"I had for some time admired the wooden buildings from a company called Passmores who advertise in Enjoying MG"

Says John Day, regular contributer to enjoying MG magazine

Now that Ratty is finished I thought that it might be interesting to follow up the restoration story with an article about the workshop where much of Ratty was created and an introduction to some of the tools I found useful during the three-year restoration.

I took early retirement nearly four years ago after a career in engineering and decided to fulfil my long-standing ambition to build a workshop, which would support my interest in MGs. At this stage I did not have an ongoing rebuild and our garage was home to my three working MGs and our modern car. If I needed to make or repair anything I used a bench. In the corner of the garage but I found there was always the risk of damaging the cars when welding or grinding. In fact on several occasions I actually scratched my wife's car while working on an old MG. Not to be recommended!

One of the major obstacles to building a workshop in our garden was the limited access via a narrow passage at one side of the house. It was clear right from the start that the simplest solution to this problem was to use a prefabricated building. I decided to talk to the Council Planning Office before making any decisions and found the staff very helpful. I was delighted to find that I could erect a prefabricated wooden building four metres high with a floor area of up to twenty five percent of the garden area without the need to obtain planning permission. It would have been nice to make a permanent structure using bricks and mortar but the cost and difficulty in accessing the site put this out of the question.

I had for some time admired the wooden buildings from a company called Passmores who advertise in Enjoying MG. The quality of the materials they use is first class and all external timber is treated with a preservative applied under high pressure in a process called 'Tanolising'. From my discussions with the sales staff I discovered that the most cost effective building to suit my requirements for a workshop was a standard, single car, wooden garage. These are sold in a range of sizes and I chose one with a base measuring 3.5 x 5.5 metres. It came as standard with double doors and a pitched roof just within the planning limit of 3.9 metres. I placed the order for the workshop and was given a delivery date and a drawing defining the dimensions and type of concrete base that I would be required to provide. It was quite a physical challenge to dig out such a large base manually to a depth of a third of a metre. It was even more of a challenge to set up shuttering which was level and met the exact base dimensions to within one centimetre on the lengths and two centimetres across the diagonals! The staff at Passmores explained that this level of accuracy was needed to ensure that the building fitted the base and encouraged me to get the dimensions as close as possible. The next problem was how to get four cubic metres of Readimix concrete from the concrete mixer truck in the road to the corner of the garden some seventy metres away, partly along a narrow passage. The easiest way was to hire a concrete pump for the job at a cost of £200. It had been dry for weeks but the weather decided to break on the morning the concrete arrived. Neither the mixer driver nor the pump man seemed to think this was a problem, 'A bit of water will do it good,' they both agreed. It might have been good for the concrete but it was not helping me. I was soaked to the skin and covered from head to toe in concrete. However by the evening I had managed to level the base and the concrete was left to set.
	Readimix concrete about to be pumped into the prepared workshop base.
	The workshop being erected by the suppliers
	The finishing workshop. Note the large access doors are ideal for handling larger items like the body and chassis repairs

Three weeks later Passmores delivered and erected the building. It was a relief to find that the base was within the required limits and the building was finished in about five hours. I could now begin to line the inside walls and ceiling with insulation covered by 8mm plywood. I also laid a fibreboard floor on a layer of 50mm thick polystyrene. The time spent on this work was a good investment because even on the coldest winter's day the workshop is very snug and a small electric heater is all that is required to maintain a comfortable working temperature. A lucky find of a dehumidifier for £10 at a local Car Boot Sale meant that the workshop was now warm and dry.

The next job was to organise a power supply and I talked to a local electrician about my options. He recommended that an armoured cable should be run directly from the house consumer unit underground to the workshop He supplied the materials which included the cable, a small consumer unit to be fitted in the workshop and all the sockets, switches and light fittings. I carried out the installation and the electrician checked my work before making the connection to the power supply. By using my labour it was possible to keep the cost down and I learnt a lot about domestic electrics.

I have constructed several workbenches and been surprised how difficult it is to achieve the right design. On each previous attempt they have been too high, too low or not big enough. For my new workshop I wanted to create the ideal bench and you can see my efforts in the photographs. Some people would argue that a bench for general engineering and metal work would be constructed from steel but I feel a wooden top is kinder to precision surfaces and timber is nicer to live with than steel. One vital piece of bench-mounted equipment for me is an engineer's vice and the final height of the bench was dictated by the most comfortable working height at the vice. It was useful to provide a decent overhang along the front of the bench top to allow sheet steel to be securely clamped. I decided to build an L shaped bench to allow extra space for spreading out parts when dismantling larger objects like a gearbox.

Another of my ambitions was to own an engineering lathe and as soon as I retired I began looking for something I could afford. New lathes are available for about £500 upwards but these are intended for the model engineer. I was hoping to find something a bit more substantial and more able to cope with light automobile machining. There are a number of manufacturers to choose from including Myford, Colchester and Boxford so I kept my eyes open at the local auction house, in the Exchange and Mart and in the Classified Adverts of the free papers. Eventually I bought a second-hand Boxford lathe for £500 that had seen only light duties in a small engineering company. It is a small scale engineer's lathe with a long bed that can accommodate lengthy parts like half shafts and has proved to be an excellent investment that has already paid for itself many times over.

Car body repairs require sheet metal working tools and the first item on my list was a good quality Mig welder. The welder I purchased has a current rating of 30 to 180 Amps, is fan cooled for continuous operation and intended for use with an inert gas such as carbon dioxide or carbon. Both gases give scale free welds although carbon is more expensive. I was going to use the welder with the large gas cylinders available on hire but in the end I found the small gas cylinders supplied by local car accessory shops perfectly acceptable and cost effective. It took me nearly a year to complete the body repairs to Ratty and a lot of welding but I only used eight of these small cylinders. The cost was the same as I purchased the very useful tool trolley shown in the photos to move the welder around the workshop and this has an upper tray for storing the various sheet metal cutters, clamps, and hand tools I used as the work progressed.

One of the best tools I found for cutting sheet metal was the hand nibbler. I mentioned this in the Ratty rebuild articles and I found it easier to use than the type powered with an electric drill. The best tool for clamping two parts together when seam welding is also shown in the photos. Both were purchased from Frosts catalogue, were relatively inexpensive and work brilliantly. Next article I hope to cover in detail how I use the Mig welder, nibbler and clamps to achieve seam welds. In writing this article I was hoping to provide an insight into setting up a home workshop suitable for all types of car restorers. There is no doubt in my mind that my workshop was a major factor in being able to complete the Ratty Project. From start to finish it took me about three months to set up and was ready for use at about the time I discovered Ratty. It is not an exaggeration to say that without the extra space and facilities I could not have contemplated taking on such a derelict car.

John day