Looking for the real Red Robbo (my book). Book launch events now added.

[loserone]

It's the same door from long ago on the internet.  And I can't read Cradley.

[motorpunk]

Ha! Google reverse lookup or something then I guess. It’s a properly hidden away place so I was gobsmacked you recognised it 😂👍🏻

[Dobloseven]

You can see it on Google Maps Streetview!

[motorpunk]

Not proof read. Back cover text. Might tweak it a bit. I think the book is funnier and more offbeat than this explains.

[ETCHY]

Any idea roughly when this will be out?

 

 

[High Jetter]

Only thing that jumps out at me is the 'worker by drowning' would be better as 'worker who drowned' because it suggests they were passing off the death as drowning, to me. I might replace 'supposedly' with 'allegedly' to distance myself, if I were you. Is it the story of your attempts to understand the man, or is it more about him? Just my 2p worth, no obligation. 

[motorpunk]

3 hours ago, ETCHY said:

Any idea roughly when this will be out?

 

 

Few weeks 

[motorpunk]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

it suggests they were passing off the death as drowning, to me. 

They were. It was an industrial accident leading to death by drowning and management discussed passing it off as suicide. Madness!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, motorpunk said:

They were. It was an industrial accident leading to death by drowning and management discussed passing it off as suicide. Madness!

Yeabut your text suggested passing it off as drowning to me, only realised the suicide at end of sentance.

[motorpunk]

No clues as you lot are super sharp at working things out! Went here. Took this pic.  Is relevant.

[Heavyspanners]

I'm looking forward to this book. I've got Looking For The Real Weasel, and it's a great read. Weasel was a fascinating character, although always something of a mystery, which I don't think the book ever quite solves. But I don't think anyone really knew what made Weasel tick. Perhaps he didn't know himself.

I was very peripherally involved in component manufacturing for the motor industry myself at one time. In the 80s, as a young and green screen printer, I worked at a company called Reliance Compra Limited, based in a ramshackle collection of factory buildings alongside the Thames in Richmond. Some of the buildings were originally a WW1 munitions factory, and hadn't changed much. It's odd to think there was an factory on that spot. Now, it's a massive complex of luxury flats, with prices in the millions if you'd like to buy one.

The company made badges, logos, nameplates, membrane switches, control panels and the like for all sorts of products, such as Sinclair ZX Spectrum computers, and Hoover washing machines, and was a supplier to BL and Ford.

Making a simple car badge involved some surprisingly heavy engineering. The Mini bonnet badge of that period was this one (or variations on it):



The badges were screen printed on alloy sheet, eight at a time, then anodised, cut out of the sheet, shaped in a press to raise the lettering and the edges of the shapes, and also to give the badge a slightly convex shape (this may have involved two separate operations), then packed up and sent off to Longbridge, or wherever Minis were made at the time. There they would be fitted into a moulded plastic plinth made by another company, and finally slotted into fixing holes on the Mini bonnet.

I always thought this was a very long and complex process just to make a badge. Very nice badges, mind - they had a lovely sheen to them. But it seemed like an unfeasibly big task to make such small parts.

Occasionally I would be put onto other jobs. I spent several shifts feeding circles of shiny stainless steel into a massive press - hands out, hit the buttons on the extreme left and right sides of the machine (it would only work if both buttons were pressed, and they were deliberately placed far apart so your hands would be well away from the press tool as it came down), then with a KER-LUNK the stainless steel circle would be formed into the shape of the door trim on a Hoover washing machine. It was so repetitive, and the sound was so rhythmic, that I would enter a weird trance-like state, helped along by the fumes coming off the anodising vats directly behind the press, where Rob the anodiser was merrily dunking Leyland Freighter truck badges.

Quality was, erm, variable. It really came down to how conscientious each individual was about their work. There was a quality control manager, who held court in his office overlooking the shop floor, but frankly he was more trouble than he was worth.  He would sometimes loom up silently behind you while you were working, and just stand there, frowning. I found this hugely offputting, and I'd always start making silly mistakes that I'd never usually do, under his baleful stare.

The trouble was, the QC manager didn't really know anything, and we all knew that he didn't know anything. He couldn't tell the difference between a good print and a bad one.

Once you'd set up your machine and got the first good print of the run, the protocol was that you had to take a proof sheet to the QC office to get official approval to print the full job. Soon after I'd started at the company I found one of the other printers hiding in a dark corner (the old factory buildings had lots of dark corners. Even the dark corners had dark corners).  He was clutching a printed sheet. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I've just been down to QC," said the printer. "He's rejected my proof sheet - told me to print off a better one. So I'll sit here for ten minutes, then go back down and show him the same sheet again. Bet you he'll pass it."  And he did.

One of the contracts we had was with Ford, to print instrument dials. I must have printed thousands of those. If you've got a mid-80s Ford, I probably printed your speedometer - on a hand bench, four up on a sheet of steel. Quite a primitive, cottage-industry way of doing it. The Ford print room was more like a college art class than an industrial facility.

Once printed, the dials would be pressed out of the sheet as flat circles (the mileometer windows would be pressed out as part of this), then pressed again into a dish shape. The dials were relatively hefty things - sheet steel pressings, just like body panels. You'd think they would be plastic by the 80s. I'm sure BL dials were plastic by this time.

Ford were very picky about quality control, and would inspect every dial when they were delivered to Dagenham, or wherever it was. Our own QC manager was utterly paranoid about this, because if Ford rejected anything, that reflected on him. He haunted the Ford print room like a nervous ghost, and would swoop on any perceived fault. As a result of this, our own rejection rate was massive. There was a full-size skip outside the factory, full to the top with Ford dials which had been deemed not good enough to go to Ford. Every now and then a scrap merchant would come along, eye up the skip, and ask, all casual-like, if he could take it off our hands. We had some sort of standing arrangement with a metal recycling company for the skip, but that didn't stop every scrappy in west London trying to get their hands on it. It must have looked like a skip full of gold to them.

Around 1984, Ford dials changed from being printed on sheet steel to sheet aluminium.  I've never been able to verify this, but the story at the time was that Reliance Compra, as Ford's dial-supplier, had asked Ford if they'd mind if the dials were made of aluminium, not steel - because the scrap value was higher and therefore our scrap skip would fetch more money. That does seem like an odd tail-wagging-the-dog situation, but it's a fact that Ford dials did indeed change to being printed on aluminium.

I remember one particular Ford dial job to this day. I was printing fuel/temp  gauge dials for (I think) the Fiesta. This one:



These were printed six up on a steel (later aluminium) sheet, pre-sprayed with black paint. There were two print runs: first, to print the whole thing in white, then to add the little red rectangles, which would sit on top of the white print in their respective positions. The red had to fit exactly over the white. The white print underneath was absolutely not allowed to show, peeking out at the edges of the red. If it did - instant reject.

I printed the white, all done by hand on my little bench - no problem. Then I put the red screen in. I did a test print. And another. And some more. And I couldn't get the red to line up. The red areas just wouldn't sit accurately on top of the white. I could get one end of my sheet of six to fit, but then the other end would be out. I adjusted it this way and that, but it would never sit right.

Then the quality control manager loomed up behind me, wearing his serious face. He got involved. "Take it a bit more that way," he said. "No, not that much - go back the other way. Now to the left. Just move it up a bit - no, down. Go down - no, not like that. Try it again - this way. No, look, let me do it..."  This went on for about half an hour, by which time I was feeling downright hysterical. The quality control manager's serious face never shifted its expression. Eventually, after countless fine adjustments, he grudgingly declared that the fit was OK. "I'm prepared to accept that," he said, judicially. "Print it, but don't let it move off this position!"

So, with fear and trepidation, I printed it. Eventually I got through it, and the sheets were racked for drying. At last the nightmare job was done. Now all I had to do was clean up, and detach the screen from the bench....

...at which point I discovered why it had been so difficult to line up those little red rectangles. I had put the screen in upside down.

Which was a schoolboy error, obviously - but the QC manager never noticed!

So if you've got a mid-80s Ford, and the print on your fuel and temp gauges seems ever so slightly wonky - that was me. Sorry about that. As it happens, looking at the gauges in the photo above - is it me, or is there the tiniest sliver of white, just showing at the edges of the red? Perhaps that's one of mine!

[High Jetter]

^^^ Epic post, thanks.

[motorpunk]

 

First feedback (proof reader). He also “really likes the reverse chronology”  which is a relief as it’s tricky to write this way. I get back the marked up copy on Thursday. In good shape. 

[robt100]

Have you asked how much ink he went through marking up?😬🙈

[motorpunk]

2 hours ago, robt100 said:

Have you asked how much ink he went through marking up?😬🙈

Ha! Hopefully not too much. If I write naturally, the words just flow but there’ll be little typos, if I take my time with the detail then I feel the story loses oomph. I enjoy learning where I’ve made mistakes so I can improve in the future. I studied English A level but, honestly, my English isn’t great and I’d rather make an ordinary reader smile then get an A+ from some grammar nerd.

[New POD]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0029hks?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I keep trying to listen to this at bed time, but it sends me to sleep 😴 

[Snipes]

6 hours ago, New POD said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0029hks?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I keep trying to listen to this at bed time, but it sends me to sleep 😴 

I've been catching up on old BTCC and it's crazy to think the Rover Phoenix thing is already 20 years ago. 

[motorpunk]

Artwork for covers should be done this week. Meeting proofreader on Thursday to get his marked-up copy. Have spoken to three venues about a launch thing. Usual mags running some news about it.

[motorpunk]

I've been busy. There'll be launch event in Yorkshire,  and one in Northamptonshire, and possibly one in Derbyshire(ish).  Please don't speculate on the venues or dates here online, I am still discussing it with these places. I'll post info as soon as I have it. It'll also be mentioned in print in the mags I write for. Struggling for a friendly (free) venue in the South West...

Back cover needs a tweak, I meet the proofreader for final corrections on Thursday, and I've decided to move a chunk of text around to better 'reveal' what made Robbo so red. 

Nearly there....

[R Lutz]

14 hours ago, motorpunk said:

IStruggling for a friendly (free) venue in the South West...

What about Alex Moulton's Great Hall?  Thats now a charity owned venue. 

[Floatylight]

14 hours ago, motorpunk said:

I've been busy. There'll be launch event in Yorkshire,  and one in Northamptonshire, and possibly one in Derbyshire(ish).  Please don't speculate on the venues or dates here online, I am still discussing it with these places. I'll post info as soon as I have it. It'll also be mentioned in print in the mags I write for. Struggling for a friendly (free) venue in the South West...

Back cover needs a tweak, I meet the proofreader for final corrections on Thursday, and I've decided to move a chunk of text around to better 'reveal' what made Robbo so red. 

Nearly there....

Tolpuddle Museum, where the first trade union was formed? (& the 6 guys who did it went sent to Australia)

[Sigmund Fraud]

16 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Struggling for a friendly (free) venue in the South West...

Have you considered that old Autoshite favourite, the Atwell-Wilson Museum in Calne ?

[motorpunk]

Venues booked but waiting on written confirmation before I can share info. on here. Apologies for those living in Stornoway or Tasmania, but I had to rush the decision on locations as ClassicRetroModern is going to print now and it’ll be mentioned in there.

Another mystery location pic from somewhere I visited. Am off to meet proofreader at Belvoir Castle today, I’ll take the Elise as the weather looks OK. Why am I sharing my poxy life on here?

 

[garethj]

9 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Why am I sharing my poxy life on here?

It’s not as if you can share it with normal people? 😀

[High Jetter]

12 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Why am I sharing my poxy life on here?

Dunno, but it's interesting.

[motorpunk]

Met the proof reader. Has an impeccable taste in cars. Apart from the Toyota bit inside it.

[Matty]

1 hour ago, motorpunk said:

Met the proof reader. Has an impeccable taste in cars. Apart from the Toyota bit inside it.

Aye. K series or go home 😁

[motorpunk]

It’s Friday. I have statistical evidence that BL cars built on a Friday were more likely to be, well, Friday cars. I also looked at data from Fiat and approximately 20% of the workforce would throw a sickie on a Monday, making their Friday cars actually Monday cars, from a quality viewpoint. 
 

I hope this isn’t the literary equivalent of a Friday car…

 

[motorpunk]

Turns out I can’t even swear correctly. This proofreader is good!

[motorpunk]

228 pages (!) - now the usual kerfuffle with Amazon’s formatting