For UK members who haven't discovered it yet, I've been thoroughly enjoying "The Repair Shop" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08l581p the rest of this series is on this week at 6:30 each evening, and then some of the first series will be on over the weekend, also all this series are available on BBC iPlayer.
Never quite goes into the detail I'd like on how they do the repairs, but then it is early evening TV, and definitely makes me think "I'd love to be doing that"!
In sometimes grumpy times it's definitely feel good TV through mending things.
Every now and then, I have an urge to repair something instead of replacing it .... most of the time, it ends up costing me more, but you do get the sense of achievement and I do get to buy some new tools
Thank you for the compliment Andy, but I don't think your skills are anything to be ashamed of either (and you can play them, a skill I definitely don't have ). Congratulations on the school support.
Part 2 of this story is that not only did this give me the chance to learn enough luthiery such that I can now set up my own instruments without expensive mistakes, but it also meant I could help the secondary school my children had attended who found themselves with no budget and a room full of broken instruments - between myself and the head of music we got over 15 guitars back into service.
Some of my "Frankenstein's" guitars built from scrap instruments (modelled by my son who is much better at playing them than me):
Biscuit tin electric slide guitar built in a couple of afternoons - one of which was teaching my son to use a router.
Electric and electro-acoustic "u-basses" built from children's guitars - fantastic sounding instruments, no-one can work out where that deep bass sound is coming from.
Five string fretless bass from a beautiful neck aquired from a well known online auction site, a bass body I had lying around, and my own design of electronics. This is a serious instrument.
Ross, who is heavily into all things medieval, said "can I have a bass shaped like a sword?" As a true engineering dad, I said he could if he made it himself. It's taken a while but we finished it this summer - it's actually remarkably good! As ever, made from pretty much all scrap parts but with some serious woodworking this time.
My experience with stainless steel (as a pig of a material to work with) is that you're underselling the skill you put into that - that's a lovely bit of work! I was going to put some photos up of some of my fixes but I'm a bit embarrased to now
Another, in this case mechanical, fix. The pivot on my neighbors pruners broke. It looks like it was originally designed as a fabrication but was then changed to a casting on cost grounds. The tensile straight of the alloy chosen was not sufficient so both side plates cracked. Some hacksaw and file work produced two new stainless steel side plates, two new pivot pins took a few minutes on the lathe. The pins were silver soldered in one side and screwed the other with some thread retainer. Better than new.
). Congratulations on the school support. 
