# They don’t make them like they used to.



## Olly Buckle (Oct 19, 2013)

I have not always done the same thing, in fact I have worked in an awful lot of jobs in my time. Back in the late sixties or early seventies I went to work for a friend of mine who had started a small company reconditioning central heating parts, rewinding pump motors, putting new contacts in control boxes, and, my speciality, fixing the time clocks. This was before the digital age, and central heating systems were switched on and off by an electric clock that, in place of hands, turned a dial with levers on it that tripped switches. Most of them were fairly standard, an electric clock driven by a simple magnet and coil electric motor, and the commonest fault was grit from the boiler room in the first gear. Occasionally we got a special job.

One such was designed to switch the heating system on in a department store and, I was told, had been installed when the store opened in the nineteen thirties, it had been running for most of forty years. Made by the Horstman gear company it was housed in a solid metal case, and when I extracted it proved to be a fully jewelled, barrel spring, brass clock movement, which was wound up by an electric motor. The rationale was that if there was a power cut the clock would not stop and the heating would still come on in time for the store to open. Taking the clock apart, cleaning it, oiling it and putting it back together was exactly the sort of logical, methodical work I enjoyed and the beautifully engineered pieces were a delight to work with. Then I got to the motor that wound it up.

It consisted of a coil about three inches diameter over-all, with a bar magnet on a brass rod in the centre, and the magnet was solid, wouldn’t move. Soaking the whole thing in solvent to loosen it up wasn’t on, it would have destroyed the ancient insulation on the coil. I studied it for ages, the base that the rod rested in was a different metal, there must be a way of getting it out of the coil, perhaps it would unscrew from the base. Very carefully I held the tip of the rod, which was a little thicker than a pencil lead, in a pair of pliers and turned gently, taking care not to apply any sideways pressure, To my surprise it unscrewed easily, not the whole rod, just a little brass cap, this was not a brass rod, only a brass cover. Under it was a threaded steel pin, about a millimetre in diameter, from which I was able to remove the bar magnet and the brass casing that covered the bottom half of it. When I had washed out all the hardened grease that had been in it for the last forty years, repacked it with fresh grease and replaced the magnet and the cap the cap screwed down to the point where there was no visible gap between the brass and the magnet, but the magnet swung freely. A beautiful fit, and it ran perfectly, good for another forty years.


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## The Tourist (Oct 19, 2013)

I feel your pain.  Every time I pick up something made in the last ten years I wonder if it will last another ten minutes.

Sometimes I handle Japanese folded steel and feel a morose awe.  There was a time when people sought out such technology, but then, there were people of equal quality to wield them.


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## The Tourist (Oct 19, 2013)

Olly, here's an example of the things I seek out.

It's my new knife, a ZT0121.  As you can see, the blade blank is a full 1/4 inch thick, it's made from S30V and strong enough to slice through a Kevlar vest or punch through a car door.

I intend to utilize it as steak knife when we eat out.  Fully +90% of things done with an EDC knife are opening UPS boxes and food preparation.


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## ppsage (Oct 19, 2013)

Hi Ollie... I used to fix washing machine timers. Same deal. Fun stuff before electronics. There's some interesting hints here that get dropped, like how do you know rationale? Is there a character you've talked with? And maybe, what happened to your friend's company. Though it's interesting to me, I sort of think this would be much fuller if it got beyond just the technical stuff a bit. A more serious complaint would be the spin. _Ain't what it used to be_ is pretty tired and thin. There's gotta be something less of a complaint and more, I don't know, progressive. This sort of speaks to the opening sentence too, which might be rethought. The repair is well documented and I, at least, followed the technical details. Just maybe a bit more history and local color, to move it into a more complete piece. In appreciation, pp.


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 20, 2013)

Thank you both for your comments, nice blade chico, you wouldn't be allowed to carry it here. There have been a few stabbings in the city by teenagers and carrying a blade has been outlawed. Not the way to go in my opinion, teach them responsibility instead, I can remember when I was a kid and got my first sheath knife, every boy scout had one, I was pleased as punch and learned all about using it responsibly. Go back five hundred years and the law required an Englishman to own and carry a blade so that he could assist in the defence of the realm. When Handel's Messiah was first played it was so popular and there was such a crowd that gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home 'If it wouldn't inconvenience them', times change, "Gad Sir! I am inconvenienced, I do not have the means to kill the bounder".

Mr Sage, thank you for your comments, it could indeed be better, I think I was focussed on the event rather, thanks for the thoughts.


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## Bloggsworth (Oct 20, 2013)

Ticking away next door is the longcase clock given to my wife's great-great-great grandparents on the occasion of their wedding in 1831, at which time it was already 10 years old. I serviced it some 30 years ago, I expect to be long dead before it needs another. During these 30 years I have owned several electronic and battery powered clocks which have all failed...


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## The Tourist (Oct 20, 2013)

Olly, sorry about your local knife problems.  I hope it never happens here.  I wear the knife on a belt going to the mall.  No one even looks up.  (BTW, so far the knife has never drawn blood--oh, it's spilled of lot of mayonnaise in hand-to-hand exchanges, however.)

Additionally, I'm glad you started this thread.  A few days ago a member reported she was a seamstress.  In all of the hubbub of faster lap-tops and worthless cell phone features we seem to forget that much of our world runs on beautiful handcrafted items.  One of the first projects my dad and I ever did when was a little boy was to fix a toaster.  Now most kids would wonder why we bothered since toasters are cheap and often given away as loss-leaders.

If something is beyond repair, I take it all apart and salvage all of the fasters and good parts.  You'd be amazed at how often a one tiny screw can repair an object years later.  And for intricate jobs I found that a complete set of gunsmithing tools have more precise bits and driver blades for those antique fittings.

Besides, I don't think I'm happier than when I'm putzing with something.


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## Gumby (Oct 20, 2013)

Wonderful stories, gentlemen.  These days it seems kids use their hand eye coordination for gaming more than anything else. Which is a shame, as there is a wonderful satisfaction to be had in creating something with hand tools or garden tools for that matter.


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 20, 2013)

Gardening is a different thing from the human logic of the mechanical world. In the garden one is shaping the natural creative process which often has a will of its own, the best gardeners go with the natural flow, a bit like the best bike riders.


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## The Tourist (Oct 20, 2013)

Olly, here's a serious question.  Do you think you'd even be able to give away training in your craft to one of today's younger folks? 

Every video gamer I know recognizes a Japanese folded katana when they see one.  I could teach them how to polish one.  Instead of dealing with pseudo weapons, they could handle, sharpen and refurbish real quality blades.  However, you say "apprentice" and their eyes glaze over.  They know it means years of perfecting a craft.

But get this, these same kids know the expression, "wax on, wax off."  They just want to eat the eggs, but no one wants to crack some shells.

What's your experience?  Have you taught anyone anything?


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 20, 2013)

As it happens I was at a friends who runs a small garden business the other night and one of the young guys who helps out came round, he was over the moon because he had just got a place as an apprentice at a major botanical gardens. I think partly the idea of apprenticship has gone out of favour because technology changes so fast, people are afraid their skills will be useless before they have time to  exploit them, maybe not with skills like gardeners or jewelers so much where one deals with one offs, but in things like engineering a degree type qualification is more practical. 

I don't think young people have changed all that much since I was young myself, there were always some who wanted something for nothing and some who were willing to put in the effort. Look around the site, we have staff who are teenagers and others barely out of it. Things are a lot harder for kids nowadays, when I was young I could walk into a job anytime, my youngest has just left university with a first class music degree and is working her butt off at three minimum wage, part time jobs to keep herself while she and her friend try to put together a business, using their music, in their spare time.

Like I said, I don't think people have changed all that much, but you do tend to find what you expect, because, with or without meaning it to, it tends to become what you are looking for.


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## ppsage (Oct 20, 2013)

Olly Buckle said:


> As it happens I was at a friends who runs a small garden business the other night and one of the young guys who helps out came round, he was over the moon because he had just got a place as an apprentice at a major botanical gardens. I think partly the idea of apprenticship has gone out of favour because technology changes so fast, people are afraid their skills will be useless before they have time to  exploit them, maybe not with skills like gardeners or jewelers so much where one deals with one offs, but in things like engineering a degree type qualification is more practical.
> 
> I don't think young people have changed all that much since I was young myself, there were always some who wanted something for nothing and some who were willing to put in the effort. Look around the site, we have staff who are teenagers and others barely out of it. Things are a lot harder for kids nowadays, when I was young I could walk into a job anytime, my youngest has just left university with a first class music degree and is working her butt off at three minimum wage, part time jobs to keep herself while she and her friend try to put together a business, using their music, in their spare time.
> 
> Like I said, I don't think people have changed all that much, but you do tend to find what you expect, because, with or without meaning it to, it tends to become what you are looking for.


So true. I've had many _'apprentices'_ (remember, the apprentice system was developed, not to pass along knowledge, that's just the spin, but to monopolize and control it, think no wages and gruel and pallet and in ten years we'll let you into the guild provisionally, in twenty years, if you pay a big enough cut, you can practice unsupervised; good riddance, I say) in my craft work, but there's no way either of us could afford them doing it full time. They come when they can, learn a lot, use it when they can and how they want. Modern kids are great. Anybody who says no, hasn't paid attention.


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## The Tourist (Oct 20, 2013)

Olly Buckle said:


> Like I said, I don't think people have changed all that much, but you do tend to find what you expect, because, with or without meaning it to, it tends to become what you are looking for.



Actually I'd love to have an apprentice.  I could sell the business and goof off even more!  That's not the issue.

In my field it would take at least five years to get good at polishing the myriad styles of knives, swords and daggers.  Metallurgy is something else to learn.  There's Japanese history and waterstones--and I have thousands of stones.

A real deal Japanese togishi apprentice might have to study +ten years.

They watch me sharpen a simple knife in 30 minutes to an hour.  So it appears to be a skill you can learn in a matter of weeks.  They don't see repairs that take three whole days, and some katanas might take over two weeks.  I don't even attempt the historically significant stuff, like museum quality pieces.

But the peace (the "zen" if you will) is the thing that attracts me.  No screech of mechanized equipment, each finished piece is an art onto itself.

How am I supposed to make that appealing to guy who checks his phone every few minutes?


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 21, 2013)

> Actually I'd love to have an apprentice. I could sell the business and goof off even more!


That sounds like pie in the sky, I would have thought an apprentice would make the job even more work, not only do you have to teach them the job on top of running the business at first, but a decent master teaches life skills as well as work skills.


> How am I supposed to make that appealing to guy who checks his phone every few minutes?


You are looking at the wrong guy, you want someone like the youngster who sat next to me on a London bus the other week carrying a wooden practice sword. He looked down and realised I was reading 'Musashi' and we had a five bus stop conversation about a guy who has been dead most of four hundred years, and so took no account of our fifty year or so age difference. You are approaching it from the wrong end, nobody is interested in spending their life with the man who knows what he does not want, and work is a large part of life, The man who knows what he does want, and talks about the fascination of it, may be a boring old git to the ninety percent who want to talk about Miley Cyrus, but he meets the ten who think it worth while.

I met a bloke about my age at a friend's house a few months ago who tried to have a conversation about how miserable it was getting old, I was having none of it when my friend chipped in with "You are on a loser talking to Olly like that, he is the most positive person I know". A nice compliment, but the point of the story is that my friend told me a month or so later that he had died, there was nothing awful wrong with him, but he knew he wouldn't get over it and had no will to. Now I have lived a somewhat dissipated life, been smashed up on bikes, hugely burnt as an infant and had some very nasty diseases, I now have Wegener's granulamatosis, which is the nastiest form of small vein vasculitis, and I fully expect to make 90, or die trying. Remember that ancient and awful song 'Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don't mess with Mr In-between'? Awful song, excellent ideal.


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## The Tourist (Oct 21, 2013)

Olly, I do understand that concept of "be a mentor, make the world better."  But coupled with that is that art or not, this is also a business.  And tantamount to whatever decision is made is my personal happiness.

Yes, you do have to start by finding an apprentice with fire in his belly.  You cannot create that other than nurturing what is already there.  I think a female watchmaker would be a good candidate for the job.  In other words, a good work ethic, patience, love of excellent craftsmanship and a respect for traditions.

I live near a liberal college campus.  Nothing but ear-buds and Red Bull.


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 23, 2013)

The examples we give, my daughter, my friend's employee, the staff here, the college campus near you, are what a scientist would call anecdotal. Without quantification, verification and comparison they prove nothing about the overall, general state of youth, I think they are okay, you think they are rubbish, yours is a more traditional view for an older man, but we could debate all night without reaching a conclusion, and the forum is not about debate. In terms of finding an apprentice the general state of youth need not concern you, after all, you only need *one apprentice, and I don't think even you would argue that every youth is useless. My conclusion is that you are a bit of an old grump who prefers to complain than to use his intelligence to find what he wants, it kind of fits my image of Angels as a bit stick in the mud, riding outdated 1940's technology that gives you numb fingers over a distance, and indulging in repetitive behaviour that is mainly destructive. You should try a new Suzuki or Honda, the Japanese haven't lost that technical skill that created the best steel in the world, the stopping distances, acceleration and cornering ability would blow a bit of fresh air into your brain, if you could handle it.*


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## The Tourist (Oct 23, 2013)

Probably all true.  But in the end I don't care if society happily goes off to perdition.  I'm on a course where I find validity in action, belief, and productivity.

If you listen to the American press you'd think citizens were of one mind.  We are not.  There are as many red states as blue states.  Every state now allows citizens to carry firearms, but only about 1/3 of those same states allow gay marriages.  Most of my circle was happy the government got shut down.  We're drowning in red ink and excuses.

Where this transitions to my belief system is that I know what it takes to make a superior edge and an award winning show motorcycle.  And those seemingly diverse occupations all begin with the same actions.  First, you get off your butt, then you get your hands dirty.

Yes, I find it a tragedy that most people younger than myself work harder at trying to get out of work than the real work before them.  We now look at "fame" as a winning lottery ticket or getting your own reality TV show.  In my city, the capital of the state, we have one and only one cobbler, I guess most people just throw shoes away.

Am I angry about this?  Well, 'angry' is too strong a word.  I'm dissatisfied.  I think my people should do better, complain less.  For example, there's one billboard bright commonality about all the really good athletes and lifters at my gym--that's gray hair.  There's also a commonality about the younger folks there--obesity.  

However, I understand your displeasure, I hear it everyday.  'Better' is a dirty word in my area.  It implies you expect the sick, lame and lazy to improve.  Implying that homelessness is a person's own fault is tantamount to open racism.  Heck, I'd be happy if I saw someone do something, anything, than their day before.  My expectations have dropped that much.

Stephen Hawking hasn't twitched a muscle in twenty years.  If he can work, then so can I and so can the rest of society.  But far too often a person considers themselves to have gotten involved not by fixing a pothole, but simply by writing a letter to the editor.  We even verbalize it openly and give it tacit approval when you hear, "These are the jobs that Americans do not want."  Since when has any form of labor diminished the man who gets things done?

Edit:  LOL.  I've ridden lots of Japanese motorcycles, and I had problems with every one--leaks, overheating, and I blew the entire engine out of a GoldWing.  Too many plastic parts, and the ones that are selling are the ones that look like Harleys.


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