Shamlessly copied and pasted from
www.furyrebuild.co.uk
Rule 0 -The Rules
If you are knowledgeable of the rules, you must not by action, or through inaction, allow another builder to remain ignorant of the rules. You must follow the rules, except where the rules cause you to come into conflict with other rules. You must protect the rules and add to them except when it causes you to violate the already pre-existing rules.
Rule 1: Your environment is sacrosanct.
Your workshop is your man-cave. It is the place in which you conjur your engineering marvels in the dark of night when no-one is watching. It is the place where you have your complex-hydrocarbon induced vision quests. It is your centre. It is not a massive junk-drawer for the rest of the family to store stuff in. They have the rest of the house.
Rule 2: Defend your sanctum
If something weirdly turns up in your workshop and isn’t car, tool or booze related then it is your responsibility to get rid of it. It is not your responsibility to report to any person with which you share a dwelling that you want the strange arrival removed. You can just dispose of it. If it turned up by magic, then surely you can report to any inquiring mind that it also vanished by magic. If you destroy it, be sure to do with in a spectacular and visible fashion. It’s not unnecessary violence, it’s just a liberal application of the correct tool, for instance a chainsaw to destroy a sofa.
Corollary. Certain non-builders in your household may mistake applying rule 2 to be a sure fire way to get rid of their junk. This is a mistake, because they will surely run out of possessions before the true builder runs out of destructive force and ingenuity.
Rule 3: Tidy your workshop
Tidiness is relative, and to an outsider, doubly so. They see hazards where you see convenience. If every tool is in its rightful place, it’s impossible to know where they all are. If they are all over the floor, car, workbench, or large pet then you will know exactly where everything is, even though to a casual observer it may seem impossible to know where they are. This is the essence of tidyiess.
Rule 4: In the workshop, wear what thou wilt, and that shall be the whole of the law
Apart from a kilt.
Rule 5: Your inner strength guides your tool choice
Tools solve problems. You will face a lot of problems. As such, you need a lot of tools. You need to be strong in the face of skepticism when challenged about just why you need another set of sockets that look similar to the other set, but mysteriously cost a lot more. Resist the urge to be influenced by the non-builder for you have right and experience on your side. Only you skinned that finger because the socket wasn’t the correct length. Only you can decide just how many 17mm spanners you need, only you.
A good test for deciding if you have enough of a tool is if you can find it in less than 60s. If you can’t find that 17mm spanner in 60s, then you blatantly don’t have enough 17mm spanners. The act of going out and buying another one will immediately flush out the one you’ve lost which will have been there all along.
Rule 6: Household utensils are just tools in waiting
If it exists in the house but wasn’t originally designated a workshop tool, it is yours to liberate or reappropriate. Sharp knives and scissors are appropriate examples of small tools that realistically belong to the builder in the workshop. Similarly a dishwasher is just a cylinder-head cleaning tank that hasn’t yet learned it’s true purpose.
Rule 7: The migration of tools is one-way
In accordance with rule 6, potential tools may migrate to the workshop and become tools. However, non builders may not in any way assume tools in the workshop may ever be used in the house. See Rule 2.
Rule 8: Measure in metric, or risk the end of the world
Use metric. There is no debate. If you have to import parts from a backwards region that doesn’t use metric, keep it quiet and don’t tell anyone. Just remember the scale of the carnage when people are foolish enough to ignore rule 8. When this happens, telescopes are blurry and probes smash into planets. There is one exception to rule 8; it is permissible to buy suspension components in 1/2″ size. Only 1/2 inch. So, realistically you can have any metric size you want, and 1/2″ rose joints and bolts. No exceptions. Well, apart from this one special case.
Followell’s corollary: speed is measured in Miles Per Hour. Suspension travel isn’t.
Rule 9: With great tools comes great storage opportunities
It isn’t enough to have the right tools, but you need the right storage. You need drawers, you need linings, you need cut-out shapes for every tool, including that odd one that you only get out to scare the neighbors. You aren’t obsessing with your storage requirements: you are just being tidy. Even your collection of hammers need a drawer of their own to be warm and cosy of a winter’s evening.
Rule 10: Be selectively noisy
The noises from a good builder’s workshop should be a cross between a piano destruction competition and the death-screams of a new life-form created by Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. If your neighbours aren’t thinking “What is he building in there?” then you’re doing it wrong. Repeated exposure to your noises will desensitise them to the times when you are setting the timing on your race engine at 9pm at 5000RPM, because anything lower down the rev-range is just wrong. Remember: if they mow the grass at 8am on a Sunday, you are allowed by The Rules to angle-grind or run your compressor at 9pm Sunday night.
Rule 11: Know how to refer to your tools
Refer to your tools wisely. Is that hammer a hammer, or a knock-o-meter, a nudger, a percussive force transduction instrument, or evidence?
Rule 12: Red is the only colour
If it’s red and spurting or dripping, pay attention to it; it may stain your upholstory. Any other damage you do to yourself should just be tolerated. Remember, being a builder already makes you a rufty-tufty engineer, so there’s no need to man-up.
Rule 13: Hand tools are only backups for power tools
Whenever you consider any job, start your tool selection with the most powerful tool and mentally work your way down to a tool you can tolerate for the job. There’s no reason why you cant attempt to put that self-tapper in with an air-wrench, or scratch your face with your jig-saw, but you may scratch the paintwork or invoke rule 12.
Rule 14: Important holes are reamed, not drilled
Drills do not cut round holes: reamers do. If you’re mounting suspension, drill to one between 1 and 0.5mm less and ream it out.
Rule 15: The normal laws of space and time do not apply to the builder
It is acceptable that “just popping into the garage” can mean losing yourself there for 6 hours, or a quoted 400 hour build time is actually 3 years, or “I’ll have that ready by Tuesday” is fine as long as you don’t specify the year. By all means install a clock because it won’t do you any good. When you cross your hallowed threshold, you will cease to care about the time so having a clock just gives you one more thing not to check.
Rule 16: Don’t de-glove yourself.
For your fingers, think carefully about wearing a ring in the workshop. If you get it caught and you de-glove your finger, there’s nothing they can do but amputate it. It’s not as if the NHS will then supply you with a perspex setting kit for putting the bones on display. If you’re up to anything more than building your masterpiece, then see Rule 4.
Rule 17: Use the right gloves
Oil is cancerous. Most of the crap that drips off your engine is bad for you. You should only protect your hands with nitrile gloves. Latex gloves are no use. So remember: latex is only for the bedroom.
Rule 18: Design for minimalism but compromise
Let’s face it, you’re building a racing car but compromising for the road. Your car needs to be the minimal expression of the racing car for the road. However, you are allowed to add dashboard bits if you have an engineering and/or scientific explanation for what you’re adding to the car. If for instance you have two fuel tanks, then yes you can have two fuel gauges. If you have a mainly production car and you add a boost gauge when there’s a perfectly good engine management system doing the work for you and it already knows the boost thankyouverymuch, that’s not in the true essence of the rules.
Whatever you do, don’t make your car look like you’ve covered it in glue and simultaneously ram-raided halfords and the ikea lighting department.
Rule 19: Dress appropriately for the road
Yes, you can wear a helmet for the road. None of this is a problem. Equally if you don’t wear a helmet for the road, it is appropriate to wear ear-defenders. After all, if you can hear all the bangs and rattles as you drive, that’s a second a lap lost. If you don’t need ear protection, you are violating rule 20.
The Rules of Kit Car Building Part 1
Linear Mode
