Plymouth and the Tamar
Plymouth has been a working port for centuries, and it still runs on metal: boatyards and marinas around the Sound, ship repair and marine engineering, fabrication shops on the industrial estates, and the steelwork of a city that faces the sea. Most of that work happens a short drive across the Tamar from our base, and Plymouth jobs are often combined with work around Saltash and Torpoint the same day, which keeps travel light.
For marine businesses the attraction is simple. Laser brings no abrasive onto the quayside, the hard standing or the workshop floor, so nothing has to be swept up, bagged or kept out of the water, and work can go on next to other people’s boats and machinery without coating them. Engine parts can be cleaned without grit near a bearing, stainless can be brought back from rust and tea staining, and mild steel can be taken back to bright metal ready for the primer.
For engineering and fabrication firms, laser is a quick, clean way to take mill scale and oxide off steel before welding or painting, and heat tint off stainless after it, without grinding marks. On regular work, a standing day each week or month can be booked so the parts are waiting when we arrive.
Workshops and industrial estates
Away from the waterfront, Plymouth and the towns around it have fabrication shops, agricultural engineers, vehicle restorers, plant hire yards and maintenance workshops that all deal with rust and coatings as part of the job. Most of them clean by grinding, wire brushing or sending parts away for blasting. Laser gives them another option on site: weld prep and weld cleaning without grinding marks, rust off machined parts without changing their size, and old paint off a repair before it goes back out. Where the work is regular, a standing day saves arranging each visit separately.
Parts can also come to us. If you are passing through Cornwall, or have a batch of small parts that would not justify a visit, bringing them over is often the cheapest way to get them done. Ask when you enquire and we will arrange a time.
The South Hams and Torbay harbours
Salcombe, Kingsbridge, Dartmouth and Brixham each have their own mix of leisure craft, fishing boats and the yards that look after them. Every autumn, boats come out for lay-up and the list of jobs begins: engines and engine beds, keels and rudder stocks, stanchions, cleats and winches, trailers that have been dunked in salt water all season. Brixham’s fishing fleet adds winches, haulers, gantries and deck gear that never really dry out.
On salty metal the rust is only half the story. Salt sits in the bottom of old pits, and if it is not dealt with it keeps working under new paint. Laser takes the visible corrosion off quickly; on heavily pitted marine gear we talk about a salt wash or treatment before priming, and the primer needs to follow the same day. We plan harbour work in this part of Devon as full days, grouping jobs in the same harbour or along the same stretch of coast, so the travel from Cornwall is spread over more work.
Dartmoor and the farms of West Devon
The farms on and around Dartmoor, and across the rolling country towards Holsworthy and Okehampton, are hard on machinery in a different way. It is less about salt and more about the wet, the mud and the long winters: trailers, feeders, gates, handling systems and implements that stand out in the weather and rust from the joints outwards.
Laser lets that work be done in the yard without stripping machines down. It can clean round hydraulics, bearings and wiring that blasting would have to mask or remove, which often saves more time than the cleaning itself. Moorland farms are frequently off-grid for this kind of load, so we bring a generator; tell us too if the track to the yard is rough, so we can plan the van. As with any big flat panel, blasting may still be the better option on the largest areas of a trailer or a shed’s steel frame, and we will tell you where the line falls.
Restoration: railways, engines and classics
South Devon has a strong restoration community, from heritage railway volunteers to the owners of vintage tractors, stationary engines, classic cars and motorbikes who show them at county shows and rallies through the summer. Their workshops are busy in the winter, and that is when parts need cleaning.
Laser suits restoration because it is selective. Casting marks, stampings, part numbers and original surfaces survive, where blasting would soften them and a wire wheel would polish them away. Batches of parts can be done in a single visit to your workshop, which keeps the cost per part down, and larger items such as frames and chassis can be done where they stand.
Boats out of the water
Most marine work in Devon is done with the boat ashore, on the hard standing or in a shed, and that is the easiest way for us to work too. We need the yard’s permission and a clear patch round the area being cleaned for the screens, and we keep our setup to that patch so the boats either side are not affected. Below the waterline, laser is good on metal: keels, skegs, rudder fittings, shafts and brackets. It is not the tool for stripping old antifoul off a whole glass-fibre hull, where a specialist soft-media or chemical system is usually the better answer, and we will point you to one.
Fittings and small parts can be taken off and done in a batch, either at the yard or brought to us, which is often the cheapest way to deal with a deck’s worth of cleats, fairleads and stanchion bases. Engines are cleaned in place where access allows, with care round electrics, sensors and anything rubber.
Timing the work in Devon
Lay-up and fit-out set the rhythm on the coast: boats come out in the autumn and the list has to be cleared before spring launching. Farms on and around the moor have their window in the winter, when machines are in the shed. Heritage railways and restorers tend to do their heavy work in the closed season. The summer brings visitors to the South Hams and Torbay, which makes harbour-side access and parking harder, so quayside jobs there are easier in the spring and autumn.
Because Devon jobs are planned as full days, booking early helps more here than anywhere: it gives us the chance to put two or three jobs in the same area together, so the travel from Cornwall is shared and nobody pays for a long drive on their own.
Photos that get you a quick, accurate price
From Devon the travel is a bigger part of each job, so getting the quote right before we set off matters. Photos are how we do that. Send a wide shot of the whole thing, then close-ups of the worst corrosion or the thickest paint, with something in the frame to show the size. Tell us what the metal is if you know, whether the paint could be old enough to contain lead, where the job is, and whether there is power and shelter.
With that we can usually say whether laser suits the job, give a price range and a likely length, and tell you if it is worth combining with another visit nearby. Where we have not cleaned something similar before, we agree a test patch first and firm up the price from it.
Being straight about distance
We are based in St Austell, in the middle of Cornwall. That puts Plymouth and West Devon close, the South Hams and Torbay within a comfortable day, and Exeter, North and East Devon a long way off. It would be easy to claim the whole county; it would not be honest, because on a small job in Barnstaple or Honiton you would be paying mostly for our time on the road. So this is how we cover Devon:
- Plymouth and the Tamar: Plymouth, Plympton, Plymstock, Ivybridge, Tavistock, Yelverton and the Bere peninsula. Standard coverage. Often combined with work in East Cornwall on the same day.
- West Devon and Dartmoor: Okehampton, Lifton, Holsworthy, Hatherleigh, and the farms on and around the moor. Standard coverage. Moorland farms usually mean a generator, so tell us about power when you book.
- The South Hams and Torbay: Kingsbridge, Salcombe, Dartmouth, Totnes, Brixham, Paignton, Torquay and Newton Abbot. Standard coverage. Full days are best, and harbour jobs are grouped where we can.
- Exeter, North and East Devon: Exeter, Barnstaple, Bideford, Tiverton, Honiton, Exmouth and beyond. Larger jobs by arrangement, with any extra travel agreed before booking. For a small job this far out, a local contractor may serve you better, and we will say so.
Travel is always included in the quote, worked out from the job’s postcode, so there is never a surprise on the invoice. If a neighbour, another boat in the yard or a second farm nearby has work too, tell us: grouping jobs is the simplest way to bring the cost down for everyone.
On the day
A cleaning laser is a Class 4 industrial laser, so the work is done inside a controlled area. We set up laser-safe screens and signs, wear eye protection rated for the laser, run the extractor whenever the laser is running, and keep people and animals outside the area. In a yard or workshop that means a few metres of space round the job; your staff can carry on with their own work outside it. If the paint is old, we check for lead before we start, because lead turned into fume is a hazard that needs extra controls, and sometimes a different method entirely.
The machine needs to stay dry, and so does freshly cleaned steel, so in wet weather we work under cover or rebook. Before the day we agree who primes the cleaned metal and when, because bare steel in a damp Devon autumn will not stay bright for long.
When Devon and Cornwall jobs meet
Plenty of Devon work sits right on the border. A boatyard in Plymouth and a farm near Callington, or a workshop in Tavistock and a harbour job in Saltash, can be done on the same day for less than either would cost on its own. If you know of other work near you, on either side of the Tamar, mention it when you get in touch. It is the simplest way to keep the price down, and it often means an earlier date as well.
More about the work
For how the method works, what it removes and where its limits are, see laser cleaning in Cornwall and Devon explained. For our home county, see laser cleaning in Cornwall. Thinking of buying a machine for your own workshop or yard? Book a demonstration on your own parts. And when you are ready, send us the details of the job.