Woodie shop burns

[Sal]

Very sad losing your shop, templates, customer vehicles and hard to find materials. At an older age it is difficult to recover from that type of disaster.

[tubman]

And, I would expect that insurance on a shop that does this sort of work (with all of the wood and refinishing materials required) would be quite expensive, or perhaps, unobtainable.

[woodiewagon46]

We just talked about a similar situation last week on another site. Mike's shop was in a fairly rural setting. It's great to have your privacy, but the further you are out in the country the longer it will take for firefighters or EMS to get to you. As a 25 year retired firefighter I know that the longer a fire has to burn without a response is very dangerous. Also being very remote, there won't be fire hydrants and the firefighters will need to rely on water tankers. A home sprinkler system as "mhsprecher" suggests while costly is a great idea. Also having more than one fire extinguishers is a must. They should be located in several places thru out your shop. Hope Mike is OK.

[Newc]

The special parts , templates ect. Can't be replaced!! These shop fires are a real problem- Cause?? Shop looked good and proper?? I am rural and have a huge pond for fire water, even a swimming pool can help. See '' Burned '32' for an example of poor extinguisher failure. Newc

[DavidG]

Given the rural location there are no hydrants there and worse yet, no readily accessible water source. The first responders ran out of tanker water and had to call for assistance from other nearby fire departments. In the end, according to the news report, 40,000 gallons of water were used to extinguish the fire. Photos and report are at upnorthlive.com

[Randy in ca]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

LINK:

https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/f...raverse-county

[petehoovie]

[mercman from oz]

Very sad day at Mike Nickel's Automotive Woodworking Shop in Michigan.

[51504bat]

There is a post on the Early Ford V8 Club Forum about a Go Fund me page for Mike Nickels. It was the first post for the member who posted the link so another member expressed some concern. I can't verify if the link is legit or not so I won't post it but it can be found on the Early Ford V8 web site:
https://www.earlyfordv8.org/forum/ if anyone is interested. Regardless, sucks about the fire.

[deuce_roadster]

My late friend from Ohio, Russell Bechkowiak (who died in 2017) told me he somehow had acquired the original Iron Mountain blueprints for 41-48 woodie bodies. After he passed, I wonder if Mike Nichols bought those, I know before he passed away the woodie parts business Russell had was for sale. I hope if Mike did get those they didn't burn up in the catastrophe. I always stopped and talked to Russell as he had woodie parts in his stall in the upper part of the Chocolate field at Hershey. He was a very good craftsman and an even nicer guy.

[Randy in ca]

Another link with a bit more of the story:

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/e...isnt-quitting/

[rotorwrench]

A friend of mine used to have a cabinet shop. He and his father ran a business there till his father died and my friend sublet part of it to another cabinet maker. Within a space of 15 years each of the two separate buildings had caught fire and burned to the ground. Both were caused by spontaneous combustion of materials and lax clean up policy. I wonder if this was similar or possibly an electrical failure. Woodwork finishing materials can be very dangerous if not properly contained. In my friend's case, it was the waist finishing materials that combusted and he admitted that he knew better but just got lazy at the wrong time to do so.

I sure hate to hear about stuff like this. A person's life dream can literally go up in smoke in less than a few hours. One of the guys on the Model A side recently lost his shop and some vehicles.

[JSeery]

Originally Posted by Randy in ca

Another link with a bit more of the story:

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/e...isnt-quitting/

Sounds like he was insured and that he intends to stay in business.

"The 75-year-old Nickels, who is in semi-retirement, says the shop is insured. Friends have also set up a GoFundMe account on Nickels’ behalf.

Nickels hopes to build a smaller facility or buy an existing building so that he can continue to do what he loves, but it will take time to recover from the emotional trauma, especially because he lost several one-of-a-kind family items, including his father’s WWII uniform and his mother’s 1928 nursing uniform."

[DavidG]

Mike Nickels has confirmed that the GoFundMe listing is legitimate. Yes, he was insured, but like for most of us, it never covers everything.

[Newc]

Eli Whitney [inventor] had his Cotton Gin factory burn to the ground; These darn fires have been with us forever and still the only defence seems to be a suppression system. Out of reach of most of us. I used to help inspect the commercial systems.