Heading down the road behind North Nakusp Automotive, just at the curve there’s a big sign that reads Nakusp Mobile Mechanics, with a wrench design welded below it. Below that, is an Autobot sign. And like the Transformers, the shop is more than meets the eye. You’ve probably seen work from Nakusp Mobile Mechanics around town even if you didn’t know it. The railing at Halcyon House, metal work in Madden Timber Frames constructions, the benches up at the Nakusp Hot Springs footbridge.
Dave Mackintosh started the business back in 1981. His son Coleman, a Nakuspian through and through, works there too and gave me a tour of the shop. Coleman began learning his trade at age seven working alongside his dad long before he went to school in Kamloops and Kelowna. Having bought the property where the business stands in 2005, the large bays were built during the recession, a testament to their success.
Nakusp Mobile Mechanics now has four full-time mechanics, hiring the fourth in the last couple of years. Unlike other businesses, the crash of 2008 that hit many so hard didn’t affect the shop.
“The recession didn’t hit,” said Coleman. “It wasn’t killer busy, but we worked every day.” Although logging dried up in the area, many loggers continued to come home to get work done.
For instance, brand new hauling truck come bare, all the work that is needed to make them ready for the line of work they’re used in happens in a shop like Nakusp Mobile Mechanics. Chains, water and electrical connections and more are added to a truck to specialize it. It can take a week, about 100 hours, to transform a truck. In 2013 the shop did five trucks, and the year before that two trucks were done. The pictures Mackintosh shows me are of shiny brand new rigs freshly outfitted and ready to drive off to their hardworking futures.
Nakusp Mobile Mechanics offers more than just truck building. All kinds of metal fabricating, maintenance and repairs as well as welding and inspecting. Computers, ABS: you name it. Rebuilding large truck engines is possible, too, Coleman told me, although doing it is more complicated with all the new emission technologies in place.
The mobile part of the shop is in the form of two trucks complete with cranes that can be driven out to fix heavy equipment on site. One crane is able to lift 3,500 pounds, a necessity when dealing with big machines.
NMM has been able to build up its inventory of vehicles and tools by buying equipment that has needed work, or auctioned off by businesses that have gone under. Because they can fix virtually anything themselves, they can cut a lot in costs. Coleman’s most prized tool at the moment is a CNC (computer numerical control) machine, which can cut sheet steel up to six inches thick into patterns taken from AutoCAD files. Thinner metal can be cut into intricate designs at 100 inches per minute. The machine need a tray built, but now it runs like a dream.
“It’s like comparing walking to driving,” Coleman said, likening manual welding to the CNC.
Many of the pieces that bring and hold the ferry together were made at the shop on the machine, hundreds of dogs and over a thousand gussets. The repetition of form cut from sheets of steel leave interesting remnants behind. Theses scrap metal pieces known as ‘skeletons’ can be used on their own design merit (some would make beautiful pieces for gates, for example) or can be recycled.
Interesting skeletons aren’t the only creative project on the go at the shop. In his off time, Mackintosh plays with cutting steel into interesting patterns. Too interesting to resist for some: two pieces put on a bench put up at the Nakusp Hot Springs footbridge temporarily were stolen by filching fans. The pieces were a native design and a Transformers Decepticon insignia.
Mackintosh works ten hours each of the six days he’s at the shop, and just as hard outside of work. With three kids, he’s busy at home (which he built himself) but finds the time to coach student skiers up at Summit Lake. But it’s not about the money for Coleman.
“If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. ‘Bad’ is kidney failure, everything else is fine.”
Still, everyone in the shop is flat-out working: pieces come in for maintenance and inspection from the area (20 from Kaslo where there is no inspector, for instance), and driving out to repair jobs.
“That’s what dad’s out doing,” Mackintosh told me. His dad Dave was out at Shelter Bay this Saturday, fixing a loader for Crescent Bay Construction.
Some trips are longer than others: Coleman is willing to travel further than the usual three-hour limit for a bit of adventure or people he likes. And although he likes the occasional trip out of town, it’s clear he cares about Nakusp and has his own opinions about the direction he thinks Nakusp should take into the future.
“We need industry in this town, not tourism,” he told the Arrow Lakes News. “We don’t need slow studies, we need quick results.” Coleman brings up Christina Lake as an example. Although the town has a booming tourist season, it’s a ghost town except for two moths a year. Small industry and businesses that are quick to adapt are what Nakusp needs, according to him, companies that have more than meets the eye.
