Small carb repair a big business in Spencer
By Russ Oechslin, Journal Correspondent
SPENCER, Iowa -- The scariest thing Robert Beaver ever did was leave his job to go into his own business full time. "There was no planning. It just happened," Beaver admits 11 years later. His job at Spencer Avionics was "the best job I ever had," he adds. "But quitting was just the right thing do."
Robert Beaver, right, oversees George Mundus making final adjustments on a carburetor for a classic John Deere two-cylinder tractor at Robert's Carburetor Repair in Spencer, Iowa. (Photo by Russ Oechslin)
Even so, the $50,000 he took out of his retirement fund was all he had to live on for the first five years of his full-time efforts to build Robert's Carburetor Repair. "I took not one penny out of the business. Everything went back in," for those first years.
"My dad was a machinist," Beaver explains. "He worked all the time, and taught me that if I made 50 cents, I should save 25. Looking back, it's a good thing." Robert's Carburetor Repair isn't a familiar name to many. Even those who live nearby may not know the business because most people don't have a need for it. Beaver's business specializes in repairing only carbs and magnetos for antique John Deere tractors -- more than 1,200 of them every year.
Business was a hobby
Beaver's business grew out of a hobby when he bought a John Deere Model B to restore 20 years ago. What he learned in the process he decided to share. So with $1,000 in borrowed money ($500 for production and $500 for advertising) he produced a video on rebuilding DLTX carbs, promising his wife that once the $1,000 was exhausted he'd quit his hobby-business.
His first ad in Green Magazine sold 125 VHS tapes. And with the survey form sent with each one, he learned what buyers wanted in future productions.
Though he quit counting the number of tapes sold about two years ago, when he had 50,000 videos of seven titles sold, Beaver continues to sell more tapes and DVDs.
But Robert's real business, the one that keeps two or three people busy full time, is carb repair. And there's a well-known "secret" to what has made the business a success.
"We test every carb we service," Beaver says proudly. "If the customer still has a problem when he installs the repaired carb, the problem most likely is not with the carb, but something else in his engine."
That test is accomplished on an engine Beaver has set up in the back of his shop. He has adapters for both single and double barrel units. Sometimes it takes three or four adapters to fit a particular carb on the test engine.
Robert's reputation has work backed up about 15 weeks. "We try to let people know that when they're rebuilding they want to send us their carbs when the start the work, not as they're about to start the tractor," Beaver explains.
Before the carbs go out the door, they are either painted John Deere green or polished like a brass unit. In either case it looks like it did when it was new, more than 50 years ago.
Background in airplanes
Along with his training in aircraft repair, work that demands paper trail and follow-through, and much that he learned from his old boss, Bill Hemme at Spencer Avionics, Beaver credits two staffers for making his business what it is today.
Shop foreman George Mudus started part time at Robert's while he was repairing office machines full time. Now Beaver says he depends on Mudus and office manager Lori Zebedee to keep the business humming, especially when he's on the road doing seminars and shows.
Hiring Mudus was the second scariest thing Beaver says he's done. It meant really expanding the business. What started in his garage and grew to an 800-square-foot metal building is now about four times that size.
Now Beaver is about to embark on a seven-week road trip of shows and seminars that will take him through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and the state of Washington before ending up in Anchorage, Alaska, where he will enjoy some time off.
The shows give Beaver opportunity to meet with many of his customers and potential customers, in addition to selling parts and videos. "With our videos and our parts our customers can really accomplish what we do in our shop. We show them exactly what we're doing," Beaver says. "We're giving away our secrets, our techniques. We actually compete with ourselves with our videos."
Grew up in Ohio
Beaver was born in Sebring, Ohio, and moved to California in 1963 when he was drafted. His time repairing electronics in Army helicopters led him into the field of aviation, primarily working on radios when he was discharged.
His first job got him advanced schooling as an automatic pilot technician. While most pilots rely on instruments to test equipment, Beaver prefers to use his senses. "Putting on headphones in the cockpit was something I really had to get used to," he says. With phones covering the noise of the engine, Beaver notes it was harder to judge what was happening as the autopilot functioned.
Even today Beaver says he still likes to "listen to what a plane or machine is saying and doing. I feel it. I hear it."
Beaver's career in aeronautics was also his hobby at the time. He earned his pilot's license after leaving the service. That allowed him to do his own test flying and trouble-shooting. In addition to flying more than 50 different models and types of planes, Beaver built one of his own from scratch.
But it was only after selling his plane, one made in his hometown, that he bought his first John Deere tractor, a 1941 John Deere Model B -- much like the one he used baling hay as a hired hand in high school.
Friend got him started
It was at the suggestion of friend Dick Schallau that Beaver learned about carb repair. And it took him a year of studying service manuals before he felt he could do his own work.
The video production was born when Beaver realized others were in his situation. And the idea for a video and shop grew like wildfire. At first he spent many of his lunch hours at Spencer Avionics ordering parts and dealing with customers with the cell phone in his truck. In 1995 he realized the situation had outgrown hobby status.
Beaver worked out of his garage, at home, until moving to an 800-square-foot metal building that had been an oil storage depot next to the railroad tracks on the east side of Spencer. That building has now more than quadrupled in size.
Video features equipment, too
One of Robert's most recent video titles, "From Seed to the Elevator," shows two-row, two-cylinder Deere equipment being used on the farm. And an early release included background music along with the narration -- until an 80-year-old farmer in upstate New York tells Beaver, "I want to listen to the motor, not the music. I want to hear the tractor run."
Nearly 200 farm stores throughout the United States and Canada are selling the videos, which are also available on Robert's Internet site.
Beaver says his average customer is hard to describe. They could be doctors or lawyers or farmers. And they could be young or old. And older collectors may have more than 100 tractors in a collection that someday will be broken up to sell to younger two-cylinder enthusiasts.
While some of the equipment in any collection is already restored, much of it may still be in need of work after sitting outside for decades.
Some enthusiasts will use their restored JDs on the farm or in parades just for fun. Others, according to Beaver "will have $15,000 or more invested to win a baseball cap in a tractor pull."
Is Beaver an "average" collector? He says he's owned as many as 15 old JDs at one time. But now, as he looks toward retirement, he has just five remaining in his collection.
The Robert's Carburetor Repair Internet site features parts ordering capability from online diagrams at: http://robertscarbrepair.com
The Robert's Carburetor Story
Robert Beaver working at his desk.
Robert Beaver - He Started with Just One Video
From the July 2000 edition of Green Magazine
It all began in December 1991 with the production of a single video, "How to rebuild DLTX carburetors."
Now, six additional titles and about 14,000 videos later, Robert Beaver still has ideas for more film projects. It's spare time that he lacks. He estimates his business- Robert's Carburetor Repair, which he started as a result of response to that first video-has an eight week backlog of repair work.
Beaver is not sure how many carburetors he has worked on since setting up shop. But he estimates that he and his employees-including George Mundus, shop foreman, and Mark Hodgin, a high school student who works part-time when school is in session and fulltime in summer-worked on about 500 carburetors in 1999. If business continues as it has been, Beaver figures that they will probably repair about 1,000 carbs in 2000.
"We've had a good 30 percent increase every year," said Beaver. And perhaps no one is more surprised at this series of events than Beaver, who was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. In 1963, he moved to California and soon after was drafted into the service. His time in the military led him into the field of aviation, primarily working on radios.
After the service, he returned to California and applied for a job at an airport. He not only got the job, but was also sent back to school for further education as an automatic pilot technician which enabled him to work on auto pilot systems in airplanes. "My only education was barely through high school," he said with a laugh.
Another job lured him from California to Grand Junction, Colorado where he worked at a Cessna dealership for nine years and also ran the auto pilot department at Monarch Aviation. He then moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where he was in charge of the installation department for navigation and communication equipment for light private and corporate aircraft. Yet another move led him to Spencer, Iowa (where he currently lives) to run the installation department at Spencer Avionics.
Beaver was interested in aeronautics not only as a career, but also as a hobby. He earned his pilot's license about 28 years ago, after leaving the service. That license came in handy in later jobs, where he did his own test flying, as well as troubleshooting, picking up and delivering airplanes. He has flown 50 different models and types of planes, from those that travel 35 miles per hour to those that can fly 350 miles per hour.
Although he was in a business closely associated with planes, Beaver was not forced into earning a pilot's license. "Most of the flying was done because I love flying." he said adding he maintains a current pilot's license although he has not flown in a while.
At one point, Beaver also built a plane from scratch (from a wooden type of material) and owned one to two antique airplanes with the newest a 1956 model. "But it got so expensive to own airplanes," he said. That's when he bought a 1941 John Deere "B."
The carburetor on his "B" needed repairs. Beaver sent the carb to a business which said it could do such repairs--in fact, he sent them the same carb three times and it still wasn't working right. It was then that his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Dick Schallau, told him, "Bob, it is about time you learned how to work on carburetors."
It took a year of studying service manuals and any other information on early Deere carbs before Beaver eventually trained himself to properly restore his carburetor. But once that mission was accomplished, Beaver's experience with DLTX carbs was not done.
Because he had found it difficult to locate a qualified person to work on his carb, Beaver suspected others might have the same problem. So he talked to an aviation co-worker and freelance videographer, Mike Tuinstra, about making a 30 minute video on John Deere DLTX series carburetor repair. Tuinstra said it would probably take about $500 to complete that project.
Beaver thought about his idea, the $500 which would be needed to make his idea reality-and the fact that he had not rebuilt many carburetors, except for the one on his own tractor. He decided to borrow $1,000 - $500 to produce the video and the rest to pay for advertisements in Green Magazine.
Beaver told his wife, Joy, "We are going to form a company. When the $1,000 is gone, the company is gone. It was as simple as that. We are going to make a video library - Robert's Video Library - and if we only have one video, there would only be one video in the library. Either way, we had a back door in case we wanted to do more." His wife agreed to the plan. The rest is history.
Beaver decided to send out each video with a questionnaire, which outlined future plans for additional videos on magnetos, governors and sheet metal. Viewers were also asked to respond to the video itself and what they liked or disliked about it.
"I was surprised almost to the point of shock" at the number of questionnaires returned, said Beaver, who knew that typically there is a very low response rate to such a survey. "I got tons back-plus even when people were watching the video, they would call me and tell me how great it was. I knew I had something going on here.
"The thing just took off-and we never looked back," he said. "It just grew like wildfire."
The first video began with a theory of operations section, similar to one in training videos for industrial work. Curtis Dean, a local radio personality, was narrator and Tuinstra added computerized animation and graphics.
As soon as the GM ad was published, about 18 orders per day were being received and Tuinstra was busy operating five VCRs to keep up with demand for the tapes. Based on the initial response, Beaver proceeded with the next video on John Deere magneto repair, then came one on governor repair and another on sheet metal work. "When we knew we were within about 30 days of being done with the next video, we would send out pre-order forms," said Beaver. "That way when we got the video done, we had all the pre-orders there with invoices already done."
Beaver has also completed three other videos-a second volume on rebuilding DLTX carbs, one on rebuilding Duplex series carbs and "From Seed to the Elevator," which might be considered Beaver's most ambitious project to date.
The idea for that video began in response to a single viewer, who called and wanted to order the carburetor video which he had seen at his neighbor's. But he did not want to rebuild a carburetor-he didn't even own an antique John Deere tractor. He wanted the video so that he could watch its initial scene-Beaver's videos begin by showing a 1936 John Deere 'A" plowing a furrow, with the view as seen down the tractor's hood, looking between the smoke stack and air breather.
"He wanted that video so he could see that tractor running," said Beaver. "That lit another lightbulb. Now it's time to put together a farming video."
So Beaver did just that, with help from Tuinstra, who filmed Beaver as he farmed a 15 acre plot at the Clay County Fairgrounds during the 1996 crop season; and Schallau, who managed the farm operation and gave technical assistance. Two 1936 John Deere "A" tractors and a variety of classic machinery were used for the video, which featured the start to finish of five acres each of oats, soybeans and check planted corn. The oats were bound and threshed, the corn was picked with a JD 101 picker and the soybeans were harvested with a 12A JD combine from the 1950s.
The video was completed in a two hour and a four hour format with more than 3,000 copies sold thus far. More than 150 farm stores throughout the United States and 25 in Canada sell the video, as do individual vendors and Beaver from his shop in Spencer.
Beaver has plans for at least one more video, this one on clutch overhaul. "Finding time to do it is the hard thing," he said, adding there is one other snag. The person who handles much of the studio work is moving to Wyoming, which will make production more difficult. But because all the video is typically shot in one day (with narration and editing completed later), it may be possible to get the work done if this person can come back for the day of shooting.
The response to Beaver's first video has meant more than production of additional videos. It has turned into a new career for Beaver.
After watching the first video on rebuilding a carburetor, people started calling Beaver and asking if he would be willing to work on their carb. He said yes-and became so busy that in August 1995, he quit his job as aviation technician to devote himself fulltime to his new business.
The business, which began with the videos, initially started in the family's upstairs sun room, which measured about 10 by 10 feet. "We had an Apple II computer and then upgraded to a IIC," he said with a laugh, remembering the early days. From there, the business was moved to the basement, where the office was located, and a shop behind the garage, where overhauls were done. Later, a move was made about three blocks away to an industrial building in Spencer, which was renovated. Then about 2-1/2 years ago, a new building was constructed (that building is shown in the current Green Magazine ad).
About five or six years ago, George Mundus began coming in a couple hours each afternoon (after he finished his fulltime job at an office supply company) to tear down and clean carbs for Beaver. He has worked fulltime for Robert's Carburetor Repair about the past six months. A part-time employee is Mark Hodgin, the high school student who has been learning to work on carbs after school. In the summer, he works fulltime. Beaver said he and his employees are working hard this summer to reduce the amount of backlog time for carburetor repairs.
But if Beaver could give one piece of advice to enthusiasts who are working on a tractor restoration, it would be this-remove the carburetor and mag immediately from the tractor and send them in to be repaired. By doing so, the carb and mag will be completed when the remainder of the restoration is done. Many people, he said, complete the restoration and then realize the carb and mag need work-and then want that work done immediately, which is not possible with the backlog of work facing Robert's Carburetor Repair employees.
Robert's Carburetor Repair has two other employees - Janelle Patton has worked as office manager for about the past three years and now is employed fulltime in the summer and on a near-fulltime basis the rest of the year. "She has been a huge asset to the business," said Beaver. "She takes care of all the office stuff and mail in orders. She didn't know a lug wrench from a spark plug when she first started-now she can almost fix your carburetor by phone."
The mail order business has grown through the years with a web page now connecting Robert's Carburetor Repair to a sizable overseas market. Customers are located in South Africa, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England and Canada, as well as the United States. (The webpage is located at www.robertscarbrepair.com.)
Also helping out is Molly Beaver, who works after school to relieve Patton. Molly, the 15-1/2 year old daughter of the Beavers, usually attends a couple shows each year to help her father. She has also gained knowledge about the business as the years have gone by and knows all the parts which the business has available, said Beaver.
In addition to working on carburetors, Beaver keeps busy selling parts. When people began to call him and ask for parts to complete their own rebuilds, he put together a catalog which lists those items he has available. To complete his inventory, Beaver began to research and produce parts which could not be obtained elsewhere and so now has nearly every part needed for a DLTX carburetor.
For the past three to four years, he has also been doing research on building new carburetors although that project is now on hold. His current research focuses on pulling carbs, which Beaver is looking at to enlarge and improve.
He also does a test run on every carb which is overhauled. "I put it on a test motor and test run every carb," he said. "Our returns are down to zero." Those returns which are very occasionally made can usually be attributed to shipping problems, he said, adding that the test run has been a "real asset" to the business.
All these different interests have helped make Beaver a busy person, but one who is willing to accommodate his customers' needs. "Right now, our backlog is about eight weeks," he said, "although we try to work with people. We try to work in rush jobs-and this time of year, everything is a rush job. But especially for tractors which are being used, our policy is to get it out right away."
Working with, talking to and helping people are the facets of his business that Beaver most enjoys, he said. "That's the most rewarding thing-that we take the time to help people," he said. "That's what the hobby is all about."
Some people are surprised to find that Beaver is willing to answer any question about the work he does. "We've never hesitated to do that," he said. "We don't have any secrets."
The carburetor test engine which is connected by the pto to a dyno.
No carb leaves the shop without a test run.
Small carb repair a big business in Spencer
By Russ Oechslin, Journal Correspondent
SPENCER, Iowa -- The scariest thing Robert Beaver ever did was leave his job to go into his own business full time. "There was no planning. It just happened," Beaver admits 11 years later. His job at Spencer Avionics was "the best job I ever had," he adds. "But quitting was just the right thing do."
Robert Beaver, right, oversees George Mundus making final adjustments on a carburetor for a classic John Deere two-cylinder tractor at Robert's Carburetor Repair in Spencer, Iowa. (Photo by Russ Oechslin)
Even so, the $50,000 he took out of his retirement fund was all he had to live on for the first five years of his full-time efforts to build Robert's Carburetor Repair. "I took not one penny out of the business. Everything went back in," for those first years.
"My dad was a machinist," Beaver explains. "He worked all the time, and taught me that if I made 50 cents, I should save 25. Looking back, it's a good thing." Robert's Carburetor Repair isn't a familiar name to many. Even those who live nearby may not know the business because most people don't have a need for it. Beaver's business specializes in repairing only carbs and magnetos for antique John Deere tractors -- more than 1,200 of them every year.
Business was a hobby
Beaver's business grew out of a hobby when he bought a John Deere Model B to restore 20 years ago. What he learned in the process he decided to share. So with $1,000 in borrowed money ($500 for production and $500 for advertising) he produced a video on rebuilding DLTX carbs, promising his wife that once the $1,000 was exhausted he'd quit his hobby-business.
His first ad in Green Magazine sold 125 VHS tapes. And with the survey form sent with each one, he learned what buyers wanted in future productions.
Though he quit counting the number of tapes sold about two years ago, when he had 50,000 videos of seven titles sold, Beaver continues to sell more tapes and DVDs.
But Robert's real business, the one that keeps two or three people busy full time, is carb repair. And there's a well-known "secret" to what has made the business a success.
"We test every carb we service," Beaver says proudly. "If the customer still has a problem when he installs the repaired carb, the problem most likely is not with the carb, but something else in his engine."
That test is accomplished on an engine Beaver has set up in the back of his shop. He has adapters for both single and double barrel units. Sometimes it takes three or four adapters to fit a particular carb on the test engine.
Robert's reputation has work backed up about 15 weeks. "We try to let people know that when they're rebuilding they want to send us their carbs when the start the work, not as they're about to start the tractor," Beaver explains.
Before the carbs go out the door, they are either painted John Deere green or polished like a brass unit. In either case it looks like it did when it was new, more than 50 years ago.
Background in airplanes
Along with his training in aircraft repair, work that demands paper trail and follow-through, and much that he learned from his old boss, Bill Hemme at Spencer Avionics, Beaver credits two staffers for making his business what it is today.
Shop foreman George Mudus started part time at Robert's while he was repairing office machines full time. Now Beaver says he depends on Mudus and office manager Lori Zebedee to keep the business humming, especially when he's on the road doing seminars and shows.
Hiring Mudus was the second scariest thing Beaver says he's done. It meant really expanding the business. What started in his garage and grew to an 800-square-foot metal building is now about four times that size.
Now Beaver is about to embark on a seven-week road trip of shows and seminars that will take him through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and the state of Washington before ending up in Anchorage, Alaska, where he will enjoy some time off.
The shows give Beaver opportunity to meet with many of his customers and potential customers, in addition to selling parts and videos. "With our videos and our parts our customers can really accomplish what we do in our shop. We show them exactly what we're doing," Beaver says. "We're giving away our secrets, our techniques. We actually compete with ourselves with our videos."
Grew up in Ohio
Beaver was born in Sebring, Ohio, and moved to California in 1963 when he was drafted. His time repairing electronics in Army helicopters led him into the field of aviation, primarily working on radios when he was discharged.
His first job got him advanced schooling as an automatic pilot technician. While most pilots rely on instruments to test equipment, Beaver prefers to use his senses. "Putting on headphones in the cockpit was something I really had to get used to," he says. With phones covering the noise of the engine, Beaver notes it was harder to judge what was happening as the autopilot functioned.
Even today Beaver says he still likes to "listen to what a plane or machine is saying and doing. I feel it. I hear it."
Beaver's career in aeronautics was also his hobby at the time. He earned his pilot's license after leaving the service. That allowed him to do his own test flying and trouble-shooting. In addition to flying more than 50 different models and types of planes, Beaver built one of his own from scratch.
But it was only after selling his plane, one made in his hometown, that he bought his first John Deere tractor, a 1941 John Deere Model B -- much like the one he used baling hay as a hired hand in high school.
Friend got him started
It was at the suggestion of friend Dick Schallau that Beaver learned about carb repair. And it took him a year of studying service manuals before he felt he could do his own work.
The video production was born when Beaver realized others were in his situation. And the idea for a video and shop grew like wildfire. At first he spent many of his lunch hours at Spencer Avionics ordering parts and dealing with customers with the cell phone in his truck. In 1995 he realized the situation had outgrown hobby status.
Beaver worked out of his garage, at home, until moving to an 800-square-foot metal building that had been an oil storage depot next to the railroad tracks on the east side of Spencer. That building has now more than quadrupled in size.
Video features equipment, too
One of Robert's most recent video titles, "From Seed to the Elevator," shows two-row, two-cylinder Deere equipment being used on the farm. And an early release included background music along with the narration -- until an 80-year-old farmer in upstate New York tells Beaver, "I want to listen to the motor, not the music. I want to hear the tractor run."
Nearly 200 farm stores throughout the United States and Canada are selling the videos, which are also available on Robert's Internet site.
Beaver says his average customer is hard to describe. They could be doctors or lawyers or farmers. And they could be young or old. And older collectors may have more than 100 tractors in a collection that someday will be broken up to sell to younger two-cylinder enthusiasts.
While some of the equipment in any collection is already restored, much of it may still be in need of work after sitting outside for decades.
Some enthusiasts will use their restored JDs on the farm or in parades just for fun. Others, according to Beaver "will have $15,000 or more invested to win a baseball cap in a tractor pull."
Is Beaver an "average" collector? He says he's owned as many as 15 old JDs at one time. But now, as he looks toward retirement, he has just five remaining in his collection.
The Robert's Carburetor Repair Internet site features parts ordering capability from online diagrams at: http://robertscarbrepair.com
