Well.... I gave him $1K to build a kevlar/carbon hood for my Optima/Lemans on Feb 21,2007...... he claimed to have purchased a hood from a local autowrecker and was going to have it done some time around the time he ducked out the first time.
He seemed to know his materials and suppliers and he showed me a few pictures of some work done by a family friend. (so he claimed the family friend would help if he needed it )
I know quite a bit about fibreglass so we had a couple good chats about the various resins and he seemed fairly knowlegable in both the materials as well as the methodology required to produce the hood.
I personally have enough knowledge to produce a hood, but I just don't have the time to do it.
I felt $1K was not enough to do the job due to mold costs but he insisted that this would be a "showcase" product for him and he wasn't concerned if he never made a cent off the labor.
I was willing to loose the $1K so it wasn't a huge surprize to me when he didn't produce the hood.... more of a disappointment than anything.
When he did come back this last time he sent me $200 ( August 16,2007 ) and claimed he was hard up for cash ( despite big talk about buying all these cars for racing )
Needless to say.... I'm more annoyed that he failed to produce the hood than I am about loosing the money.
He did a number of engineered drawings for my company (which I didn't pay him for ) so in the end I'm not out that much
Originally I was going to call in a favor with a certain group of bikers to have him found and beat up ( they can collect the money + interest + what ever else and keep every cent for all I care )
The guy I'd be calling is someone I'd rather not... unless it was an absolute emergency... it would be unwise for me to call him for something petty like this.
So in short... he still owes me $800 or a carbon/kevlar hood..... will I ever collect..... well perhaps I might drop by one day ..... since I know where his parents live.... where his cousins live..... where he goes to school... his current address (or at least his last know address )
I was sort of thinking about driving down there and cutting his Lanos in half for the fun of it..... it would be priceless to take a video of him coming out of his house to find the car in two pieces..... it would be really quite easy and quick with a plasma torch.
But I suppose by saying that I might consider doing that out here on this public forum I have just implicated myself...... so I won't cut it in half despite my interest in doing so.
I do have a talent for thinking up really mean things to do... and I have the mechanical smarts to back it up.... so who knows.... an anonymous video might make it's way onto here one day.