Bob of Small End (64 page)

“
The
exhaust fans arrived this morning. Jack and I installed them and
the ductwork. We hung the ducts from supports attached to the
structures in the ceiling, the ones that held the lighting. They’re
very strong. The exhaust fan for the sanders is rather noisy
because I ordered a big one but you don’t hear it when you are at
the front of the Centre or inside, just when you’re at the
back.”

“
I’m
looking forward to seeing it all. Will you be finished this
week?”

“
No. The
routers, sanders, saws and heaters won’t be here until next
week.”

“
I
suppose Craig is looking after the shop while you’re at the
Centre?”

“
Yes.
He’s in charge and Lori’s taking all the calls and arranging the
deliveries with Gerry and Bert. They went out today but will work
in the shop for the rest of the week. Oh, and it’s been decided
where we go for our celebration lunch. It’s this Friday, remember?
We’re going to a micro-brew pub in Big End.”

“
I’d
forgotten about the lunch. Will Gerry and Bert be
going?”

“
We
talked about that at lunch today, while they were on the road, and
everyone agreed that they should. They are becoming part of the
gang even though they’re not in the shop all the time.”

“
They’ll
be pleased to have an afternoon off the first week of their job!
And being paid for it too, I imagine.”

“
Yes. I
couldn’t do otherwise. But they’re good men and they’ll do their
best for us I’m sure.”

“
Good.
Well I won’t phone tomorrow. I’ll be home. Does Lori have any
places for me to visit on my way back?”

“
Yes.
There’s seven of them. All around Swindon. She guessed you’d be
returning that way. Are you?”

“
Yes,
it’s the shortest way.”

“
All
right,” and he read out the names and Bob put a cross beside each
one on his list.

“
Then
I’ll see you Friday Ken.”

“
Good.
There’s lots to see and talk about. Drive carefully.”

“
I
will.”

Bob had
expected to visit a dozen shops before returning home but stopped
at noon, bought a sandwich and filled his thermos with tea at a
deli. He had to start driving back now for he had to get to the
Swindon shops before six or they’d be closed. So he had only seven
new shops to add to his list.

He arrived at
Swindon at four. As expected there was a traffic jam at Bristol and
that took time to get through but there was enough time to drop
boxes at Lori’s seven shops. He arrived home at eight thirty, tired
but happy. He was looking forward to an enjoyable weekend, first
with the pub lunch, then with Maria. He began humming again.

Friday morning
he drove the Vauxhall to the workshop, arriving just after nine.
Everyone was busy. Craig was teaching the two new men how to
operate the router jig. Bob walked over to meet them after saying
‘Hello’ to Lori, Luke and Jose.

“
Bob,
this is Gerry and Bert. And this is Mr. Bob Barns. He’s the
company’s founder. He’s been on the road, finding more shops to
sell our toys.”

“
Hello
Gerry. Hello Bert. I’m glad you’ve joined us and extra glad that
you are doing some of the deliveries. How do you like the
work?”

“
I’m
used to driving, Mr. Barns,” said Gerry. “I did a lot of it in the
army when I first joined up. But I like working in the shop too.
Everyone’s so friendly.”

“
Yes,
that’s right, Mr. Barns. Everyone is friendly. However, I’m a bit
worried about working with wood in the shop because I’m afraid I
might twist my back. But driving’s no problem, I can manage
that.”

“
You
might best do painting or boxing then Bert. What do you think
Craig?”

“
I
didn’t know you had a bad back Bert. Yes, you can paint or box,
there’s plenty of that to keep you busy.”

“
And I’d
rather you both called me Bob. We’re very informal here. You know
about our monthly Friday celebrations?”

“
Having
lunch and the afternoon off? Yes we certainly do. I don’t know of
any place that does something like that.”

“
Well we
do it to celebrate making two and a half thousand sets in a month.
It’s a reward. Which makes me think we’ll have to increase the
target once the new shop starts working or we’ll be having a
holiday every week!”

“
Do you
think we’ll be making that many?” asked Craig.

“
Ken
thinks we will and I expect he’s right.”

He then walked
over to Lori who was counting the boxed sets.

“
Hello
Lori. I’ve the receipts from the new shops for you. Another forty
three.”

“
Thanks
Bob.”

“
Do you
know how many we’ve made this month?”

“
Two
thousand nine hundred and six.”

“
Then we
didn’t make three thousand.”

“
We
will, once the trains are dried and boxed. It’ll be three thousand
and six then. That’ll be done and they’ll be packed by lunch
time.”

“
Well
it’s remarkable, what everybody’s doing. How will you manage to
look after things when we open the shop at the Centre?”

“
I’ll
check there every afternoon or have someone do it for me. You know
that we’ll be keeping the office here?”

“
Yes.”

“
So I’ll
spend most of my time here, near the phone. Oh, Ken said the
company would buy my computer. I said he needn’t, I didn’t want it
because I have a new one, but he insisted. He asked what it was
worth and gave me a hundred and fifty pounds for it. So you’ll see
that on the expense sheet for this month.”

“
Well,
I’m glad he did that. I suppose we should buy a new one
sometime.”

“
Not
yet. The one you’ve got does everything we need to do. It’s not so
good if you want to play games but that’s not what we want to
do.”

“
One day
you’re going to teach me how to use it, remember?”

“
I do.
Just tell me when. I’m off to the centre now to see what Ken and
Jack are doing. Do you want to come with me?”

Bob did, so
they walked over together.

“
So this
is the new bench Ken. It sure is a long one. I know you said eighty
feet but it’s gigantic. How will you use all that? And where’s
Jack? I thought he was helping you.”

“
I
didn’t need him any more this week. He’ll be back when the new
equipment arrives. Here, walk with me and I’ll explain what
happens,” and he took Bob to the left end of the bench.

“
The
wood will be stored in the room by the back door, right? Okay. Then
what we need is carried here and placed on the end of the bench.
Now,” and he walked with Bob a few feet along the bench, “the ‘R’
I’ve chalked here,” and he pointed to it, “is where the router jig
will be. The long block is pushed through the jig and left on the
bench until it is picked up by the next operator who cuts it into
pieces by the band saw. That’ll be here, where the ‘B’ is. The
pieces will be put in a tray on the other side until they’re picked
up and sanded. The sanders are next on the bench, see the two
‘S’s?”

“
Yes.
Why do you have two?”

“
Sanding
takes more time than the other operations so we have to have two or
the line will slow down. I’d like to have a drum sander instead of
the mop sanders but I’m not sure how well it’d handle all the edges
some of the parts have. I’ll make a small one in my garage sometime
and see if it works okay. If it does I’ll make or buy one for the
line. If we had one it’d release two people because all you have to
do is dump the wooden pieces in the barrel and let them rotate for
a while. Now, you see the end of the duct that’s hanging over the
‘S’s? Jack and I’ll make a big wire frame, hang it from the end of
the duct and cover it with heavy plastic sheeting. The whole thing
will cover the sanding mops and all the sanding will be done inside
the cover. Air and sawdust will be exhausted through the duct.
We’ll have the same kind of exhaust system over the band saw and
the routers.”

“
That’s
why you ordered the large exhaust; it has to suck dust from all
these places.”

“
Yes
that’s right. Okay. After the blocks have been sanded they’ll be
pushed onto the pin hangers and then dipped into the first paint
tray, here, where there’s a ‘P’. These hangers will be slightly
different from the ones we use now, they’ll have two rollers glued
to the top, the kind that are used to hold curtains. You know, the
ones that run along an ‘I’ beam. Well, there’ll be an ‘I’ beam or
rail running above the bench from here on. The hangers will be slid
onto it and pushed into a plastic tunnel. The tunnel has hot air
flowing through it and that dries the paint.”

“
What
makes them move along the rail? And where’s the hot air coming
from?”

“
When
you slide one hanger onto the beam it pushes all those ahead of it
further down the tunnel. That’s one of the reasons why the tunnel
is made of plastic—you can see if there are any hangers in the
tunnel and just where they are. The heat comes from a fan heater,
that’ll be fastened under the bench. Now, look, there’s ten feet
between the first ‘P’ cross and the next ‘P’. With the right heat
and right production rate the first paint coat will be dry by the
time it reaches the end of the first tunnel and rail. The second
‘P’ is where the second coat of paint will be given, brushed on in
this case, the roof of the house, for instance. Then the hanger
will be slid onto the second rail and it goes to the last ‘P’ where
it will be given the last coat, the lines. They’ll be stamped on.
It’s then put on the last rail and travels for another ten feet,
although a much shorter length might be all we need there. At the
end the pieces are pulled off the hanger pins and put in the
plastic boxes ready to be glued or screwed together, sorted into
sets and packed. All that happens along the last part of the
bench.”

“
I see.
If the hangers drop off the end of each rail won’t they get
damaged?”

“
I don’t
think so. There’ll be a cloth ramp at the end and the hangers will
slide down into a tray.”

“
Smart.
Okay, what stops the heat from just going out the ends of the
tunnels and not drying the paint?”

“
It’s
fed into the centres of the tunnels and it does exit by the ends
but it dries the paint before it leaves. One problem I can foresee,
the hot air might heat the workshop too much on a warm day. We’ll
have to deal with that if it happens. But the air doesn’t have to
be very hot and some of it will be sucked into the exhaust ducts as
well. It’s all a bit of an experiment right now but I can’t see any
reason why it shouldn’t work. It’ll take time to solve all the
problems but they’re all little ones I think.”

“
It’s
fascinating Ken. How many do you expect to make in a
day?”

“
Well,
if there’s someone on each station and two on the sanders, nine
people altogether, I think we’ll get four or five times our normal
rate of production.”

“
You
mean, instead of making seven or eight hundred a week we’ll make
that many in a day?”

“
Once
all the bugs are worked out, yes, I think we will.”

“
My God!
Who’s going to sell all of them? We don’t have that many
shops!”

“
We
might have. Here, sit on this chair and let’s talk about
it.”

“
You’ve
bought these chairs Ken?”

“
Yes
some of the work can be done sitting down. And, with
position-rotation, it’ll make the line-work easier for
everybody.”

They sat down,
facing each other, and Ken pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper
from his pocket. “I’ve talked to some of my old friends about
distribution and costs. Distributors take twenty to thirty percent.
That would leave us with only forty or thirty percent of the
selling price. If the shops sell a toy, let’s say for £20, then
we’d only get £8 or £6, depending on what they charge.” He wrote
the figures on his scrap of paper. “It’d actually be a bit more if
they were selling village or farm sets, but £8 or £6 will do to
calculate what kind of profit we could make. Let’s say we make
three-and-a-half thousand sets a week. Again it would be more, I
think, once all the problems are solved. Then we’d make £28,000 or
£21,000 a week. Of course we have to pay the wages, rent, wood,
paint, and so on out of that. Wages would be the biggest cost. For
fourteen people at, say, £175 a week that would be £2,450. Wood,
paint, rent, electricity and miscellaneous expenses could come to
about £900 a week. We’d not need any vans if we had a distributor.
No, we’d better keep one to take things from one shop to the other
or when we’re shopping for stuff. So let’s say the miscellaneous
expenses came to £1,000 a week. So, we’d clear approximately
£24,500 or £17,500. Each week! Now, these are very rough
calculations but they won’t be far wrong. Have I made any mistakes
in my calculations?”

“
I’d
have to use a pencil, calculator, last month’s expenses, all the
current routine expenses and so on to be sure but it sounds right.
Unbelievable, isn’t it.”