I must be getting old - err "mature".

I bought a "Portable Electric Tools" 1/4" drill from CTC for $17.00 in

1957 and still have it. I don't use it very often but have wired several houses with as well as driveing 4-5 inch grind stones, buffing wheels and sanding discs with it over 60+ years. I did give a 1/2" "D" handle drill from 1948 to my Plumber neighbour across the street when he expressed an interest in it, I had grabbed it for $2.00 at a yard sale. All it needed was a new cord (the old one had eleven patches, mostly duct tape or masking tape) and a good chuck cleaning.

I may have recounted this before. I have a B&D 1/2" pistol-grip drill that's listed in a 1925 catalog for $58.00. Weighs 16#, all-metal. Bought it, aong with a B&D end grinder of same vintage, in '67. Circa

1978, a brush holder broke. Drove 70 miles to the city to the B&D repair depot.

Man started at the left end of the long catalog shelf with the big microfiche ringbinders (no computers then), worked his way down past the paper ringbinders, fat catalogs, small catalogs to the very last item on the shelf. Thin, about 20 pages, greasy and tattered, paged through it. Went off to his parts racks and came back with a tray containing 3 of the needed parts. So I bought 2. Drill is still going great and I haven't needed the 2nd holder yet.

Fast forward to circa 2004. My B&D, all-metal 1/4" drill -- inherited, probably circa 1970 vintage -- needed a new bearing. Called B&D. Young feller I talked to went clicky-cliccky on his computer, said, "Oh, jeez, that's *OLD*." And they didn't have the bearing.

Gunner Asch on Mon, 02 Apr 2018 02:49:38 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

I've enough projects. And for me - not a reasonable option.

Should have given it to Carlin.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."

"I did ponder the sort of society which would find it cost effective to replace the bushing so it wouldn't wobble."

That would be a society with the skill and tools and inclination to do it, like r.c.m. Educational experience may not be immediately cost effective.

-jsw

"Jim Wilkins" on Tue, 3 Apr 2018 07:48:06 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

There is that. I was thinking more along the lines of "extreme" 'make do or do without."

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."

I hope we are a very long way from choosing to emulate the Workers' Paradise of Venezuela.

I think enough of us in "flyover country" still have the self-reliant ethic of my father's generation that airdropped into the wild, roadless interior of New Guinea to build air strips and create modern civilization around them

Earlier this morning I was discussing the removal of a large roadside tree with the highway department foreman, who offered to take the wood away as a favor. I said I'll keep it and showed him pix of my home-made sawmill slicing similar logs into beams and planks.

The old skills are still alive here in New Hampshire, along with the newest ones.

-jsw

BTDT. Now, decades later, that I'm a little better off, turns out you often can't buy a replacement that's worth a pinch of fuvg. Retired our 1950 blender after 2nd repair, went through 3 new ones, dug out the old one and repaired it again, better. It's still going.

Not universally true but more often true than makes any sense to anybody with a few tools and skills. Of course, it helps not to be depending on a day job or (see "BTDT", above) the day job *is* making do.

My career was "extreme make do" in a different sense, the industrial parallel to Mike's commissioned art works. I fleshed out the design details and then hand-built custom, mainly electronic equipment to fulfill the customer's wishes and scribbles. The customers included GM, IBM, TI and the US Air Force and their wishes were far from simple or easy. At least when I turned and bored a bushing to fit a shaft to a housing I was using new material, not correcting for wear.

-jsw

"Jim Wilkins" on Tue, 3 Apr 2018 13:58:26 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

The main issue is that the CBs in 1943 had a whole lot less to create to make it "civilized".

I talked with my Dad about how much stuff I was taking to college, part of which was that he could put all he need in a rucksack, the Fraternity would have a type writer available (and, although I didn't say this to him, he didn't have to worry about "home" packing up and moving.) That was back when the Apple IIe was "cutting edge." And I didn't have one of those either. I did borrow one my senior year to knock out a paper at the last minute.

Many years ago, a windstorm took down several madrona trees on Lake Washington. I wanted to salvage the logs for lumber, but not with my Toyota hatchback. Buddy of mine knew a couple 'gyppo' loggers, but they were in Oregon. We doubted we could get them up, and the wood salvaged before the City Parks people showed up.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."

Mike Spencer on 03 Apr 2018 16:26:14

-0300 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

There is also an element of "priority" Depends one what you consider important. Some guys would rather spend the time to keep their car running, and others "its a ride, it works or I replace it."

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."

A few years back, a large maple was taken down a hundred yards down the street. By the time we got to it there was only one block left - the exact one I wanted - the tripple crotch block. It now sits in my driveway on three rubber feet made from Hockey pucks to keep it from being constantly damp. No-one would take it because they wouldn't be able to split it into pieces which meets my requirement for a chopping block.

The military needs the same infrastructure as civilians; roads, water, sewer, electricity and phones, medical and dental care and banking and mail. Additionally they needed runways, a mobile voice radio system functionally equivalent to cell phones, and a Teletype network similar to email for orders and reports. They don't grow their own food but neither do cities. The troops tend to build themselves movie theatres and night clubs, my father's unit (he was the CO) turned a Jeep engine into a refrigeration compressor to cool their drinks.

They had to be able to maintain their complex equipment, notably high performance aircraft. We also set up drydock facilities to repair warships in a remote and primitive Pacific atoll.

"Within a month of the occupation of Ulithi, a complete floating base was in operation. Six thousand ship fitters, artificers, welders, carpenters and electricians arrived aboard repair ships, destroyer tenders, and floating dry docks. The USS Ajax (AR-6) had an air-conditioned optical shop and a metal fabrication shop with a supply of base metals from which she could make any alloy to form any part needed."

"...for seven months in late 1944 and early 1945, the large lagoon of the Ulithi atoll was the largest and most active anchorage in the world."

For a 2 week field exercise in the winter of 1972 I was attached to a unit that set up a mobile communications center for a secure global computer network on a remote mountain top. Except for food and fuel we became a self-sustaining village in the snow-covered wilderness.

-jsw