gale skinner
09-03-2006, 12:58 PM
My name is Gale. I have been doing auto body since the late 60's. I was raised in Ohio and ended up in Calif. via the Navy. Fell in love with San Diego and never left. I have been in the collision industry since the early 70's. I opened my first shop in about 1975,called myself Specialist in General, as you might guess I did all sorts of things including working on an expermental watercraft that used airplane wings with large venturi in them and an aircraft propeller in the venturi to provide lift for the boat. never really worked the way the engineers expected , but it was fun for me, did everything from aluminum work to woodwork and lots of fiberglass work. Went on from there and opened a larger shop than I had ever worked in, got an SBA loan [too small of one] lasted about 6 years untill my lack of business skill finally caught up with me. Went bankrupt in early 80's. worked in various auto body shops and dealerships untill I opened another shop in 94. I still use the name of that shop even though I lost the building in 2002. The landlord tore down the building to build a new one and found out it was going to take more time and money to have it zoned for automotive use than he was willing to spend,guess who lost out. It has taken me three years to recover from that one,I was just starting to make a living when I lost that shop. Southern Calif. landlords that will allow auto body on there property are getting harder to find especally in the price range that I'm able to afford. I found this website about a year ago [ along with a few other ones] and slowly started reading a little at a time,now I've always been restoring old cars even since the beginning. I currently own 9 cars that need restoring plus the junk I drive, got em' stored all around the county, plus most of my shop equipment. I have really enjoyed visiting this website, I have learned how much I don't know about metal shaping, and I thought I knew alot, after all I've been doing this stuff most of my life. I am eager to learn, you can only learn so much from books and reading on the internet. I'm really looking forward to MM06 as this will be my first experince with most of the equipment used in metalshaping. I have bought a few things , shrinker, strecher, bead roller, harbor freight sheer, roller, break combo, I do alot of rust repair so it works good enough for what I do, but there is so much more to learn and my wish list keeps on growing, of course that will never stop,[certifed tool junkie]as long as I live. By the way, how do you put those little endings and sayings on the end of your posts,I dont use my computer enough to know what to do and I dont see a way on this page to add it. Well I guess I,ve rambled on enough hope to meet some of you real metalmen at the meet. Thanks for all you've taught me just by responding to the various questions and comments made on this site,of couse that is what this site is supposed to be is'nt it? See alot of you at MM06. images/icons/icon7.gif