Thanks for the interest guys, just spent the day rearranging cars and stuff in the garage to give me more room to work on my projects, a few more hours clearing to do yet. Too much stuff, not much junk tho'. I took a few pics but before I post them I will find some earlier pics to give the thread some order.
I guess maybe I should tell you a little about myself first.
Born in'47 so I am officially an "Old fart" have been for a couple of years now. My Father was a Blacksmith/farrier who taught me a lot, he also owned a '37 Buick and a '35 Packard, both woodies, which I guess started my love for American cars, I sometimes wish I had taken his trade but my interest lay with cars so when I left school I went into the motor trade working in a local garage and attending tech college one day a week, this job lasted about a year until I had a row with the boss over his attitude to customers, and I walked out.
I continued college but went working for my Dad, he owned a filling station,blacksmiths shop and workshop for agricultural repairs, called The Forge Garage, but no car repairs, until I started, okay I was young but I had been tinkering with cars since I was "knee high to a grasshopper" a friend joined me who was pretty good at panel beating and I could wield a spray gun, so we started body repairs, this was quite successful until my friend needed a mortgage, not easy when you're self employed so he needed to go get a job with a regular wage.
I had itchy feet and felt like doing some thing else so we both went and got a job in construction, me as a backhoe operator and he as a dozer driver, I ended up on pipelines operating a 360 digger, until I got itchy feet again, another friend had just started driving for Amoco UK delivering petrol/gasoline, his basic wage was almost twice I was earning in seven days, so I packed my job in got my class 1 truck licence and went low loader driving until I secured a job with Amoco. This lasted for about 18 years until I lost my partner to the big C in Dec '88.
I went back to work for a few weeks but my heart wasn't in it so I left, one of her two sons who was living with us also gave up his job in a local garage and we started a repair business in my garage,you can just see the two of us in the ,89 photo. This lasted until I found a new partner and he didn't like the fact I had a new lady in my life so he up and left. I continued repairing cars until a friend who had a WW 2 Jeep and a GMC. I had a Jeep and a GMC too, said' I need new seats and canvas where can I get some? I said how about we make our own ok he said so in'98 Allied Forces Canvas was born, we had taught ourselves to sew and started a new career. the business grew and we moved to larger premises in 2002. I retired in June 2012 to enjoy my hobbies.
I hope I have not bored you, if not maybe I will tell you about the cars and military vehicles I have owned and the Rods and Race cars i have built, or is this the wrong forum for this, perhaps I had better just post about my garage.
As for the questions you guys have asked I'll answer them tomorrow its nearly midnight here and I'm tired.
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Oh OK here's a teaser.