Hi Pete
This is in the industrial section... So can I assume you are looking for industrial design work?
A good start for small design projects is to get in contact with a few small, local mechanical fitters.
They often have work where they will be asked to do a job like upgrade a compressor, reroute pipework which has associated instrumentation, etc. for a large-ish customer. And they end up having to pass on the work purely because they are unable to provide the electrical designs in their proposal tenders/quotes. They'd just sub it if they won the job but they don't have the designs to get it.
So if you could develop a flexible relationship with some of these, then you could find your work growing quickly. Especially as the mechanical fitting game is very clicky. They all know each other and all work with/sub out to one another on each others jobs, in my experience.
How do you find small mechanical fitters? Other than the obvious, try you local industries/utilities.
Speak to the guy in the pub in the water company uniform/brewery driver/neighbour that works at the local papermill/sugar processing plant/etc. and ask him if he work out of a works/processing station/treatment works? If not who does he know who does?
Once you've found a guy that works in the M+E or operations on a site, buy him a pint and get him to list as many mechanical contractors that he can that he's seen vans on site for, worked with, heard moaned about, seen a method statement for, handed plant over to, etc.
Hope this is of some use.
I've had similar luck with my sort of work with mechs. But only for pub money in my case. I didn't want a career change.
Cheers, SP
