SCOOPERMAN!

The sunny side of the classic world, with the VJMC’S

There comes a time in every shed dweller’s life when compromise is simply not good enough.

When I got into classics long, long ago I was an impoverished dad with three small kids and minimal disposable income. Any bike spares I hoovered up were stored in a series of industrial picking boxes my then employer decided to bin. They were then pressed into service in my tiny workshop which was, indeed, far too diminutive to rotate a feline within. Regularly overburdened, the boxes often collapsed, but did the job. Come house moving they temporarily resided in a relative’s garage until my workshop was constructed, whereupon they were thrust into a corner and studiously ignored... until I needed something.

And finding that something has proved monotonously frustrating, simply because I cannot remember what’s in which box. Even when I think I know I have the right container something else catches my eye and I seem to fly off at a tangent. A proper sort out is required and urgently. Ok I have my Yamaha 200 pistons and rings safely stowed away, but why I have YL1 pistons in the same box as YB100 rings is anyone’s guess. Of course, this might argue that, logically therefore, I’d find the YL1 rings in a box with the YB100 pistons but, obviously, that’s not going to be happening. And why, please, have I even got such a stock of YB100 parts anyway, given that I sold the bike a decade ago at least? An ebay day will hopefully dispose of that little lot and free up some much-needed funds. Alternatively if you need YB100 giblets please let me know.

If I’ve learnt anything about shed life (and the jury is still out on that one by the way) it’s that plastic bags with lots of similar small, pointy/lumpy things are a poor storage medium. Having found a deal on Amazon for some robust, multicompartment, lidded storage trays a small, but significant corner has now been turned. All my points and condensers are now safely homed, the NOS engine bolts no longer dig their way out of clip-top bags, and I can now readily put my hand on all the carburettor parts I’d previously scattered to the four winds.

I’m surmising everyone has their own storage systems and that no two people store parts the same way? One of my mates stores his stock by type so all the cables go in one long box, his con-rods in another, rings again in a separate container. Me? I have a top shelf for all the Suzuki Stinger ephemera I’ve collected and each plastic box carries a list of contents so hopefully nothing will go walkabout. As my workshop isn’t huge I have to store stuff where it best fits so perhaps I really ought to make some kind of map. I now own one of those electronic label printing machines and, honestly, I would use it... if only I knew where the bloody thing was… shed life, eh?