Maker Movement / Mending Things

Hi Deborah,


You've reminded me that at my mum's house I've still got a couple of valve signal generators and a huge valve Avometer (I left them there when I finally moved out in 1984!) If anyone, preferably near London, knows of a good home for them I'd be delighted to donate them.


Cheers,

Andy

Its great to see this discussion topic still running.  

I started clearing out our shed last week and turned up quite a lot of stuff that can be recycled or redeployed elsewhere and had some great ideas for upcycling to make some items for the garden.  A few of items that will present interesting challenges are:

• Several pieces of microwave test gear 

• Radar jammer off the Ark Royal

• Equipment to test compasses on Lancasters 

My husband is a radio amateur and thinks he picked up the latter two items at a great little shop in Lincoln on Steep Hill that sells all manner of military and civlian radio/radar equipment.

Yesterday I thought I'd better start my serious clear out of my workshop and various sheds (this is going to take months). One of the first things I threw out was an old washing machine motor that had been there for years. But I thought I'd keep the capacitor "just in case".


Tonight, the motor capacitor in our tumble dryer blew. And yes, it was 8uF


Sometimes life just works right  (If that capacitor had blown two days ago I probably wouldn't have even remembered that I had one!)

Anyone feeling withdrawal symptoms after the end of the latest series of The Repair Shop might want to check out Salvage Hunters: The Restorers, which is currently running on Quest TV https://www.questtv.co.uk/salvage-hunters--the-restorers.  It's a spin-off from the Salvage Hunters series, and is an hour long (give or take a few adverts).

Glad you liked it, thank you! 


And here's today's example of old and new joined together - I just finished this at lunchtime. It's my parents old mantle clock which I think they were given as a wedding present, which would make it 1939. It hasn't worked since the early 1980s - and was pretty inaccurate throughout my childhood. I've now fitted a quartz movement, the particular skeleton movement I chose involved an interesting drilling job over the weekend cutting a dead straight and circular 130mm diameter hole!


Cheers,


Andy

  


P.S. I feel I should add that they threw it out in the late 1970s when Dad was given a carriage clock as a retirement present - I rescued it from the bin, took it with me to university and used it as long as I could, and was determined to get it working properly one day - did take me a while to get around to it!!!

Hi Andy,

Absolutely great reply and I entirely agree with everything you are saying. I love all the old ways of manufacturing and the equipment used, I have been harping on for long enough now about the lack of usage of our waterways etc, I am sure that by using this we could power all the street lights in the country all year and could even store the electricity close to the source as well. I know that we need new Technology don’t get me wrong, but it seems that unfortunately we have now got a situation where if it isn’t easy people do not want to do it and would rather earn a living pressing buttons. Let’s get back to the glass milk bottles and seeing the tops rise an inch in winter I say! I still have some of my father’s personalised knives made in Sheffield, much better than any you can buy today.


Cheers


Dave


Dave RoylesTMIET

Hi Dave,


Just to explain one point, "The Repair Shop" (which is now repeating its first series) focuses on items more like 100 years old rather than 1 year old. Gears and ratchets rather than USB ports


As to why modern technical items break, I think it is worth remembering that we do demand that technology is available at a very low price. I've always worked in the delivery of high reliability products, and it's easier to do now than it's ever been (thanks to continuously improving modeling tools). but it's still very expensive. An interesting subtext of "The Repair Shop" is that when "technical" items (e.g. mechanical toys, clocks, music making/reproduction equipment) are brought in, it tends to become clear that in their time they would have been the pride and joy of the family owning them. If in my house, as an example, we spent as much on a single record player as we have on all the various radios, TVs, CD players, DVD players etc etc etc we have then it could probably be very reliable - which is exactly the situation a family would have been in in, say, the 1930s.


That's prompted me to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation: I have a 1927 HMV model 109 gramophone (which does still work!), this cost £10 10s (£10.50) in 1927 which was about 8% of the average annual wage of £133. Taking the same percentage of an approximate average wage today of £25k gives an equivalent cost of about £2000 - which is probably about right if you were to produce them in volume with the same level of quality today. Of course it's really difficult to make realistic comparisons of value due to the huge changes that took place in the twentieth century, but it gives a feel.


However, despite the above I do tend to feel that we (the engineering and manufacturing profession) are much better at this than we were, say, in the 1970s and 1980s when many industries had not yet grasped that cost engineering did not necessarily mean poor engineering. I vividly remember giving up on my Mk III Escort and buying a Corolla instead - they both cost the same but were a world apart in reliability (and, indeed, serviceability).  


Where I completely agree with you is regarding PCs. Whilst by spending a bit more I can get a more reliable (say) washing machine or electric drill, however much I spend on a PC it will always not quite work


Cheers,


Andy

To be honest Andy I have not seen the ‘repair shop’ as yet, however it would be great with hints of what products to avoid especially with all the different types of equipment available. Everyone thought the USB port sockets were a great design but there were some unsafe ones produced, not only that but the transformers at the rear of the sockets are on all the time with nothing plugged in! What is the longevity of this? More consumer friendly programmes are needed as everyone needs to learn on a daily basis. Repairing things is great, the question I would be asking is why did they break in the first place?


Regards


Dave

Wonderful idea - a sort of cross between the programme as it is now and James May's "The Reassembler". I do suspect that some of the steps are not shown as the craftspeople want to keep their "trade secrets" - but I'm sure it's mostly what the producers think viewer's concentration spans will stand!


Neither my wife nor I can bear to see nice things being thrown away which might be able to be brought back to life - this is why we have about 10 sheds between us  


I think the skill sets shown in this programme that I'd really like to have are restoring woodwork (particulalry recreating the original finish) and reparing clocks. I still feel guilty about dismantling my brother's Meccano clockwork motor when I was about 10 which exploded into many lost pieces as the spring went boing...