. This is our way of returning the support we receive from member’s. We hope one day that when the economy pick’s up we can support them even more.
We are also waiting for the trucking industry to gain momentum as well, as our workshop has the potential to double the work-load that it has now.
Marty Jarrett
Director of Marty’s Panel & Paint Ltd
After working for a boss for 13 odd year’s & having a small network marketing business I decided it was time to call it a day & went apple picking 5 morning’s a week. This enabled me to work on my hobby a bit more often at home. It wasn’t long before I had to give up apple picking as there wasn’t enough Hour’s in the day,& so Marty’s Panel & Paint was born. To start with I just did panel-work but soon realised I needed to paint as well. Thing’s went well for three year’s ,even adding an employee for awhile until a couple of my neighbour’s( who are now long gone) in Manakau decided they would get the council on my case. It was easier to move premises than it was to change, to suit their requirement’s.
This is when I moved into the old modern freighter’s paint shop that was semi pulled apart to house Central automotives engineer. While they moved him into another part of the work-shop I operated out of the old tyre bay for 3 or 4 month’s, until finally I was able to move in. My first job was to put the old spray-booth back together & modify the filtration set-up, so it didn’t suck the dust of the floor. At a later date & after my first couple of winter’s of having no heat in the spray-booth, other than hiring a gas burner every time I wanted to paint, I invested in a Kroll heater that ran on waste oil. This gave me a maximum of 20% on a good day.
I then set about building up clientele in the trucking industry as our booth was now 12 metres long, doubling the turn-over every year for the next 5 year’s, creating all sort’s of cash-flow problem’s along the way .By this time I had on & off 4 staff.
IN 1997 we became a ltd liability company making even more changes.
Seven year’s ago I had a visit from mito talking about me taking on an apprentice. I kindly pointed out to him that I was a self taught panel-beater/spray-painter. His reply was well you must be doing something right to be still in business after 15 year’s. So Patrick was started & is still with me 7year’s later . He has gained momentum with panel & fibre-glass repair’s, & is now keeping the workshop flowing as the workshop Foreman. A second apprentice was started as soon as Patrick finished his. He has since qualified & has since moved on.
In 2007 I decided that I was sick of working in a work-shop that was old, had no front office or foyer with a spray booth that was 25 year’s old. I either had to move or change job’s.
It was decided to build for retirement so I started looking around for a work=shop to buy. To no avail!
The next step was to find a bit of dirt & build from scratch, but the only bit of dirt I wanted was next door which my landlord owned .I decided to pop the question ,did they want to sell it? The answer, No! but we will build you what you want. So after a lot of planning a deal was struck which would enable me the right to buy at a later date.
This enabled me to have built, one of the most sophisticated 16 metre downdraught spray-booth/60%bake oven’s in the south pacific, capable of catching 99% of all atomised paint emission.
My paint supplier Resene Automotive also set me up with all the latest technology in Dupont Automotive Paint, which is a commercial grade & is used on 85% of all manufactured truck’s world-wide. We can also back all our resprays’ with a lifetime performance warranty .
Part of my marketing strategy was to target the motor-home industry as this is the fastest growing industry in the south pacific .This also has been a blessing in disguise as with the trucking industry taking a huge economical nose dive & it being 85% of our work we wouldn’t have survived.
However we are gaining in momentum in the motor-home industry &have done a complete turn around with 60% of all work now being motor-homes. Our work-shop very rarely doesn’t have a motor-home in it & our yard often has a motor-home parked in it when we arrive at work, as we offer it as a park over property for registered motor-home member’s. This is our way of returning the support we receive from member’s. We hope one day that when the economy pick’s up we can support them even more.
We are also waiting for the trucking industry to gain momentum as well, as our workshop has the potential to double the work-load that it has now.
Marty Jarrett
Director of Marty’s Panel & Paint Ltd
