There are many days when I feel fortunate to have been brought up in a household that valued hard work, over just buying new things. It is not as if we had a choice, money didn't grow on trees and there weren't other options. This also means that we were taught to fix everything.
It is easy to complain about many items now being unfixable and that may be partially true, as a plethora of products are built for planned obsolescence. The unfortunate aspect to this sort of mass production of junk, is that it creates an entirely disposable culture and we lose a sense of value in craftsmanship.
Why take care of a new product when it will only be phased out in a year or two and won't allow for updates from the cloud? We all have been part of this with an item such as a cell phone. Recently though I got laughing on how some products are built to be workhorses. I have one of the first versions of the ipod Shuffle from 2005 and I have been using it for workouts since. Bravo to Apple for keeping it simple and useful, but will it last for over 20 years, well that is highly doubtful.
A while back was hanging out at the folk's house and decided that I needed to check what was in the attic. The old toys had long been gone, but I was after some of Chief's old gadgets as he gifted me the fixit gene. In the garage attic I stumbled upon some really cool old items that had a lot of character and after pulling them apart you could see how well they were built. The soldering was done with heavier gauge wire, the metals were stout and overall the gadgetry still functioned in it's mechanical state.
Many times I hear complaints from all sorts of folks that they have no concept how to fix anything. Take it from a life time tinkerer, just explore and let it be an adventure. Imagine what you are taking apart is just one big puzzle. If you fail to put it back together correctly, keep working at it until there are no parts left. Try to imagine how each piece works and in the process you will be teaching yourself mechanical aptitude, elementary physics, circuitry and a host of other skills.
"What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a
keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on." - Jacques Cousteau
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| Toshiba Transistor Radio Model 7TP - 352S, 100 Megawatts |
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| Toshiba Transistor Radio Model 7TP - 352S, 100 Megawatts |
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| Toshiba Transistor Radio Model 7TP - 352S, 100 Megawatts |
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| Toshiba Transistor Radio Model 7TP - 352S, 100 Megawatts |
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| Burroughs Portable Adding Machine from my grandfathers feed and grain warehouse business |
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| Burroughs Portable Adding Machine push button numbers |
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| Burroughs Portable Adding Machine push button numbers |
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| Burroughs Portable Adding Machine push button numbers from my grandfathers feed and grain warehouse business |
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| Old liquor bottle |
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| Early 1950's Chevy AM Radio |
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| Early 1950's Chevy AM Radio |
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| Yep old car radios were tube amps |
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| Tube amp in an old 1950's Chevy radio |
