The Case for Working With Your Hands

Thats the most interesting read I've had in a while. Thanks Ed.

Thanks, Ed, the writer describes the satisfaction of honest intellectual + mechanical work as well The Soul of a New Machine and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I haven't read enough of Neville Shute yet, only the description of designing the R100 airship from Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer.

I chose to be a lab tech instead of an engineer for similar reasons.

jsw

I'd bet nobody is going to belittle _his_ intellect successfully simply because he works with the tools. :)

Beautiful piece!

Excellent read! A good day at work is when I'm presented with an interesting problem to diagnose and correct. I particularly enjoyed where he went into figuring risk / reward to various approaches at a problem. Oh and the starter problem with the bushing and armature dragging, been there done that, 1965 Biscayne sta wagn.

Wes

Stories like that aren't easy to write. I wrote a couple of short ones on that subject when I was younger, and it's very hard to avoid sentimentality when you get into it beyond a few basic points. This author avoided it pretty well until he got near the end.

I'm looking forward to seeing the book from which this essay is extracted. The guy is trained in philosophy and analysis; he should be able to keep his clear and interesting insights organized for a longer piece. If he has, it will be a fine, and maybe an important, book

-- Ed Huntress

We'll have to keep an eye out for the book, _Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work_. It's supposed to be published this week.

Regarding the starter on his motorcycle, I never had a starter problem on three of my motorcycles. They didn't have electric starters. However, I had a bad sprained ankle for six months on my kick-start side, which made life interesting.

I do recognize that bushing problem, however, because it was one of several things I had to fix when I restored a '50s-era Mitchell high-speed movie camera. Everything was shot, and you could actually feel the armature grating against the stator when you turned it by hand. I replaced the bushings with pieces I turned from a bronze propeller shaft that came from an old boat -- my primary source of bronze bushing stock. With all of the shallow sandbars we have in NJ, they're fairly common.

-- Ed Huntress

Very good read, Ed. Thanks. Bob swinney

-- Ed Huntress

Right on, Wes. It reminds me of a multi-Hp DC motor that operated on of the retarders in a large rail yard. Our signal department had sent the motor out to a local electrical shop a couple of times but it always came back, "no trouble found". In as much as this was a very large and heavy DC motor, I suspected the shop had assumed it would have obvious and had not actually megged it. Without a megger, I tested the various windings with a high-voltage DC current supply and soon found leakage. We sent it back to the shop with a description of which winding was leaky.

Excellent read! A good day at work is when I'm presented with an interesting problem to diagnose and correct. I particularly enjoyed where he went into figuring risk / reward to various approaches at a problem. Oh and the starter problem with the bushing and armature dragging, been there done that, 1965 Biscayne sta wagn.

Wes

You might like L. Francis Herreshoff's approach to the subject in "H 28, or the Building of the Snarke". If your library doesn't have it, sent me a note and I'll loan you my copy.

Kevin Gallimore

Ah, yes, a great one. I have read it. Also his _Rudder_ article, "Naptha Launches," and a variety of his other old _Rudder_ pieces.

-- Ed Huntress

Spot on! The sentence that stands out is : "For me, at least, there is more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank."

The whole thing reflects my personal experience to a tee.

Enjoyed that very much!

In 1979 I was being seriously considered for my supervisor's job at Varian. Had several suits from up the ladder come talk to me in my welding booth, asking if I would be interested in going back to school and obtaining an MBA. Varian would heavily subsidize this. Money-wise, that would have been the smart move. But I like working with my hands and making things, and frankly wasn't thrilled at the thought of having to turn around and give reviews to all my friends there....

I declined and still have no regrets.

Jon

Interesting article, though it is not the case that all who work in an office must give up intellectual activities and honesty - but (as one who actually gets paid for being in an office) I can say that having hand work at home, where I can make things, is important - and any number of times when told something was "impossible", I've been able to bring the impossible thing, or someting close enough to it, back and rather solidly disprove the point - without some understanding of "real world stuff" that would not have happened. And, it is sooooo gratifying ("what part about this thing in front of you is actually impossible, as you had said yesterday?")

/ reward to

and armature

retarders in a large

shop a couple of

very large and heavy DC

actually megged it.

supply and soon found

Don't ya hate it when you send something out to the 'pros' or call them in and still end up solving the issue yourself.

Wes

Interesting article indeed.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno

You can preorder it at amazon.

I just did. I have a book coming from Winston so It might take me a bit of time after getting it from Amazon to read it. I could send the soulcraft book to you as a thank you for sending me the NRA book. If Winston is interested in reading it, you can send it to him and he can send it to me.

I had a Honda CB500T, a sad choice of a motorcycle, the 450T would have been a far better bike. The starter never failed but the internal bits seemed to fail quite often. Finally I had enough. Pulled the starter off, inserted a rubber soft plug and closed off hole. Not a bad bike to kick start.

The typical symptom for me with a car starter was one time it started fine the next time it drew 400A and didn't move. Generally temperature dependant. Might have also been dependant on radial orientation of armature.

Someone's misfortune, your gain. Speaking of fishing, I hope you are getting some in.

Wes

Hah! You haven't suffered unless you kick started a Norton Atlas every morning in 40F temps. :-)

Wayne

I've never had to be that confrontational but I've kick-started several interesting concepts by bringing in some practical home-made hardware for them, to pass around in meetings.

jsw

a thank you

Yes, please.

--Winston