Rik325i

Yoga in ivory towers, class, you just couldnt make this sh...t up lol

While I love it very much out there and the girlfriend and I get along really well, the family is really good to me etc, im still keeping my home in scotland for now im just about to embark on my own furniture building enterprise here and while I dont earn a fortune fitting kitchens at the moment, I enjoy my job and I have steady work which allows me to save for the future.

I did my tally ho, all guns blazing entry into relationships, marraige etc many many years ago, divorce..... been there, read the book and got the t shirt, messy breakup with kids, property, and the family dog, done that too, not in a hurry to repeat it lol

with my girlfriend and thailand im taking my time, im not in a hormone fuelled rush at my age and she understands what ive been through in the past and how I feel and doesnt pressure me in the slightest to get married or anything like that although she did ask me if this is part of my plan for the future

So for now im still looking at the possibility of moving there and settling down from all angles and ill need an up and running business there before I will even consider moving there full time, I just couldnt sit and do nothing all day, it would drive me insane

thanks for all the tips and advice guys and gals, and all the banter too lol

Rik

It was the girlfriends car and it was only class 3 insured but there was no other vehicle involved, yeh it finally stopped rolling on its roof !

krisb, that was me asking about tools on another thread over a year ago to build the girlfriends cafe bar, glad to say shes making a nice little profit with it as well as her small restaurant now

Thanks for the advice somtamnication, Ive been warned before that that could happen, the things I build for the family are done in the familys garage, well away from prying eyes and the sisters husband is a fairly high ranking policeman while the sister is assistant manageress of a government bank, theyre helping to keep me right in these matters as well as helping me lay the groundwork towards starting my own business there

Heres a couple of pics of the car after th accident

The prayer room is in my girlfriends sisters house, she lives with, her husband, daughter and husbands mother and father, the husbands father has collected many buddha statues over the years and has some really old ones, the small shrine they had was just too small to accommodate all of them so we designed one using various ideas from google images which I then built for them, dont have any pics of the prayer room yet though as my camera was destroyed in the crash

Maybe we could all agree to use the 'Like This' button as a 'Don't Like' button.

We also need an 'Irony' button. It might save us from all these content-free emoticon replies.

Sorry, this is my first content free emoticon reply, just found the comment slightly amusing but had nothing of consequence to add

Maybe we could all agree to use the 'Like This' button as a 'Don't Like' button.

A quick easy way to check if honey is pure is to dip a small piece of cloth in it and light it on fire. Genuine honey will burn while that which is mixed with cane syrup will sputter and pop.

That would be an interesting trick to try in tescos !

When i visit thailand, i consider myself to be a guest of the family i stay with and as such respect their culture.

But i dont consider myself to be a guest of thailand in general

Started watching this but unfortunately i dont yet speak thai, id love to hear the story from both sides

Ive read quite a few old posts on tv about opening a business and the pitfalls associated with such an enterprise in thailand, one piece of advice that stuck in my mind was, make one of your business partners a lawyer, paid by you, that way you control 2/3 of the business and not just 1/3

I remember some 20 odd years ago in Germany, driving back to the firm after delivering furniture all day, drove through massive congestion and past an accident, someone had come off their motorbike on the autobahn slid right under the crash barrier and was laid in the middle of the fast lane on the opposite side, his helmet however didnt fit under the barrier and was still stuck there, with his head in it, still makes me shudder when i remember that !!

Personally i always wear a seatbelt when i drive, its the law here in scotland and nowadays its second nature

Just be careful Rik325i. The Thais, from what I've read, are like the Balinese, more twists than a snake with a broken back. I have some experience with the Balinese in business, and was more than lucky to escape with my shirt, no financial loss, but didn't get the huge profits that were mine.

I hear you sir, one of the reasons ive decided to give it a shot, producing one off pieces of furniture in scotland and in thailand is so i can keep seperate accounts, i may do limited runs of a number of pieces if the interest is high enough but the ultimate goal is not to open a factory but keep the business with just me and my own ideas, i have no intention of trying to become a millionair, just earn a comfortable living

As above, is there money to be made in Thailand in the design and manufacture of fibreglass bodykits for cars/pickups etc ?

Come to think of it, is there even a " car scene " such as we know it in the western world ?

The car modifying scene here is huge and big money to be made!!

Interesting, are any members on tv heavily involved in this in any way ? id be interested in talking to them

Im pretty sure i saw a black and decker version of this in thai wassado while i was looking at routers

As above, is there money to be made in Thailand in the design and manufacture of fibreglass bodykits for cars/pickups etc ?

Come to think of it, is there even a " car scene " such as we know it in the western world ?

fibreglass or Siam rosewood?

Something tells me I shouldn't be asking this question.

I will be using solid woods and fibreglass(part upholstered,part spraypainted) together in many of my designs, im not going to go into great detail because i often find it hard to explain the ideas i have in my head in an understandable fashion, also, i tend to have a vague concept in my mind of how i want the finished article to look then sort of modify the design to my liking as im constructing it, similar fashion as i built the bodykit of my car which you can see here if you are interested http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3002876/1990-bmw-3-series/

Well, I'll tell you something Rik325i. You've got people talking.

BTW. Richard Branson is quoted as saying he worked on gut feel. If the idea felt good he could turn it into a success.

His business plan was execution. Not the idea.

And without wishing to sound bossy, use some teak and rosewood for the top end stuff.

tgf's papa will thank you for it I think.

good luck.

I am going to be using Teak and Rosewood for high end stuff, also fibreglass and upholstery techniques normally reserved for custom cars

more coming soon............

Maybe your target market could be outside of Thailand?

Fibreglass and upholstery techniques normally reserved for custom cars are right up the Chinese street.

hmm, another idea, thanks, how to access that market poses even more questions

Im going to build my first piece here in scotland anyway and see how that goes, start with babysteps so to speak

I envy you. I wish I was that good with my hands, but I am all fingers and thumbs.

Dont envy me mate, i may be good with my hands but im useless at many other things !!

Well, I'll tell you something Rik325i. You've got people talking.

BTW. Richard Branson is quoted as saying he worked on gut feel. If the idea felt good he could turn it into a success.

His business plan was execution. Not the idea.

And without wishing to sound bossy, use some teak and rosewood for the top end stuff.

tgf's papa will thank you for it I think.

good luck.

I am going to be using Teak and Rosewood for high end stuff, also fibreglass and upholstery techniques normally reserved for custom cars

more coming soon............

But i think for now im going to keep the majority of my plans under my hood until ive gathered the relevant information from many other sources rather than blurt out everything on tv and be ripped to pieces by the in crowd for being so naive

Excellent job!! Are you planning a permanent move to the LOS to be with your thai girlfriend???

planning on starting a business there building western style furniture with the help of my gf and her family, also starting the same thing here in scotland, the plan so far is to split my year between the 2 countries,hopefully spending most of the year in thailand depending on how the business and relationship progress, see how it goes from there

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I'm sure you won't have to worry in the early stages flying under the radar, but as soon as you've proved the concept will work, make sure to have the capital handy to pay a trusted lawyer to set up a proper company, get you a proper work permit all that.

It's quite possible foreigners aren't even allowed to work in cabinet-making/woodworking/carpentry, in which case you'll need to be "management only" supervising the staff doing all the work wink wink nudge nudge, I've heard bar owners talk about being forbidden from serving, wiping down tables etc.

And of course if you are actually visibly successful, the farther you get from the letter of the law the more likely you are to have problems down the road where you'll need to give a percentage of profits over to the government/police mafia, or on lawyers if you want to try to keep everything on the up and up.

If you threaten a competitor that actually has real clout, then even doing everything right isn't any guarantee of freedom from interference, hiring off-duty cops to commit arson is well within the scope of Thailand's business realities.

So don't invest TOO much of your retirement nest egg into such a scheme, at least then you only have your time and energy to lose if you get wiped out.

And best if your legal/financial structures are set up to protect you from local family and partners, try to find advice and advisors completely independently from the others involved in the operation.

Sorry to be so cynical and pessimistic, perhaps the odds are long that any of these problems could actually arise, but forewarned is forearmed, never imagine things work here the way they're supposed to according to our back-home standards.

Some very good Advice,

Thank you very much for imparting this in such a civilized manner