New product bid to steel the show

His company, Gagemark Ltd, designs and manufactures abrasive cleaning equipment used in the steel, oil and ship-building industries.

And he is now looking for a huge expansion of business in the next 12 months following the launch of two new products.

Business Link Leeds provided much-needed marketing and financial help for the Yeadon-based company to re-develop its System 2000 machine for cleaning masonry and glass reinforced plastic hull boats.

Gagemark has also designed a new machine, the Tornado, for blast cleaning steel and it is now going through trials on a North Sea oil rig.

Already the firm has received inquiries from abroad, including one from a Canadian company interested in manufacturing under licence.

The firm's target is to sell about 120 machines next year - each has a price tag of between £5,000 and £7,000 - and some have been snapped up already.

"We have had a lot of interest and it looks like people are going to start ordering in batches of six to ten in the near future," he said.

"Sales should start to take off in the next few months."

He also runs a contracting building cleaning business, LCC Restorations Ltd, which was the first company he formed.

His 33-year-old daughter Josephine runs an office in Greece, where she has lived for many years, and handles orders from surrounding countries.

"We have just cleaned the front of the national library in Athens which is quite an achievement because it's the first time the authorities have allowed anyone to do it as far as we know," he said.

His son Alex, a chartered accountant looks after the companies' marketing and finance.

"At the moment our turnover is very small," Mr Nicholson said.

"But we are hoping it will go into the hundreds of thousands of pounds fairly quickly and then into millions of pounds."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.