James L Adams—People and Products

New Venture

I seem to have written posts for this blog for over 5 years (over 300 of them). I began the blog to discuss product quality, since it is as topic that has always interested me, and after a heroic and successful effort in the U.S. to improve manufacturing quality (which of course reflects on overall product quality), industry drifted off into other traditional directions (profit, grow-the-organization, etc.). As I mentioned in my last post, the manufacturing quality goals were nicely described in a classic paper written by David Garvin and published by the Harvard Business review in 1987, when quality was the hot word.

In 2012 I wrote my book Good Products, Bad Products, published by McGraw Hill, to pay more attention to such critical “dimensions” of quality that even though difficult to deal with quantitatively, are very important to human users. It is also mentioned in my last post, and discussed at more length earlier in the blog.

 I wrote my book partly as a text that I used to teach a course in the Stanford Engineering school (Good Products, Bad Products), that was taken over by Professor Dave Beach when I retired, who did a wonderful job with it until last year, when the course too was retired. The book suffered from lack of publicity, and perhaps a decreased interest in product quality in the U.S. Surprisingly (or not), although the book’s sales in the U.S. have been disappointing, it is doing much better in India, China, South Korea, and Japan —countries that perhaps are presently more sensitive to the value of quality in products. After all, it was Japan that awakened us in the 1970’s and 80’s. China, India, and South Korea are coming up fast.

But over the years, I also wrote posts on subjects I was also thinking about which ranged from the fit between the directions of technology and people, the joy of working with the hands, engineering, management, and so on.

I never sought wide distribution of these posts, as I wrote them to force myself to think more deeply about my areas of interest, and I did not want to become involved in a full-fledged conversation with large numbers of people, although the responses to my posts were thoughtful and flattering. But now I have been talked into a project that sounds difficult, but worth doing, by Tim Keely, a friend of mine who is an IT person of amazing talent at Stanford. The project is for me to go through these posts, pick the ones I think are the best, organize them, edit them, and allow him to make an e-book (or several) from them. I am going to try.

This will make my posts even fewer in number and perhaps more wandering in nature as I come up with new thoughts for the book(s), but I am looking forward to the attempt and hope you will bear with me. I will continue to write posts when I need more material for this project, or when I can’t bear not to —like commenting on ridiculous wastes of technology and money such as Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border, which hopefully will never happen, but should it, will set an all time record for lack of overall product quality.

So wish me luck. I’ll post progress reports as I go.

The Attraction of the Small

Why are we so attracted by small things? At one point in our marriage, my wife somewhat wistfully told me that when she was a little girl she never had a doll house. Well, this would not do, so I built her a doll house, complete with furniture and electric lights, and she crocheted tiny blankets and painted oriental rugs. I even had my mother, a water colorist, paint a few pictures at the proper scale (1 inch = I foot), and she loved doing that. Of course, I had a great time with the project and my wife loved it, so it was a win all around.. The doll house still lives in an honored position in our house (see photo), and now all of our woman friends, who tend to be in their 70’s, love it.

What is the attraction of small things. My wife collects folk art, and the next photo shows some tiny examples. But we have full size pots and such things. Why does she like little ones so much?

    

 

 

Gender thing? Not at all. I am writing this in my office at home surrounded by models I have built. The next photo is a British warship, made from plans available from the Admirably Museum in Greenwich, England – hand planked, rigged, and outfitted by me—no plastic. I do not even like oceans and ships that much, but I became entranced with the history of the British navy, decided to build a model of one of their historic ships, and  was hooked. I finally had to force myself to quit (after I built six or eight of them) because they take an unreal amount of time and I was getting behind in life. My insight came from meeting a  model builder who was building wonderful model ships in a glassed-in shop on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. His story was that he was a physician who had a large successful practice, but was ruining his health by staying up all night building ship models. His wife finally told him that if he didn’t quit building models he would have to give up the practice of medicine. To her amazement (and I guess unhappiness) he quit his practice.

I have made models of many other things,. The following photograph is of a shelf in my office and maybe in the middle you can see a small figure of a welder, which I carved years ago when I was working in an oil field. Why? I was surrounded by real welders!

As an extreme example of miniaturization, there are a large number of mostly men in the world making working models of engines, equipment, etc. The photo below shows a friend of mine who has been terminally bitten by model railroading. His train is a perfect replica, down to the stove in the caboose. If you look on the internet for "miniature running engines",  you will see more of the tip of the iceberg.

I have a working full size antique steam tractor dating from approximately 1900. A working model would be worth more than my real one, as well it should be, because it would be rarer and require an absurd amount of time to make. And yes, there are many people out there either owning or building one.

And this love of small things extends well beyond models. For a long time, I could not figure out why I didn’t get better at typing on my iphone. But I finally did a study and realized that my thumb overlapped six keys. I am good at typing with a full size keyboard, okay on a large pad, but still pathetic on my iPhone.   Also its screen size is ridiculously small, so it cannot deliver nearly as much as my desk top. But I like it because it is capable of doing so much for its size Also, it fits in my pocket, so I can break its glass protector with my keys. And flashlights, now that they sport LEDs and ion batteries, are shrinking so that they are easier to lose.

Maybe we like small things because they make us feel big and powerful. I used to love watching little girls reprimanding their dolls. Instant adulthood. And if I become really annoyed at my iphone I can throw it very far away.

Swell Book —The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough

Sorry to be lagging in writing posts, but I am catching up on my reading. I just finished a wonderful book by David McCullough, one of my favorite writers, entitled The Wright Brothers (Simon and Schuster, 2015). He is not only an outstanding story teller, but an amazing researcher, although I expect he has help in his research because he typically gives credit to several people in the Library of Congress. But having won two Pulitzer prizes and twice received the National Book Award, he probably deserves it.

This book is an in depth look at the Wright brothers (Wilbur and Orville— there were two other brothers and a sister Katherine , who became a major supporter and cheer leader), their successful quest for flight, and their friends, family, and others who supported them, as well as those who competed with them. It is an American success story, and, in fact, after they became world famous and people would ask them how they did so, they would tell people to grow up in Ohio in a good family.

The difficulties they overcame were many, including Orville killing his passenger and almost himself in a demonstration flight.   People had wanted to fly like birds for most of recorded history, and at the time of the Wright brother’s effort, there were many people (Lillienthal, Moullard, Chanute, Langley, Cayley, Maxim, Bell, Edison) who were working on the problem, and many people applying for patents on flying machines, most so outrageous that they became a mainstay of humor, but the majority of people in the world simply felt that humans were not meant to fly, and those seeking the ability were perhaps a bit nuts. In the midst of this, the Wright brothers, by then proprietors of a bicycle shop, quietly set about to solve the problem—no wealth, no government support, no college, no brilliant insight, no desire to become rich and famous, just an obsession for flight and long hours of hard work. I could somewhat identify with them, because their life was somewhat like my grandmother prescribed, when sayings such as “the devil finds work for idle hands” and “people who don’t take care of their (garden, farm, horse, house, truck, etc) don’t deserve one” abounded and were laid on kids like me who were found lying in the sun. In fact their very supportive father was a minister, and later a bishop in their church.

I also identified with their ability to work with their hands as well as their mind. There is a quote in the book by a local resident after they built their “home” on Kitty Hawk, a desolate area far from Dayton chosen because of its constant wind. which is “They could do anything they put their hands to. They built their own camp, they took an old carbide can and made a stove of it; they took a bicycle and geared the thing up so that they cold ride it on the sand. They did their own cooking and washing and they were good cooks too.” My kind of guys (although my wife faults me on washing, but hey California is in a drought).

But not only were they wonderful people, but from an engineering standpoint they did everything right, even though not educated as engineers.  There was little usable theory, but they learned what existed and what had been tried, and started from there. Their competitors in the world were trying to concoct theory and arguing with each other, but only making simple fairly uncontrollable unpowered kites and gliders and flying them very little. The Wright Brothers started with a kite, gradually improved it until it could carry them, and flew in the result as much as possible. They continued after they added an engine, built from scratch in a short period by Charlie Taylor, a mechanic friend of the Wrights. The engine added a series of failures, but the process of fixing the problems, improving the machine, and flying continued, in spite of minor and major crashes and other setbacks. This constant testing and improving reminded me of my days working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, because that is how wonders such as the Curiosity Martian Rover are produced. And a major advantage that the Wright Brothers had on December 17^th, 1903, when they made their famous flight (actually they made four of them that day, the last one some 850 feet), was their skill at flying, because each of them had spent many days learning to control their primitive machines and a total of four years achieving this goal.

This experience and  approach to testing and improvement made extending the range of Wright “flying machines” straight forward, so that five years later, the brothers won the newly-minted Michelin Cup with a flight of 2 hours and 20 minutes. They were, by then, touring the world, flying all day to the delight of massive crowds, and taking royalty for rides. They did become rich and famous, but because they wanted to fly like birds, not because they particularly wanted to be rich and famous (although they didn’t mind being in that category.)

It is a feel good book, shedding light on how one of the many advances in technology in the early 20^th century happened, and how many still do —through dogged determination and evolution rather than from one brilliant idea.  The only thing that depressed me about the book was how much better McCullough can write than I can.

Steam Show—Roots of Motive Power Inc.

Willits California is a small town on Highway 101 a couple of hours north of San Francisco. It is perhaps best known as one end of the “skunk” train, a restored train engine and cars that run between Fort Bragg on the coast and Willits and is quite popular with tourists. As  explained here, Roots of Motive Power Inc. is a group of people that operate in conjunction with a fine little museum (the Mendocino County Museum) and that have space next to the museum and across from a small park on which they can and do run antique heavy equipment . They sponsor several events during the year, and over time have accumulated an excellent collection of old steam and diesel equipment, much of it restored, and more under way.   Their largest event (The Festival) just occurred, and I attended with my older son Bob and one of my older friends, Marc Faye, the owner of the farm in the Sacramento Valley to which I escape.   Lest you think age is required to attend, the group that attends includes large numbers of kids, partly because there is a restored train that runs continually around the property, and because kids like large dirty machines with whistles that make clouds of steam and smoke.

I attend this show for a number of reasons, including my love of old machines, my interest in the history of technology, and because people with rather unique hobbies and interests, who are not always understood by their friends and neighbors, are so happy when they get together with others of similar interests, that one cannot help but become swept away by it.   It is also a nice size (you don’t need a smart phone to keep track of each other), fairly close to where I live, and in beautiful country. And it’s even free.

A few photos might help. One of my favorite machines is a Bucyrus power shovel, often seen in photos of the digging of the Panama Canal. The photo at the left not only shows the shovel when not moving, but if one looks closely one can see the very clever way it is steered — by placing logs into one of the tracks, causing that one to slow down. The man standing by it is the log placer. The next photo shows it in action.

The photos below show a beautifully restored steam roller that is benign enough to be allowed to run on the city streets. a machine waiting to be restored, and a large crane I had not seen in action before

 

 

 

 

I have a friend named Loren Bryon who is very interested in and active in the restoration of old equipment and a superb craftsman, particularly if steam is involved. He is a regular at these activities and was busily conquering the details of how to control this beast which he had not driven. The controls of such machines do not include such things as steering wheels or other devices now normally used to control machines. But after an hour or two passed, he became confident enough to drive it down a street on the grounds with cars parked on the sides. The remaining photos show him at work.

An excellent day, and as usual, I came home much improved because of the experience—and highly motivated to work on my own restoration projects, because they seem to be so straight forward and easy compared to the ones being done by the Roots people. Tractors are much easier to handle than locomotives, and aren’t as likely to blow up and kill you.

 

     

The Mechanical Governor—A Very Good Product In its Day

Mechanical governors have been used with most engines since they were first developed until electronic devices took over the task relatively recently . Governors based on rotation were used to control the distance between wind-driven millstones in the 17^th Century. Later, with the advent of factories, regulated rotary motion was needed In the late 18^th century, and, James Watt invented what he called a conical pendulum, which operated on a principal similar to governors  to follow—balls attached to a rotating rod which was driven by the speed of the machine. As the speed increased, the balls tended to fly out (origin of the term “balls out”) which would cause levers to decrease the amount of steam entering the machine. A rough drawing is below.

Governors were primarily to guarantee a controlled output. You do not want the power in your machine (car, tractor, train, etc) to fluctuate with the fuel flow. You want to select the desired speed and make sure that the machine speed stays constant. They are sometimes thought to be speed limiters, and, in a way, they do stop excess speed, but they are much different than speed limiters contained in modern vehicles and other machines where limiting the top speed is required. Oddly enough, humans with political charge of states are called governors, and in a sense they are, in that they are supposed to smooth out the behavior of the state, but mechanical governors were not meant to cause radical change, as some human governors want to do. That was to be left to the humans in control of the machine—perhaps the analogue is the voters in the state.

I recently restored a Pickering Governor, shown in the photo to the right. Thomas Pickering was both the inventor and the name of the business he began in Portland, Connecticut, that was based on this governor. It was used widely on rotating steam machines in the U.S. for many years, and it still in use. It was a dominant fixture on steam locomotives, factory machines, and all manner of other steam-powered devices. And in fact, before electronics came along, devices operating on the same principal were installed in automobiles, trucks, tractors, and other machines powered by hydrocarbons.

As you can see from the photograph, the Pickering Governor has three balls mounted on spring segments, the bottom end of each being fastened to a collar that rotates but can not move up the central shaft, and the other end fastened to one that can move. As the speed of this unit (which is driven by a belt from the machine) increases, the balls tend to move out, which pulls the top collar down. This movement is somewhat resisted by the coil spring shown in the photo. The upper collar pushes on a rod that runs the length of the shaft, and moves a sliding gate in the piping ,which controls the amount of steam entering the machine. More speed results in less steam, and less results in more. Voila, constant motion, with speed controllable by compression in the coil spring. A drawing  is below, if you want more detail. But in spite of the complexity of the drawing, the operation of the governor is extremely simple—few moving parts, no tricky mechanisms, an elegant, reliable, and affordable product, which served our species well over many years, and could be understood and maintained by people with a minimum of training—A very good product indeed.

Why did I restore this governor? As you know by now, I love to restore old machines, especially if they were good products. In fact, I can hardly stand seeing such elegant and historical machines die on scrap heaps.

What am I going to do with it? Easy. I am going to put it on my desk beside my computer. It not only will represent a good contrast in modern and old technology, but will remind me that several large projects I have under way (writing books, etc) will proceed better if I work on them a bit every day. I tend to work on them in bursts, ending when I can’t stand to do so any more, and then ignore them, during which time I lose track of what I have done and where I am going, which in turn requires that I spend time reviewing what I have done and trying to recall hot ideas I had which I can’t quite remember. I need a better internal governor, and maybe this beautiful historic old external one will remind me. Also it is a more interesting object to look at than my computer (when the computer is simply showing me my desktop) and will not require constant upgrading and deleting of unwanted messages and advertisements.

Free Time, Productivity, and Making, Fixing, and Tinkering.

I am perhaps a bit late on this post because I have been down in Southern California helping my brother dig through three generations of stuff in several buildings. When we were kids we lived and worked in this series of buildings along with our parents, our grand parents, an uncle, and various dogs and cats (and before that horses and chickens). We were located on 20 acres of oranges, in the times when that and a few outside jobs were capable of supporting such a crew. After the death of our parents, grandparents, and uncle, the sale of ten acres, and my leaving for various vocations and locations, my brother John has been operating the remaining ten as a fruit and vegetable farm (Adams Acres). But unfortunately, the area has gone through hard times, and the customers for fruit and vegetables do not always match my brother’s desires in growing plants. He has an M.S. in botany, and a Ph.D. in soil science, and is a fan of fruit of a comparatively exotic nature compared to that bought by many who live in the area, who are motivated heavily by price and what they are used to. So he is selling most of the land to a developer and the need arose to "lighten up".

Although hard work, this sorting process has been both interesting and nostalgia producing. It graphically illustrates the difference in life in Southern California in 1907, when the grove was planted, and the present. I actively worked in the grove between the late 1930’s and the early 1950’s, when I went to college, never to return except for visits, and even in the 60 years since then there has been massive change. As far as agriculture, little remains in the area. As far as life style, the change is similarly complete. Work in the area at one time consisted mostly of manual labor. Now, work is scarce. Life was bucolic, with clean skies, little if any crime, and the sweet smell of orange blossoms, although the work was occasionally hard and money sometimes scarce. But compared to my present existence, and that of my friends, there seemed to be a lot more spare time.

The photo at the left shows a small hooked wool rug made by my grandmother, who died in 1965, but spent a lot of time making rugs, quilts, lace tablecloths, blankets, and such things. My mother, meanwhile. In her early days was making furniture, also clothes, and helping build buildings. Both were doing the cooking, the cleaning, and other such chores. My father, my grandfather, and I were working on the grove and the buildings, and my uncle was working full time as a machinist. But we seemed to have a lot of  time beyond these duties. This rug was not intended to be walked on!

The hooked rug is beautiful, partly because of the texture that could only have resulted from hand work. It takes a long time to make hooked rugs, but somehow the time was available. The photo on
the right  shows me in a shirt my mother made me from sulfur sacks in high school. It still fits me! She didn’t have to make me fancy shirts, but she loved to and had time to do it, and I loved the result.  She also made everything in my room when I was a kid (see below). She later became a very successful water colorist —time again.

During our sorting, we continually found evidence of this startling fact. Although the family did essentially everything having to do with life —building the buildings, doing the maintenance, working the grove, growing and, hunting and fishing for food, and making furniture, machines, and even toys (the two photos at the end of the post show a horse made for me by my mother and a toy tractor made by me for my brother).

We had a lot of free time to do such things as learn about music (I was the town pianist), read a lot of books, magazines, and news papers, listen to the radio, and do well in school, And we did not only constrain ourselves to large and challenging tasks. The  photograph at the right shows a small welder I carved, and a delicate goblet my beefy grandfather turned from Manzanita wood, complete with imprisoned ring. I admit he did this because of my grandmother’s frequent challenge to him to make something pretty since he was usually doing blacksmith work, building buildings, spreading fertilizer, or driving the tractor., etc. etc. etc.

Now it seems to be more difficult to provide for free time in ones life. Why? For one reason, in the old days in rural areas there were no diversions such as television, the internet, social networking and computers, and highways and advertisements beckoning us off to adventures in other locations. There were few movie theaters, little if any night-life, and friends were widely spread. Looking back, it seems that life should have been quite boring. But at the time it did not seem so. One could always make covered wagon models, toys for kids (my brother and I) or goblets from Manzanita wood, paint pots, or just goof around with one’s dog. And we didn’t know that life could be made hectic by endlessly “improving” ourselves.

Would I like to go back there? No. Am I glad I grew up there? Yes. I learned an incredible amount from the do-it-yourself stages of my life and my very talented family members, and gained great confidence and positive feedback from what I did. I also learned to make time in my life for hobbies that I love, and for just goofing around. Working with my uncle and grandfather obviously set me on the path to becoming an engineer, and being expected by those around me to do well in school and in my work led me toward becoming a professor, a career I have loved. And since I did have free time (nothing to do and no one to talk to) I did learn to entertain myself by thinking—an excellent way to spend time. And finally, I learned the importance of making time in my life for learning, for my hobbies (mostly requiring use of my hands), and for just goofing around.

 

Hand Tools— Changing Slowly

Hand tools (no engines, chips, electricity or compressed air) have changed over time, but very slowly compared to what are sometimes called “power tools”. Old tools (100 years ago and more) were interesting, and often beautiful. The photo on the left shows a drill probably used to drill holes for knob-and-tube wiring in a framed or even completed house, and an old wooden brace from the time when braces ruled the roost , well before drills powered by electric motors, and now driven by ion batteries took over. I seem to have accumulated quite a few such tools just because they are beautiful, and using them makes me realize how challenging woodworking used to be.

But many hand tools have changed very little. The photo on the right shows a “modern” pick, shovel, and rake, that have certainly not changed in my lifetime, and are still heavily used in the day of leaf blowers, bull-dozers, and jack hammers. The next one on the left shows three hammers, the top one having belonged to my mother, who was building furniture and helping on the house before I was born, and was given to me as my first hammer. I still use it. I recently bought the one below it, and it is surprisingly similar to the one made 90 years ago. The one at the bottom, also recently bought new, is obviously striving for recognition as high technology, and I am less likely to break the handle, but quite frankly, I am not convinced that it functions a whole lot better than the 90 year old one, and it definitely cost more.

But many hand tools have improved greatly, due to the availability of new materials and manufacturing processes. The final photo shows two “grabbers”. Some of you may remember the large one with the wooden handle, because it is typical of those used in grocery and other stores to take items off of the top shelves. It is fun to use, as it is large and clunky and gives you the choice of one of two handles to close the grippers, depending on how high the desired object is.

But the small one, given to me when I had knee replacements a few years ago in hopes that I would not climb on rickety stools to reach things, and that I could get my pants on before I became limber again without bothering my wife, is indeed impressive. I had not had experience with these things at all, but this one is strong, able to fold for traveling, and very grabby indeed. It is extremely simple, relying on a simple spring to keep it open, and a nylon cord to close the claw. It is very light weight, the structure being a simple square tube of thin aluminum, and the two surfaces that close on the target are brilliantly made. I tested it in the hospital on everything from glasses of water, through pillows and picking up pills, to a large vase of flowers that was in my room. And yes, I still have it.

A professor friend of mine, who had also gone through surgery and was given one, fell so in love with it that he decided that his world had increased in size by four feet (roughly twice the length of the grabber), and proceeded to add four feet to the width of the desk in his office, and two feet to the height of his bookshelves. He also claimed to have radically increased the usable storage space in his garage and closet at home, and loves to entertain himself by challenging his friends to games of skill with his grabber and trouncing them viciously.

Most hand tools have improved over time, but slowly, and that is part of the reason I love them. Using them gives me more satisfaction than power tools and in the long run allows me to keep more fingers, and I do not have to spend money and develop new skills because improvements occur (as with digital devices). They are generally easier on the environment, offer free exercise, and let you impress you friends, neighbors, and sometimes even your spouse with your skills. Although in all honesty I must admit I am fighting the temptation to buy a new drill motor and electric screw driver because they now come with lithium ion batteries, which produce more power and hold more charge than the nickel metal hydride batteries in my present one. And I use lots of machinery when working with metal.  Nobody is pure.

Spirit House Redux

Marian, my high speed wife, has spent considerable time studying world religions and designing a religion for herself. It is primarily based on being a good person. Although raised as an Episcopalian, she has dipped into many others, including the edge of Gnostic Christianity, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. I am proud of her and the result, because it contains no jealous gods, but if you want as good a one, you have to design it yourself

At one time, in the midst of her search, we happened to be in Laos, and she discovered spirit houses, that are often seen in front of houses in Southeast Asia, and even inns and hotels, and act as a location to place offerings of various sorts to Buddha and local dieties. She decided she would like to bring the custom home, but since they are difficult to pack for air travel, and since there is no required design for them, I told her I would build her one.

Needless to say I procrastinated for quite a while, but finally built her one. That was six or eight years ago and in the interim it acquired many signs of the wear and tear of being outdoors, , including bird droppings, an interior of rotting leaves, missing parts, stained paint, and overall scruffiness. She felt bad about this.   After another bout of procrastination, I just redid it, as the photo at left shows, and I must admit, I am proud of it, and have regained the points I received from my wife for building it in the first place.

In order to establish the nature of her beliefs, it is located right next to her favorite statue of Ganesh, the Hindu lord of Good Fortune who provides prosperity, fortune and success, and is the lord of beginnings and the remover of both material and spiritual obstacles.A statue of Quan Yin, Buddhist goddess of compassion sits at the base of the spirit house.

 She is a member of a group of women with similarly broad beliefs, who meet regularly and discuss topics having to do with religion, spirituality, and philosophy. They call themselves the Pagelians, in honor of Elaine Pagels a Stanford classmate and friend of Marian’s, who is now a professor of religion at Princeton University and who wrote the definitive book on the Gnostic gospels, entitled, not surprisingly, The Gnostic Gospels. I sometimes overhear their meetings, which are often in our house, and feel a bit like a heathen, but I try to be a good heathen.

Technology and Sports

As in most area of human life, technology has had major influences in athletics, ranging from the airplanes that allow teams to compete even though they are very long distances apart, new medical procedures for injuries, and improved shoes, rackets, safety and training equipment, etc. And, of course, the sophisticated devices used to make games available over such media channels as TV and the internet and allowing the observer to witness the details of the game perhaps better than those in the stadium (slow motion re-plays, multiple camera positions, etc). And uniform styles have also changed a bit. The photo  at the left is me 60 ears ago attired in the cool basketball uniform of those days. Notice short pants and less colorful shoes . But although no longer worn much in basketball games, Converse’s Chuck Taylor white high-tops are still alive and well.

But technology has had less effect on the action on the field or court, with the exception of annoying things such as advertisement time-outs. Tradition and the human element hold center stage. This is good, because after all, athletics is supposed to be a contest between humans. Apparently early Greek Olympians competed in the nude, to demonstrate that they were using nothing but their bodies. Modern athletes obviously wear clothes, but are still limited in the type of tools or devices they can use.

Of course, the games themselves have changed over time. Once while my wife and I were in Italy, we attended a re-enactment of Calcio Storico, a game introduced in the 15^th century and described here. It is played on a large field with goals at each end, and each team intends to get the ball into the other team’s goal. But there are 27 people on each team, and no rules to speak of, so one method of gaining an advantage is to disable the people on the other team. It is thought by many to be the parent of modern soccer, and if so, at least soccer has become more humane on the field through paring the team size and putting many more rules in place. Of course it has perhaps become more violent in the stands. But purists would enjoy the old game as well as the new ones —a field, people, a ball, and goal posts.

Technology seldom shows up on the sport page, but the first page of the sport section in the Sunday New York Times of the Sunday May 1 issue contains a story on the automatic home plate “umpire” developed by an engineering team from General Electric in the 1950.s, and championed by Branch Rickey, a man noted for innovations in the sport. The story is here.

The year 1950 was a bit early, both technically and emotionally, for this innovation. Rickey was perhaps more interested in it as a teaching tool than a replacement for the human umpire, but it was not to happen. All of us have disagreed from time to time with the umpire, as have players, coaches, and the broadcast people, but it is probably that this human element, as well as the apparent danger to the umpire exposed to foul balls, the swing of the bat, and attack from angry players and fans, adds to the pleasure of the game. Certainly modern technology, which allows observation of everything from the speed of the pitch to spin rate, the exit velocity of a home run, and the time between bat contact and the first step of the fielder, could call balls and strikes —and I can see that happening some day, much as the video-based play reviews by the referees in football, although the tradition of arguing with and booing the umpire is integral to baseball.

But it is interesting that sports do not display more use of technology, especially in this day and age, and especially for amateurs. I am not particularly interested in golf. I do like to hike through attractive scenery, but don’t particularly want to cruise through it in a golf cart being frustrated because I screwed up the previous hole. And it is an expensive past time in both time and money. But I might be more tempted if the restrictions on the equipment were not so restrictive. An example of some of the rules on golf clubs and balls can be seen here. I think it might be interesting to see what non-pro golfers might come up with if they would relax such things a bit. I might get much more interested in the game if I could invent and use clubs, rackets and balls of my own design with fewer restrictions (no compressed air or chemical propellants). Of course, I am an engineer.

And I was watching some young kids playing basketball on a court at a school recently. They were quibbling about the score and one side was losing terribly and not having much fun. I was thinking how easy it would be not only to build in an automatic score keeping system on the court , but also to mechanize the hoops so that the basket for the team with the higher score would become smaller, move higher, or both during the game. A real-time robotic equivalent of the handicap in golf!

I am not seriously proposing this, since I used to play basketball and consider it a sacred game, but it is interesting to think about such things. After all, even with roughly the same equipment the game itself has changed since I played—increased physical contact, dunking the ball and happily hanging on the hoop, the three point shot, the giant center, etc. How about some breaks for average sized people?

Of course, technology occasionally sneaks in when not allowed, and is soon discovered and the perpetrator punished. The article here concerns a bicycle racer found to be using a bicycle using an electric motor. Can you believe these bicycle racers?

Product Quality and Serviceability

I have several small machines (chain saw, hedge shears, blower, weed whacker) powered by gas engines that no longer work.  For  some time I have intended to go through them and heal their problems, but I keep postponing this, so I made a vow a few days ago that yesterday (a Sunday), I would work on them. But I didn’t. Instead I spent the day happily working on a non-working old tractor I own. It is a late 1920’s Cletrac that has not been run for many years, during which it was rained on enough to develop the nicest uniform coat of rust I have ever seen, and through lack of use was terminally gummed up.    

The small machines, after I repair them, will be immediately useful in the garden. The tractor will not be—in fact it does not even fit in the yard. The small machines will help my wife in her gardening, and will make her happy, even though she hates the sound of small gas engines (as do I – we won’t be pleased when the air is filled with drones). The tractor will not help her. What is with me?

Partly it has to do with when, where, and how I grew up. My parents and great grandparents went through the Great Depression scraping out a living on a small orange orchard plus outside jobs in Southern California, which at the time was occupied by many people doing the same thing. Because of this, no one considered themselves poor, and in fact in terms of satisfaction in life they weren’t, but people made what they could, bought the minimum of what they couldn’t, and repaired everything to the point where many of their possessions they built and maintained are still being employed by my brother, my children and I, including a house they built of materials such as siding from no longer used freight cars and shingles made from old orange boxes (nice house in great shape still lived in by my brother). The reigning ethic was never to throw anything away (hours spent straightening bent nails and bailing wire) and repair anything that broke. I can still hear the voice of my grandmother, sounding like the wrath of God, saying “If you can’t take care of it, you don’t deserve it!

I grew up in the middle of this, and somehow came to love making and fixing things and generally tinkering with them. Probably why I became an engineer and was attracted to hobbies that involve such activities. But I have not been able to escape wondering why these activities seem to appeal to some people (me), and not to others (my wife), and why some of them are more fun for me  than others . For instance, in the case of the tractor vs. the yard machines I can think of several reasons . First of all, to me it is more of an accomplishment to rescue something that is rusted together and hasn’t worked for years, than simply diagnose and repair something fairly new. Secondly, I find older objects, with their history, different ways of accomplishing their function (and often with great aesthetic appeal overall and in their parts), sometimes more interesting than contemporary ones. And strangely enough, the task is often easier.

Why easier? Farmers were the main purchasers of tractors and other such products and they had spare time to maintain them when the weather didn’t allow them to work directly on their crops. They demanded serviceability. As mentioned they often didn’t have enough cash to hire other people to maintain their products. They often liked to work on machinery. And in those days tractors were designed to be assembled in the factory more by hand, rather than by machines, so they were designed to be worked on by humans. Finally, they were less sophisticated technically (no digital circuitry) and manufacturing technology  did not allow the complexity that one finds in such things as modern multi-functional injection molded plastic parts

As a result, the Cletrac is relatively simple to take apart (few fastener types and not that many of them), understand, diagnose, and put back together. A couple of photos might help make the message, even though they are a bit confusing. The first one on the left shows shows my tractor minus its sheet metal parts and a large casting that covers the clutch, gear train, brakes, etc. Stripping it down to that level, despite the rust, took little time and was straightforward. Note the resulting easy access to the various components, compared to access of similar parts in an automobile. The photo on the right below is a close up of the components of the drive train —the differential, the transmission, and the brakes— at the same stage. If you are not familiar with such things, they are beautifully explained on the internet. But take my word for the fact that in old tractors like the Cletrac they are easy to reach and identify, and only a few standard tools are needed for further disassembly and repair, And as you may be able to see, one can work on these things without cranes, special tools, grease pits, or lying on the ground under the machine. Granted the parts are dirty and one becomes so also, but the dirt is easily removable (except perhaps under the fingernails, but dirty fingernails show that one is doing useful work).

The blower could be called more sophisticated, but although cleaner, and with smaller lighter parts, taking it apart and diagnosing what is wrong with it, finding the necessary parts, and putting it back together will be much less fun. Even the meager instructions are less intuitive. One dead giveaway to complexity and strange  fasteners is the phrase “Service on the blower must be performed by qualified repair personnel only”. Another is “Using a Torx screwdriver to….” I would bet that most people buying this sort of product do not own a set of Torx screwdrivers.

It is easy to tell the difference in what is often called serviceability with respect to the tractor and the blower by looking at the manuals that came with each. The blower manual mainly consists of instructions on how to operate it (should be obvious by looking at a good product), warnings about safety, various notices obviously for the purpose of avoiding lawsuits, a full page of exemptions from the warranty, and notices such as “if these solutions do not solve the problem, contact your authorized service dealer”. I happen to have copies of the Instruction Manual and Parts Manual that came with the tractor, and they represent the opposite end of the spectrum. The Instruction Manual spends a bit of time on the tractor operation, but then goes into the details of each sub-assembly of the tractor, how to assemble and disassemble it, and how to maintain it including beautiful drawings. The Parts Manual offers drawings of each part in various exploded views along with part numbers. Neither has warnings about safety, pleas to contact the dealer if anything goes wrong, or statements of how wonderful the product is.  And certainly not instructions to rely on “qualified repair personnel only”. The photo below shows two pages from the Cletrac Instruction Manual as an example. They show a portion of the undercarriage of the tractor and accompany a detailed discussion of how to test the assembly, take it apart, replace parts of necessary, and put it back together.

As I said in a previous post, serviceability is one of the central components of product quality. I am afraid we have lost a great deal of that as products have become more complex and difficult to understand. Or possibly we are considered (are becoming) less capable of taking care of our products. Or lost interest in doing so —throw it away and get a new one (as in "Oh goody, now I can get  a 6S plus with 64 gigs "). Or looking at it more positively, perhaps we would rather outsource the service function to specialists, thus creating more jobs for skilled workers. Maybe I should un-retire and fix things for money for other people instead of working on my own stuff. But then  my grandmother’s voice would be even louder. 

And I will fix the blower tomorrow.

Get a Better One!

My father was an unknowing philosopher. He had various favorite rules of life (if work was fun, someone would do it for free), but didn’t know they were philosophy. One was “if you love something, and either lose it or someone takes it and you can’t find them and beat them to a pulp, get a better one”. I am a particular believer in the latter wise belief, so when someone swiped a bird I had made for my wife out of junk (reported on in a previous post), I could not find out who, and it did not seem a large enough theft to report to the FBI, so it was necessary to make at least a replacement, if not a better one. The result is shown at the left, and now sits splendidly overlooking our second floor deck and fastened securely to earth. Since I had much of the original material, it is the same as the first one, except for redder eyes, a different shaped head, and a better tail.

But that did not seem adequate, so I decided to make another one. Since my wife is often working in her garden, and I in my shop, our house doorbell doesn’t always do much good for visitors. Some time ago I suggested an outdoor klaxon (like submarines use before diving) instead of the indoor bell, but was vetoed. So I hung up an old-fashioned farm bell (see picture to the right). Hauling on the rope definitely lets us know someone is at the door, whether inside or outside. But I decided to add to that, and hung a no- longer-usable bottomless small welding gas tank by the back door with a stick beside it. (see left below) Hitting the tank with a stick also sends a noticeable signal. But not as splendid as the front door bell. So a few years ago I got another cylinder that was larger and cut the bottom off, thinking I would make a two-toned bell. But the cylinder was much thicker than I expected, so it made more of a clunk than a bell tone. So I put it in my “assorted metal things” pile and went on to other projects.

But I noticed while replacing my purloined bird that it could be a bird body , and right next to it was a scythe blade that could be a beak………..etc.etc.etc. The result is shown below. It is still under construction, but definitely bird-like. I apologize for the lack of legs, but after all, penguins don’t show much leg. And now I feel like I made up for the loss I received after some scum-ball(s?) stole my old bird. But fear not, some day I will find them.

Two Models

The photo below is of two bomber models.   Which one is best? The one in the background (letter A on tail) is a B-17, of World War II fame, built from a modern kit. As an engineer, I marvel at the accuracy and detail of the various molded pieces that the modern model maker cements together. I didn’t check to see if the small figures of crew members have fingernails or not, but I would not be surprised if they did. And such models go together beautifully, requiring little skill, except for keeping the paint and cement where it should be. My grandchildren were putting such things together when they were eight or nine years old, until their house ran out of available ceiling space to hang them on.

I built this model because through a fortunate chain of circumstances my wife and I were given a ride on the B-17 that the Collings Foundation has beautifully restored and tours around the country. I rode in World War II airplanes plenty when I was in the Air Force. World War II was well over, but many of its planes were in service, partly because the people who had served in World War II were nostalgic for them, and because they were sturdy, practical, and available. In fact the first military airplane I even rode in was a B-17, and I managed to sit in the  nose (great view) while we did a fly over for a parade in Marysville, California.

The ride was fun, and Marian seemed to enjoy it a great deal, so I put together the model to hang in her office to remind her of a fun day. But, although she did love the day, she wasn’t that thrilled with the model, which now resides in our basement, which together with our garage and a room I commandeered as an office, I control.

But the other model, although lacking in accuracy and detail, is by far the best. I built it when I was eight years old, and had just returned from a fly-over and a walk through a prototype of a bomber numbered the B-19, a Douglas Aircraft competitor to Boeing's B-29 for the successor to the B-17. It was to be a super bomber, and to eight year old me, it was. The B- 29 had won the competition, but Douglas was touring the B-19 around to learn from it, do a bit of advertising, and help build war fervor. The B-19 had a wing span of 212 feet, a length of 132 foot and weighed 130,000 pounds empty. As contrast, the B-17 had a wingspan of 104 feet, a length of 74 feet, and weighed 33,000 pounds empty. For that time the B-19 was huge, and in fact was the largest aircraft ever built in the United States. I still have a vivid memory of being at March Field in Riverside and having it fly what now would be considered dangerously low over our heads. A discussion of it is at http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/americas-real-wwii-flying-fortress-was-the-massive-doug-1632864365

I immediately went home and built a model of it. This was in 1942, and there was little plastic, injection molding was in the future, and I had never seen such a thing as a model kit (perhaps because my parents didn’t allow me to, or I would have nagged them incessantly). But at that age I was pretty agile with a few materials. Since I lived on an orange grove, and my father worked in an orange packing house and my grandfather had a fairly complete shop, I had excellent access to both picking and shipping orange boxes, a jig saw, a lots of files, hammers, glue, and above all tin cans. So I made the fuselage, wings, landing gear, and various small pieces  from an orange shipping box, the propellers and tail surfaces from tin can stock, and wheels and such from a dowel rod I found in my grandfather’s shop. I had a private stock of aluminum, red, white, blue, and black paint and a few small paint brushes I had scavenged from my mother. But no plans or photos.

I don’t know why the twin tail, except that in those days people didn’t carry cameras around, there was no internet and I could not find a B-19 photograph in the town library to augment my memory of it, and maybe I was thinking of the B-24, which was large, had a twin tail, and was introduced in 1941. Or maybe I just liked twin tails.

Although my B-19 model was not even in the same world of accuracy, complexity, finish, and scale as those that result from modern plastic model kits, I BUILT IT, and my friends, although they were at the demonstration, didn’t have a model of it at all. And in the process I learned a lot about airplanes in general, as well as about the B-19, which was loaded with armament and the state of the art in control systems and power plant. And rather amazingly I still have it, usually hanging in my office, and remember the real one flying over my head whenever I see it.  I still have it because my mother was very proud of it (and me, of course) and kept it. I found it late in her life when I was helping her go through her possessions, and took it home. I can’t say the same for other things I was doing when I was eight years old. But it was part of the long process that has made me good at making, fixing, and tinkering, as I have said in my blog, all necessary therapy in my life, appreciated by my wife and home, and passed on to my kids.

Incidentally, in the upper left corner of the photograph can be seen a portion of a sail boat. Although we were not that close to the ocean, I was interested in sail boats when I was a kid, and tried to make a model of one and failed, because the wood working was over my head and I had never seen a big one. So my mother made me one, and that is it in the background of the photograph. She kept my model, I kept hers.  She had never seen one either, but mothers are not stopped by little details like that. Later in life I scratched my itch by making several detailed models of old ships. But now you can buy them ready made from the New York Times store, at a price that doesn’t compare with the zillions of hours I spent on mine. BUT I BUILT MINE, and in the process spent zillions of very rewarding hours, and also learned lots about old sailing ships from the structure, through the function of the many lines on them, to much of the history of sailing ships and their role,  I learned how to work at very small scale, and needless to say, I met lots of interesting people who were hooked on old ships and making models of same.

I consider myself lucky to be an unrepentant DIY (Do It Yourself) guy, and am grateful to my parents and grandparents for encouraging and helping me.

Addiction to Old Machines

Today is Valentine’s day, so one would think my wife and I are out celebrating our love, but she is in Burma with some Indian friends, so I am working on restoring yet another tractor —I guess another (although weaker, of course) love. Besides it was Valentine’s day yesterday in Burma, and I sent her an unusually long and passionate message.   So I have quit my tractor project for the day, because  I have a couple of heavy house-cleaning and organizing days to do to convert it back from being ideal for me to reasonable for her.

The tractor presently undergoing treatment is a Cletrac K-20, manufactured by the Cleveland Tractor Company around 1930. This year is the 100^th anniversary of the Cleveland Tractor Company, so if you want to see some, go to a big tractor meet this year. The photograph at the left shows a restored K-20 in a museum.

Mine is shown at the right as it was  when I acquired it . The good news was that it was in a barn. The bad news was, of course, it did not run, and was filthy and bashed up, but that is part of the game. The next photo on the left shows signs of its rat habitation (also usual) The photo at the bottom left of the post shows it after it was towed outside.   California is having a stretch of beautiful (ugly if you are a farmer) weather, and I am taking advantage of it by working on the tractor in warm weather under a blue sky.

This tractor is interesting because it was unusually sophisticated for its time—perhaps too much so. The next photo on the right shows some of the plumbing that enables all track wheels to be lubricated from a central hand pump on the dashboard. The bad news was that the recommendation from the manual is that the pump be worked every 15 minutes, that the system needed oil instead of grease (which tended to leak more), and it had a tendency to clog. In contrast, the track wheels for Caterpillar’s tractors of those years required greasing each wheel separately, but not nearly as often, and really not that huge of a job. The Cletrac  also has wheel steering, using a mechanism to link the steering wheel to the brakes that actually turned the tractor —more parts to wear out and break, compared with caterpillar’s hand operated turning brakes. Also, a couple of people who had used them on their farms grumbled to me that the tractors did not weigh enough, and therefore didn’t have enough traction. Caterpillar, with simpler, heavier, more rugged machines out-competed them on the market. 

So far I have pressure washed it, to get rid of loose dirt, rat poop, spiders, and other such uneeded material. My first discovery as to its running problem is that the carburetor and the hose from the fuel tank were jammed with the kind of varnish that accumulates in gasoline fuel systems after years of disuse, so I took the carburetor apart and cleaned it out, and re-plumbed the whole fuel system. That is the reason the fuel tank is missing from the last photo. I have also cleaned up the magneto and it seems to be delivering an adequate spark at the plugs. Whether it is sparking at the right time I don’t know, but that’s adjustable. .If you do not follow old gasoline powered machinery, they tend to use a magneto (a small electric generator) to provide the spark. Unlike modern machinery, there is no battery involved, so starting them requires cranking— sometimes a challenging activity. The engine now turns over reasonably easily, and I have lubricated the engine with new grease and oil

Assuming I can get the creature running soon, I will begin seriously cleaning it, which consists of removing thick hardened grease deposits that cover much of the machine, including tracks, wheels, the undercarriage, and all existing crevices and corners. This involves use of scrapers, both hand and electric powered, occasional solvents and a heat gun to soften the most resistant deposits, much cursing, and finally a wondrous tool called a needle, gun, that I will advertise in a future post. Then after straightening out the sheet metal (obviously missing in the photos) I will paint the whole thing and happily add yet another rescued machine to my yard (or my son’s farm).

Some people wonder why I spend time doing this sort of thing, when I could be playing golf , taking my wife out to lunch and the theater, or watching sports on TV. My response is a carefully figured out “to each his or her own. And my wife likes me happy, rather than frustrated and cursing small annoying aspects of life (which I would be doing if I were playing golf), and while I am rescuing old machines, she can do things she likes to do and I don’t as much. As the wife of a friend of mine who has even more consuming hobbies than I do says, “I like Bill well hobbied up”.

Repurposing Products of Technology (Trash)

I have a fairly complete home shop and like to make things. I also have access to a huge amount of old scrap material at a friend’s farm, and discarded objects put out on the street for the twice a year free trash pickup in the area of my house. I frequently attend shows of antique machinery, which typically have a so-called swap meet, where no-longer-used pieces of equipment and components are available for very friendly prices. I have discovered that I can please not only myself, but friends and neighbors by turning old stuff back into useful objects. Eventually this scrap will be recycled either into raw materials (iron, aluminum, etc) or ground fill. Why not get some use out of it in the interim?

This post is about turning scrap metal into so-called yard art. I recently was not only annoyed, but flattered when a bird I had made out of various discarded objects was actually stolen. I just thought I was having fun, not creating objects of value. It is shown in the photo before it flew away.  Since I spent a year as an art student at UCLA, and was brainwashed as to what real art is, I do not consider this real art, but it is fun.  Maybe it is yard decoration.

In fact I have done a lot of this sort of stuff, now that I have outlived my art teachers. The photos below  show two more birds, an ant ,and a flower that also reside in our yard.

I also enjoy making functional looking things that do nothing. The next photo looks like water runs through it, or at least in and out of it, but that is not the case. As you know, I also restore abandoned machines, so that they operate and retain some of their early glory. A few are shown in the following picture, and I will talk about that use of time  in a future post. The final two are of  a restored pump-jack  holding our mail box ((corny, but Marian (yellow vest with bird and ant, likes it)) and a restored  oil pump doing nothing but sticking in the ground. (Incidentally, I realize that the layout of this post is awful, but I use the Typepad service, and no matter what I do, the service screws it up.)

 

 

 

 

 

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Are Computers Turning Us Into Slaves?

Are Computers Turning Us Into Slaves?

In 1996, Clifford Stoll, already a long-time computer user, wrote a book entitled Silicon Snake Oil, which was critical of the internet. I loved it and recommended it to all of my friends. It was a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere which was polluted with the breathing of people sure that computers and the internet would solve all problems and generally lead to nirvana. Many of the latter are still around.

One observation I remember from the book, was that in the early days of the computer, he claimed he spent half of his computer time simply trying to get his equipment to do what he wanted it to do, which was reasonable, but in 1996 it seemed like he was still doing this, and it hardly seemed reasonable at all.

Now it is ten years later. It has been raining for the last two days in California, and although I probably should have gone outside and played in the rain, it being miraculous in our drought ridden state, I decided to stay inside and work on my computer, happily typing on books, getting my photographs out of Apple’s new and disastrous Photos software, doing small things such as this post, and so on. I did none of that. Instead I worked on our relatively simple home computer system, which consists merely of two computers, two printers, and related equipment.

At the beginning, my wife was having problems with scanning material to Word, and downloading Christmas photos from her camera, and my printer was doing an awful job printing pictures – streaky and too dark. The streaky was clearly from a printer needing cleaning. But the too-dark seemed like maybe something more profound. The result was a struggle with color balance, where was it being controlled, etc, and the usual downloading of new software. Still too dark. So I ran it through the cleaning sequence three times. No difference. At that point I had already spent far more time than the printer was worth, so I went and bought a new printer, and you know how much time that takes, especially since it is sales season, people are still returning Christmas gifts, and the traffic is a nightmare in this area anyway. And of course, there was then the time spent learning to use all of its features, most of which I didn't need.

After selfishly solving my own problems first, I attacked those of my wife, and made a slight bit of progress. Like most people we work with lots of peripherals and are hampered by finite desk space and large screened maschines with not enough USB ports (which are in the back of the machine, and therefore sweep everything on the desk to the floor when the computer is rotated to reach the damn things). She was powering one USB hub off of another one, and since the light on her card reader was not going on, maybe not enough power to download the photos? So I did the usual shuffling of USB cords, including trying to trace them through the snarl that accompanies most computers, hoping that some combination would let everything work, but no luck. I then re-entered the post holiday traffic and got a new and better brand of hub, but still no luck. I finally tried her card on my computer and it also didn’t load – woops, something wrong with the card. It turns out she bought it overseas, so I set that one aside for later.

On to the scanning. Somewhere in the recent “upgrading” we have been doing due to changes in operating systems (required on mine by the encryption now demanded by Stanford servers and hers demanded by peripherals and consistency with mine), and resulting obsolescence of applications, she couldn’t find her favorite method of simply scanning to RTF and then saving the document as a Word document. We worked on that for a while before succeeding, also trying to translate the marketing language concerning available new optical character recognition software that maybe we should download (impossible to learn such things over the phone, all advertised as the best on the internet, and I wasn’t about to go driving again). But by then, my two days were over.

So, Mr. Stoll, in those two days days, I  far exceeded spending half of my time trying to get my “system” to do what I want it to. I  spent ALL OF IT. And was not done! And to make matters worse, quite a bit of my time was spent accommodating to having to “upgrade” software which, I didn’t want to do, because it will require me to modify useful habits I have acquired over time, and the changes will not improve my life—so far, quite the contrary. In my present mood, typewriters were pretty cool.

Following day note: My wife’s computer had lost its connection to the internet the day before in all the excitement. We initially thought it was because we had pulled something loose in the afore mentioned swarm of wiring which not only interconnects our computers, printers, and so on, but also allows us to participate in a beta test of Google Fiber and TV, all controllable from a pad and working through many black boxes. My credentials would seem to indicate that I should be better than average at screwing around with this kind of stuff, since I have been an engineer for 60 years, have used computers since they became available, and I guess was once a “rocket scientist”, since I worked on spacecraft at J.P.L.  If true, I have great sympathy for those who are only average and are in the same boat as I seem to be in.

Turned out it was a faulty power strip, now replaced and all systems are go, except that one of the external back-up drives seems to be balking.  I will now post this thing, call for help from a friend, Tim Keely, the world’s best IT person, who will know what is up with the external drive (no clue from its manual on the web), get back to the imported photo card, and then begin my periodic unsnarling of wires that seem to love to intertwine beneath desks and tables and behind sofas, bookcases, heavy chests of drawers, and other heavy objects. My world is not yet wireless.

And aren't computers supposed to serve us, rather than the opposite?

Edible Automobile Wiring - Homo Sapiens vs. Rodentia

My wife has a 2004 Acura TSX, which she loves greatly.  But maybe due to where we live (lots of greenery), maybe due to where she parks it, maybe due to changes in the environment, we have had a few sessions of rodent damage to the wiring, a couple of them worrisomely expensive.

Rats, mice, and squirrels love to nestle around or in cars, build nests, and chew on automobile wiring.  This has happened as long as I remember, but it used to be possible to see the damage, wrap some electrical tape around the bare copper, and get on with life.  No longer.  Wiring harnesses become increasingly complex as owners demand more and more electronic and electrical gadgets in their cars, so that the damage is often not visible, and can be found only by weird behavior on the part of engines, transmissions, lights, instruments, etc. etc. etc.  And as near as I can tell, wiring harnesses are installed early in the assembly process and are often buried within the body, so often even I, who pride myself on my ability to fix anything that is broken, have to rely upon mechanics who have the proper equipment and detailed knowledge. 

 Our last adventure took place a couple of weeks ago, and cost us a thousand dollars and a good bit of inconvenience.  My wife was parking the car in our carport, and it was not only protected from rain, but when she returned from driving it, the engine compartment was  warm and snug —a rodent’s dream. A new wiring harness was required.  The day after we brought the car home, there was a beautiful new nest and signs of more gnawing.  I was able to tape over the bare copper and destroy the nest, we moved the the car's parking spot (many rodents can remember how to find food spatially as well as by smell), and we sprayed one of the many available “rodent repellants” in the engine compartment and on the exposed wiring.  Most of these don’t work very well, and the next day it happened again.  Upon looking more carefully to see where the soft and clean nest material came from, we found that the source was a mat of uncovered insulation fastened to the front of the fire wall, probably to reduce noise.  What could be more convenient for our invaders?

 So, we went into full war mode, complete with deep research and many traps, poisons, bought and hand made potions, noisemakers, lights, and changing parking locations.  So far we are holding our own against the enemy.

One thing I learned, is that we are certainly not alone, although people seem to be a bit reluctant to talk about this problem.  Maybe they feel kind of stupid, as we did since we had been through it before. A check of the internet by putting something like “rodent damage to car wiring” in one's browser results in an explosion of outrage and advice.  As an example, look at this thread.  The people who are writing to it are probably nice gentle family folk, who have been driven to say things such as “I want these little f***ers to stop chewing the wires in my car. Ideally, this would be because they are dead, with their bleached skulls posted on stakes around the driveway as a warning to the next generation”. The thread shows an interesting contrast between people who love rodents (they are small, cute, and fun to watch —I even got my daughter a pair of white rats as pets when she was small) and have not had their wiring eaten, and those who have.

 Apparently some rodents have teeth that continually grow and they must gnaw to keep them in control.  Also, apparently some car wiring insulation is made of soy, and is very tasty to rats. But although there are many commercial products available, and much advise on what to do to your automobile and cute fuzzy animals that all of a sudden have become “pests”, the problem continues.

 Of course, being a simplistic engineer, I wonder why automobile manufacturers do not make cars with wiring that is repellent to rodents.  It would certainly make for good advertising, and if one manufacturer did so, the others would probably be pressured to follow.  Maybe rodent damage is a boon to the repair part of the automotive business.  And it probably would take a bit of research to figure out what to do, since looking at the ground squirrel population in the local hills, the tree squirrels leaping happily from branch to branch, and the amount of rat and mouse poop that builds up in unused, and especially warm nooks and crannies, the rodent population is wide spread, and in parts of the world, growing.  And probably rodents have been around longer than people and will continue to be here long after we are long gone.

 But I consider the appetizing nature of wiring to be a serious quality flaw in at least some automobiles.  I have always loved Honda (the mother of Acura) products, and in fact my wife’s car is fun to drive and a great success in all other aspects that are important to her.  But we have other vehicles around, and rodents seem to give them less attention, so this may be a factor for us in determining future purchases.  I asked my son who works at Tesla whether they were worrying about this problem, and he assured me that they were.

Bye Bye Tank

I recently sold a small British army tank I have had for some time.  To be formal, it was a British armored reconnaissance vehicle—CVR(T)— Scorpion.  It was classified as a light tank, built in the 1970’s, and at that time it held the speed record for the fastest production tank in the world (51.10 mph).  Photograph at left.

 I acquired this tank perhaps because I had never  owned one, and always thought it would be fun to drive one around, and because this one is light (9 tons – made of aluminum to be air-freighted), small (17 ft.long. 7 ft. wide, 7 ft. high) easy to work on, and equipped with all the bells and whistles available at the time  periscopes, lights, tools, antennas, lots of electronics, equipment boxes all over the place, and even a boiling vessel for making tea (British).  It is also fun to drive, being equipped with a Jaguar engine (I do know Jaguar engines), a centrifugal clutch, and a motorcycle-like foot gear shift.  And lest you worry, it was part of a collection and legally de- militarized (the cannon is not operable, the machine gun had obviously been removed – this is California).

 I also was probably influenced  to buy it because at the time I was on the board of the foundation that owned this collection, the largest private collection in the world of beautifully restored military tracked vehicles, which belonged to a man named Jacques Littlefield, one of my all-time favorite students.  The collection was a magnet for tours, kids, my students  (I taught a course on the historical relationship between technology and war), ex-tank crew people, and generally people who were interested in machinery and military history , and I finally could no longer fight the urge to own one. The collection, incidentally has joined the Collings Foundation headquartered in Stow, Massachussetts, which has an outstanding collection of vintage automobiles and aircraft.

 Other favorable factors were that Jacques  sold it to me for an excellent price, his people were a source of knowledge and extra parts, and my kids and grand kids thought that it was wondrous..  The only slight downside was that my good wife considered that it was symbolic of violence, and should not be in our yard, and might not even be welcome on the Stanford Campus.  So I located it  at my friend's farm up in the Sacramento valley, comfortably covered by a barn and surrounded by lots of dirt roads and open fields.

 But many years passed, my kids were no longer fascinated by it, I was not going to my friend’s farm as often and beginning to worry about it not being looked after, and then the major factor— I could barely get into it and move around any more.  So one of my friends (who took on the responsibility for finding a home for the big collection after Jacques died a few years ago), found a person who was looking for a tank like mine, and who would obviously give it an excellent  new home, so I sold it to him.

  The photo on the right shows it being packed ready to  go.  In a sense, I am glad I sold it, because I wasn’t really using it and don’t have to worry about it any more.  But it is the only one of my hobby machines I have sold—and it was the only tank I owned.  Maybe a little seller’s remorse.

 My wife is not unhappy at all.

 

 

The Adventure of Fixing

As I have told you in previous posts, I live in a wonderful 110 year old house (old for California) with original plumbing and wiring.  Since I do like to make, fix, and tinker with things, I apply this convenient urge to my house—convenient because most contemporary builders are used to being guided by modern codes, and 110 years ago, there were not such things.  Therefore my house is a giant puzzle, of great importance to Marian and me.

 Usually when “fixing” part of it, I go through a period of great frustration, and then extreme happiness when I succeed.  Is this some mental disease, that I enjoy pain because I know I will feel good when it stops?  Am I the possessor of some kind of masochistic personality disorder?   I do not worry, because it only applies when I am working on a very hard problem or am in a seriously annoying situation—and it feels so good when I escape.

 Minor example:  Our relatively ancient washing machine finally needed replacing, not only because too many parts were failing, but it was using an embarrassing amount of water, energy, etc, and not getting clothes very clean.  So we bought a new super-efficient one.  But as often happens to us, new appliances,  pieces of furniture, and other household objects are larger than the old ones, because new houses often have larger rooms in them , and people seem to like big things with lots of features (can you believe the ad here?—from MoMA, for God’s sake— only approximately $8,000—  click on the red version—tasty, huh?).  So I had to move the plumbing for the washing machine to a different location.

 The excitement of working with 110  year old steel pipe is that it thoroughly rusted, so that it is much more fragile than new pipe, and is usually rusted solid to things such as elbows, tees, couplings, shut-off valves, and other such devices.  When taking it apart, it may unscrew (good), or the pipe may break (bad).  In an old house, where the pipes wander randomly through the structure, a pipe that has twisted in two inside the structure can be very bad news.

 When I began to take the old pipe apart, I instantly found that it was thoroughly rusted together.  So I got a larger wrench and pulled harder.  I began with the valves, and sure enough, the nipples (short pieces of threaded pipe) twisted into pieces of rust, barely visible from the elbow that was next in line.  Since I could not get the wrench on the fragment of nipple,  I twisted the elbow, and sure enough, the longer pieces of pipe it connected to also twisted into two pieces.  I then followed one of the pipe assemblies further into the structure, becoming more and more worried, until finally one section cleanly unscrewed from the next—victory, I could put a new piece of pipe on it and rebuild the assembly as I wanted it to be.

 But the other pipe assembly was more resistant.  I became more and more depressed as I piled up pieces of rusted pipe, and as I began to have to work within wall structure.  I finally accepted the fact that I might have to do some major wall surgery, which might take days.  But just as I accepted defeat, A length of pipe not only unscrewed within the wall, but in a location where I could push a new piece into the into the wall and attached coupling and happily tighten it up.  Within a very few minutes I passed from utter defeat to complete victory.  That is one of the finest feelings available to the human (give or take minor things like sex, food, and good weather). 

 That was yesterday and I am still high today.  So the answer to “The Joy of  Fixing”, is dependent upon a high degree of challenge followed by success?  Not exactly a huge insight, and I certainly knew that from experience in everything from professional work to interpersonal relations, But somehow, I had never directly connected it to my love of doing things like repairing 110 year old plumbing.

Product Quality, Maintenance, Service, and Standardization

In his now classic paper “Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality”, Published in 1987 in the Harvard Business Review, David Garvin included serviceability as one of the critical eight.  This service must sometimes be performed by experts (the Boeing airliner), but often can be accomplished by the customer (oil level in a car, a bent prong on an electric plug, maybe replacing plumbing or getting a recalcitrant gas engine or your furnace to run).  People like me prefer servicing everything possible ourselves, for reasons ranging from economic to satisfaction.

 Products become more complex over time, as more features are added and technology becomes more sophisticated, and it seems to me that manufacturers are paying less attention to the owner’s ability to service the product.  The incentive for them to improve serviceability is offset by the profit to be made by being able to convince people to throw away the malfunctioning product and buy a new “upgrade” , and by the money to be made by the professional service people.  A clear example is Apple, whose products are very difficult to maintain, and who obviously don’t mind people taking their ailing equipment to the Apple store, so that Apple “geniuses” can try to sell them new equipment and while they are there, add-ons such as cool cases and new apps.

 But I am personally fed up with what appears to me a strong emphasis on designing for manufacturing (good), but less on owner service.  As a minor specific example, let me say a few words about the proliferation of nuts, bolts, and screws in the world.  We in the U.S. are somewhat guilty, since we insist on refusing to join the metric system, even though all nations except for Myanmar and Liberia have ( I think a wonderful example of U.S. arrogance ), and because of our major dependence  on  and participation in trade, have caused the world to use both systems, even though the metric system is far more straight forward and much easier to use. 

 But beyond that, although sizes and thread dimensions seem to be standardized, people continue to invent new geometries, and granted that many have advantages (especially in manufacturing), the tool requirements on the owner are getting ridiculous.  If you want to get an idea of the diversity in screws, nuts and bolts, run down the several pages of a table that might interest you here.

  The photo shows some of my own “standard” (slotted and Phillips head) screwdrivers.  Granted there is some duplication here, caused by defending against the normal response of borrowing but never getting around to returning screwdrivers, but due to modifications I have made on various ones to fit various odd screws, I use them all.  And of course I have a complete set of “Allen” hex (six sided)  wrenches (metric and U.S.) and a complete set of sockets and screw drivers for Torx screws (invented by the automobile industry but spreading widely).  But still I run into developments that amaze me, like the alternate screws developed by Apple to prevent “tampering” (which includes changing a battery,etc.)  The good news I suppose is that it opened up a new market for tools ( see the Amazon offerings here), and I have already participated by buying a battery kit over the internet, (but not without major resentment).  The bad news is that it is difficult for the average tinkerer to keep up with the tool requirements needed to use the expanding array of fasteners.

 So my plea to the manufacturers of the world is “Pay more attention to the ability of your customers to service your product”, because even the best of commercial service is an convenience and typically slow and expensive.  And my  plea to the rest of us to be more aware of the real cost (including resources and environmental damage) in throwing away a dishwasher because a new control panel plus a visit from a professional costs almost as much as a new one.

And there are many other reasons for making services simpler.  When I was younger my friends and I loved to “work on our cars”, and therefore were a natural market for well-used and cheaper ones, and came to love cars in general.    Nowadays, cars are much more difficult to “work on”.  Also the interest in cars among young people is plunging.  Suppose there is a correlation, auto manufacturers?  Kids don’t have as much money, but they are your hoped for future customers.

 

 

Swell new old tractor

As I told you in a previous post, I have been working on the restoration of a 1929 Caterpillar model ten
tractor.  The last photo I sent you is shown at the left.  At that point I had the the running gear working, and some of the parts painted, but  had removed the sheet metal to convince it that it should be flat and have fewer bumps in it. 

 This particular tractor had been painted grey with red trim when it left the factory.  But many old caterpillar products over time had been painted the familiar Caterpillar yellow.  In fact that had happened to this one, and much of the yellow and old grey had chipped off, as can be seen from the photo.  I removed the worst damage, sanded it, put a rust neutralizer on the spots that still showed rust, and returned it to grey. I also reworked or replaced several parts that were either missing or unsavable, and had the seats re-upholstered in official Caterpillar vinyl. 

 The model ten was the smallest tracked tractor that Caterpillar ever produced (the ten stands for ten horsepower), and is particularly fun to drive, since tracked tractors pretty much turn on their own length, and the ten is not that long.  If you are interested in details, it is approximately 100 inches long, 51 inches to the top of the seat back, and 52 inches wide, overall (37 inches between the centers of the treads).  It weighs approximately two tons.  As a contrast, the D-11, one of Caterpillars largest modern tractors, which is mainly used as a bull dozer in the mining industry and other applications requiring moving large quantities of dirt, is powered by a 770 horsepower engine and weighs approximately 100 tons with blade.  But one of them would not fit in my yard, and my Cat 10 will, although I will probably not get permission to keep it there because Marian believes (wrongly) that there is already too much machinery in her (as she sees it) garden. 

 In any case, the finished product is shown here (tin can temporary in case it ever rains in California) .  Needless to say, I am most pleased with it. It is particularly important to me because its previous owner was a wonderful man named Chuck Whitcher, who was a close friend and mentor in the old machinery line, and who recently died.  He had never gotten around to restoring this tractor, and I am proud to have done it for him.

 

Big Shows of Outstanding Products

I am a fan of huge shows —the kind that leave you sure that you haven’t seen everything  no matter how much time you spend.  I have been to many of them—the War and Peace Show and the Farnborough Air Show in England, the Tri State Gas Engine and Tractor show in Portland, Indiana, COMDEX, the AACA annual antique car show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the Iowa State Fair, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, and so on.

 But strangely enough, for years I have been neglecting one in my own back yard – the annual historic car races/show in Monterey California. Many people I know are regular attendees and participants, but they tend to possess rare and valuable show cars, and lots of money, so I figure it would be a playground for extreme show car snobs.

 But I was wrong.  It does have a few of them, but the very large attendance is mostly people like me (car fans, but drivers of several year old usually dirty Toyotas and such things). I do like cars. I grew up and lived in Southern California and  during the 1950’s and 60’s I was a fan of all sorts of automotive competitions, from oval track racing, to road racing, to destruction derbies, to drag racing. I have also put my time into “sports” cars.  I have owned 1956 Austin Healey, a 1960 Triumph TR3, a 1959 Porsche 356a, a 1975 Alfa Romeo Spider, and a 1970 E-type Jaguar. I bought them all used and needing a bit of work, and they were all fun. I still own the Alfa and the E-type (definitely not ready for Monterey), and put in my allotted time nursing them.  In fact both of them need work right now, so I will probably renew my intimate acquaintance with them in a week or two.  I must admit that I like to work on ailing cars, and cars like these give one the opportunity.

 If you like cars, and people who like cars, and can visit this event, it is well worth it, although you should be prepared to bite your lip when you pay the admission price (you need the "pit" pass).  I was motivated to attend the show by a friend/ex office partner/ex student, named Matt Ohline, who is a serious car buff, and always drives responsive machinery.  He has a wife, two kids, and a good job as an engineer, but no fortune that would enable him to own the cars he drools over.  He contacted me and invited me to be his guest at the show  and was clearly the best of all guides, since he attends each year.   I drooled with him.   Suffice it to say I will be there next year, because, guess what, when we left at the end of the day I felt that I had not seen everything.

 The photos in this post are of swell cars that were at the show.  The first one is Matt's choice for the most beautiful car in the world. The final one is a huge racing machine outfitted with a Hall Scott engine (also huge).  I was particularly interested, since I own one of the engines, which saw its original service in a fire truck.  I could build a ………………….. No Jim, don’t go there—just go to car shows with Matt.

Good Product: The Portable Pressure Washer

I have had a small portable pressure washer for many years, and finally completely wore it out.  I decided to try living without one, and soon realized it had become part of me. If you do not have one, these machines use a small gasoline engine (or electric if you prefer) and a pressure pump to propel  a relatively small stream of water at very  high speed, as opposed to that available from a garden hose nozzle.  The result is tremendously increased cleaning ability – a stream of water that can quickly cut through not only dirt and dust, but baked mud, flaking paint, hardened grease, and many other stubborn types of filth, using nothing but water (and a bit of detergent in case of stubborn resistance).  And not only that, as a good Californian I appreciate the fact that it does so with less water than I would waste with a hose, scrub brush, etc.

 I probably especially appreciate it because of my hobby of rescuing old machinery, because alternate approaches to cleaning keep me drenched in toxic liquids, depressed from endless scraping, and disappointed with the end result.  The photo below shows my new washer —nothing special— a sale at Lowes. 
  But it is even better than my old one and comes complete with four nozzles ranging from gentle to “don’t get your hand in the stream.  These are tools, not toys, and not to be used for water fights or cleaning the mud off of one’s bare feet.  The next photo shows most of the mechanical portion of my McCormick Daisy reaper restoration project, which I have mentioned in past posts.  Through its stay on a friend’s farm, it became covered with mud, clots of grease, dust, and leaves.  I timed how long it took to clean it until it sparkled again—under a minute— and it required less water than flushing a toilet or the amount of cold water that has to be run before the hot water appears in the upstairs shower of our 110 year old house (being also a Californian, my wife collects it, hauls it down stairs, and puts it on her garden.)

Homemade "Popsicles*", an Outstanding Product

My brother John is still growing fruit and vegetables on the remaining acres of the family farm in Rialto in Southern California.  In fact, he seems to be living on the last orange grove in an area that at one time was totally planted in citrus.  When I occasionally visit him, I always bring home a large amount of produce, in particular fresh oranges.  These are oranges straight off of the tree, and have a much different taste than oranges that have been processed for sale in grocery stores, and especially from concentrated frozen orange juice.   Having grown up on an orange grove, I obviously ate them and drank their juice in all known forms.  In the process I learned much about them, and am highly skilled at peeling them, segregating the parts without getting orange juice all over myself, and the gentle art of poking a hole through the rind with my finger and squeezing the orange to extract the juice.  In fact, I enjoy eating part of the peel when I eat one.  And I make frequent use of a high quality juicer (Philips).

 I seem to have a great liking of cold things to eat and drink—ice cream,  margaritas, “slushies” of various sorts, frozen fruits, gin and tonics, ice tea, sorbets, or just straight ice cubes, which to the horror of my wife (and dentist) I happily chew up when my drink is gone—a sin I inherited from my mother,  so it is in my gene pool, rather than a bad habit.

 When I was a kid, I loved popsicles, and the habit still exists, but now I make my own (simple because the world is full of “molds”, sticks, and other such equipment).  When I was a kid there was usually frozen fresh orange juice in an ice cube tray in the refrigerator, which I used to eat constantly, and even better, fresh orange juice popsicles —easy to make, given the many molds available in the world—just pour the juice into the mold and stick in the freezer. See photo below of a tacky plastic mold that produces “modern” ones with easily washable plastic stick complete with drip holders (useful for young grandchildren).   And above, of course, the final product above. And unlike many child-hood treats I have given up (cotton candy, cookie batter, licorice), I still make them –

 But part of the fun, if one likes icy things, is experimenting with the limitless numbers of flavors available by not only using varieties of juices fruits, and flavorings, but also reaching out to unlikely combinations.  Some have escaped me (chicken, salsa), some are difficult (chocolate), but I become even more challenged, rather than discouraged, and my failures can usually be melted, or even heated, leading to interesting taste experiences.

 If you are not addicted to this food form, I recommend it, especially in the summer in California.

 *Popsicle is probably a trade name, so I should probably be using “frozen juice on a stick” or something like that, but hey, having your trade name used generically is the big time.  Do you have a Kleenex?  Where can I Xerox this?  Who made your iPhone?  

Good Show and Challenging Task

I just returned from one of my favorite antique machinery shows—— The Oregon Steam up, held on the last weekend in July and the first weekend in August in Brooks, Oregon, north of Salem and South of Portland at Antique Powerland just off U.S. highway 5.  There are a very large number of such shows in the world each year, but this one is outstanding for the breadth of old machinery there and in operation, the well-done museums on the land (which are open during the year), and the swell and knowledgeable people who put it on, and who show and demonstrate their stuff.   For me, it is also of a nice scale and convenient because it is on the West Coast of the U.S. in one of my favorite states.  If you are interested in antique machinery you will especially enjoy this gathering, because of its emphasis on both steam and gas equipment and the in-place large engines, sawmill, etc. If  you are not interested in antique machinery you should be.  Don't you wish you had the vehicle in the photo above to go shopping in?

 But I had another reason for my visit.  Some years ago I began restoring a McCormick Daisy reaper, a machine that is in the American history books, and is fascinating to watch, as after it cuts the hay, it has arms that sweep it off of a deck onto the ground in piles, which can then be tied together and taken to the next stage of the harvesting process.  The six  arms can be controlled so that every arm sweeps the deck each pass, every other sweeps, every third arm, etc. My problem is that the very critical part that controls all of this is missing from my machine.  So I need to make one.

 There is one of the few complete Daisy reapers like mine that I know of at the Brooks show.  A photograph is below.   The part I need is sort of contained in the red outline in the photo below (apologies for the photo— the white blur at the bottom is my hand), although many weird curves and shapes are not visible.  The part includes the pivot. A complex curve hidden in the photo, the hook at the top, a curved rack of gear teeth that must engage the worm gear inside the main casting as the part turns upon its pivot, and a contact pad at the top of the rack.

I have several problems in re-creating it.  First of all, it is difficult to make, since it is a casting with no symmetry, no “parting lines” which would allow a mold to be separated, and critical and strange alignments between the parts which interact with the surrounding parts.

And, don’t say 3d printing —been there.  Three dimensional printing is not as easy as the media makes it seem, especially if scanning is involved,  and I want a steel part.  Sure I could make a mold from the part and cast it, but not surprisingly, the owner and museum were not eager to let me take the machine apart (also difficult) and take the part 400 miles away to use as a master while I copied it in my shop and Stanford’s foundry.  Had I been them, I would have felt the same.

 So I went to Brooks to take many photographs and make measurements (which I did) to work from.  Even with them, it will be a challenging job, as there were no base points on the part or machine to measure from, so I will have to cut and try and weld and curse until I get a prototype that will do the job, and then make a finished version from the prototype. But strangely enough, I love to do that sort of thing.

 I will write a post on the process and the finished part, but don’t hold your breath.  I am guessing several weeks, since my life is beautifully endowed with many other things to do, many higher on Marian's priority list than my making this part.

The Vanishing Machine Aesthetic

I really miss being able to see the details of machines.  Not only are they exciting, but often beautiful.  I am suspect, of course, being an engineer, but so be it.  When I was a kid, I used to love standing too close to steam powered railroad locomotives, not only for the emotional thrill of their size and sounds, but also to try to figure out how they worked (possible for a kid in those days).  I don’t stand too close to modern train locomotives, or in fact, even notice them.

 Something happened many years ago (1920’s and 30’s) to start us hiding the workings of machinery. 
The photo at the left shows a caterpillar 30, probably built in the 1920’s, with the usual kid playing on it.  The next photo shows a restored caterpillar 10 manufactured a few years later, but with a more “modern” approach to design.  Note that the workings are shrouded in sheet metal.  The third photo shows a beat up caterpillar 10 without the sheet metal (I am restoring it and straightening out the sheet metal).  To me, it is more interesting without the sheet metal, but I will put it back on so it doesn’t bother people.

The final tractor photo shows a caterpillar tractor manufactured in 1995.  Certainly looks faster (it is) and more powerful (it is) and more technically sophisticated (it is), but what is inside of its sports-car body panels?  Give or take a bunch of electronics and a steering wheel rather than clutch/brake levers, it is similar.  But I’ll bet the reaction of most people (not farmers) is not to care—they just like the exterior. (I do admit it is a great tractor and I like the exterior also).  But this tractor is perhaps more difficult to understand and to maintain than the Caterpillar 30, as well as not as much fun for kids to play on.

 

I think it is worrisome that we are no longer paying as much attention to how things work.  Personal computers are a good example —no clue as to what is in the package.  In fact, most of us are perhaps happier that way.  But the role technology is playing is increasing so that hiding it may delude us, especially if covered with modern marketing. The “Cloud”, being touted by companies with enormous server capability (Google, Apple, IBM, Amazon, etc.) is causing massive ignorance.  Traditional clouds are beautiful, especially close to sunset, the weightlessly drift through the sky, ever changing, and hopefully in California promise eventual much needed rain, and in summer cooler weather.  They are almost magic.

 The “Cloud” being sold by computer companies is another example of intentionally hiding technology that our society should better understand.  It consists of access to the company servers (not all servers), and is an attempt by the company to function as our digital memory and provide our operating systems, applications, and other software (conveniently allowing them to charge us a monthly fee).  This cloud consists of glass fibers and other conductors under ground, on the ocean floor, and occasionally in sewers, feeding massive number of digital devices in anonymous , windowless, extremely hot  buildings that suck  huge amounts of electrical energy not only to accomplish their function, but also to prevent themselves from overheating.  Some time ago I mentioned a book entitled Tubes, by Andrew Blum.  An excellent read if you think the “Cloud” is either beautiful or magic, or if you don't understand the physical components of the internet.

 What’s happened to us?  Many things, but the directions of technology and the strengthening of the design profession have certainly had large inputs.  The realization of the advantages of low-drag aircraft, beginning with the evolution of fighter planes and the design of airplanes such as the DC-3 in 1934 was certainly instrumental.  The photo at the right  shows a famous pencil sharpener prototype designed by one of the leading designers of the 1930’s, Raymond Loewy in 1933.  It never hit the market.  But granted that it would only sharpen one size of pencil, it does look like it could move through one’s office rapidly, and would have probably sold because of the then love of “streamlining”.  I have opened the hood of a few “luxury” cars only to find that the engine is almost entirely shrouded, although it represents a high level of craftsmanship.  And I can tell long and now amusing stories of putting a new battery into my admittedly sleek Apple iPhone.

 I am for unwrapping and better understanding how things work.  Not only is it interesting, but we can better evaluate what we are doing to ourselves.

 

Cyanoacrylate, CA, “Super Glue”, or Whatever. A Wonderful Product

Some people are dependent on alcohol, some on heroin, but I am addicted to cyanoacrylate (industrial nickname CA).  It has saved me huge amounts of time in my life, enabled me to impress my family and friends by my ability to perform instant repairs, allowed us to keep fragile items in our house within reach of children and then grandchildren, secure in the knowledge that I can fix them when they are broken, and been critical to various strange hobbies I have.

 It has been a part of my life since soon after it became available in the late 1950’s.  I first met CA while working in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.  It was sold by Eastman Kodak, where it was invented, and was called Eastman 910.  At JPL it was first used by the test engineers, who needed to rapidly place accelerometers on prototype spacecraft to measure the effects of simulated launch vibrations—these vibrations being perhaps the most severe portion of the launch environment.  Since CA adhesives in their pure form set in seconds, make strong bonds, and are immune to high temperatures and most solvents, they were perfect for attaching these accelerometers.  And conveniently, CA is not immune to acetone, which softens the set glue and allowed the accelerometers to be removed and attached elsewhere if desired.

 I first discovered CA as the result of a common prank played on new employees (those were the days of pranking, which I sorely miss).  Lubrication of mechanical components is always a problem in space, because most lubricants will “outgas”, and spread a thin layer of themselves on neighboring surfaces.  Not good, since such surfaces are critical for temperature control, and one would like the lubricants to stay where they are needed. Eastman 910 came in small bottles with a pouring spout, and the prank was to find an innocent engineer (me), tell them that there was this amazing new lubricant that would not outgas, and which was a superior lubricant to any others available.  “Try it”, the prankster would say. “Put a couple of drops on a finger, and rub it against another finger, and  you will be amazed”.  Amazed we were, because the fingers instantly glued together, and tightly enough that if not told about acetone, would have required slicing apart with a razor blade.  As you can see from the Wikipedia information here, one of the uses of CA is to glue skin together in cases of wounds, surgery, and other applications.  I later found out that in three or four days they could be separated even without acetone, but life is somewhat less convenient with two fingers glued together for even a short time.

 Although at this time, the glue was rare and expensive, it is now common and very affordable (a little goes a long way).  It is sold under various trade names, such as Super Glue and Krazy Glue, and often tricked up with other components so it can be marketed more easily.  But I am a purist, and stick to the straight stuff.  I usually buy it in the model section of hobby shops.  The small bottles (1/2 ounce) are often enough, since over time it is almost impossible to keep them from terminally plugging up.  It usually comes in three thicknesses.  The “thin” sets within a few seconds and makes the strongest bond if the joint is in good contact.  The “gap filling” is the middle one, takes longer to set, but does not require as tight a mechanical joint.  I never use the thickest version, which can handle even more “gap”, because part of the magic is the very rapid setting time, compared to other glues.  Clamping is rarely needed.  It is usually possible to apply the glue, hold the parts together a bit, and voila – mission accomplished.

 The skill, strangely enough, is to use it without gluing your fingers together, gluing parts to your fingers, getting it on your clothes or your best furniture, or otherwise losing control of the magic fluid.  But a few embarrassing accidents will help you learn.  One of my early ones resulted in my gluing a finger of each hand to a small pot that had broken into several pieces.  I was so intent in holding the pieces together I neglected to realize what was  happening.   I was working in the garage, but  looking around, I could see no acetone.  I remembered that my wife had finger-nail polish remover (acetone) in the house, so I went to find it.  But unknown to me, she had gone on an errand and locked the doors of the house.  Since the glue had set and the pot was repaired, I did not want to re-break it.  But ever try to get a full key ring out of the pocket of tight Levis with both hands glued to a pot?  No cell phones in those days, and even if there had been, at that point in my life I would have been reluctant to give my colleagues, friends,and  neighbors, the tasty story that hot-shot Ph.D. rocket scientist Adams had glued his hands to a pot.  Fortunately I was more agile in those days, got the key free without re-breaking the pot, opened the door, found the finger-nail polish remover, and managed to apply it to my attached fingers (and a bit on the floor and bathroom counter) before my wife returned.

 A professionally valuable result of my early exposure to CA, was that I became fascinated with glue, and how it works.  In fact, in retrospect I was becoming annoying at JPL, because I could see no reason why most of the spacecraft was not glued together, instead of using such archaic means as nuts and bolts, rivets, and welds.  The knowledge I acquired has served me in good stead all of my life.  Thank you, Eastman Kodak. 

 Incidentally, while you are in the hobby shop, buy yourself some 5 minute epoxy and hardener if you don’t have any.  Not as strong a joint as regular epoxy glue, but you probably don’t need that much strength, and 5 minutes is better than 5 hours. 

Bondo—An Old and Outstanding Product

Bondo, is a two component epoxy putty, originally developed in 1955 by Robert Spink, a car repairman in Florida.  Although it has changed in composition, it is still the foremost body putty used to repair irregularities in sheet metal auto body parts.  I first discovered it soon after it came on the market while involved in repairing minor damage to first my, and then my family cars.  It has a bad reputation with some people (a short cut and plastic), but certainly helps even out the surface after the sheet metal is pounded out to near its original shape.  Although there are many other epoxy based putties now, Bondo still holds its own.

 Since that time, I have found a multitude of uses for the material, from repairing damage to wooden porch floors in our 100 plus year old house, to stopping sewer leaks.  I sometimes think that the reason the Roman empire collapsed was because they did not have Bondo.

 But now I am worried a bit about the product.  The company was bought in 2007 by 3M, a large and successful company, that is using the Bondo brand on a variety of consumer products.  But I recently bought a new can of Bondo, and found that it was labeled as a “body repair kit”.  The kit part apparently refers not only to the body putty, but also a tiny (2 inch square) plastic applicator, and two so-called self adhesive patches made of a metal mesh.  I assume these are intended to bridge a hole in the sheet metal until enough Bond iss applied to seal the hole—but you don’t want to do that.  You want to weld, or at least rivet in, a metal patch and go from there.  And a two inch applicator?  The “kit” part was downright insulting. Bondo is obviously fishing for the DIY (Do It Yourself) market, but it takes a bit of experience to use Bondo well, and probably more than a two inch applicator.  I would suggest at least a reference on the can to one of the many excellent instruction videos on using Bondo available on Youtube . A fully set mishapen, lumpy mass of Bondo on his/her car would take the fun out of any DIYer's day (I incidentally am a veteran DIY person).

 And I noticed the can was not full —  hopefully not the grocery store game (keep the container size and the price, and cut the contents).  Maybe Bondo cans were never full, but I do not remember that being the case. The attached photo shows the freshly opened can, the crème hardener and the “patch” folded around the tiny applier.

 I also recently began using a wood filler now provided by Bondo, also a two component putty, that seems to set a bit softer, is more compatible with sanding and drilling, and can be stained to some extent.  But it sets at least as fast (3 to 5 minutes after mixing). On a car, Bondo’s fast setting time is a benefit, because usually one smears it onto the sanded sheet metal over a fairly large and reasonable even area. Then one planes it (with a so-called cheese grater) and sands it with increasingly fine paper as it sets until one gets the desired result. But in repairing wood, especially in a house, it is not always possible to place the mixed putty in the proper place and smooth it as one might want to in such a short time, since house repairs often require a bit of acrobatics and forcing the filler into  nooks, crannies, and crevices.  But hopefully the manufacturers will realize that car body repair and the repair of wood products are often two different things, and at least come up with an option of a slightly slower-setting wood filler— how about ten minutes instead of five?

I am praying for the continued high quality of Bondo products.  Hopefully, the long established reputation (brand) is not being  used mainly to rapidly improve the cash flow of 3M.  But marketing and potential quick profit have stolen the mind of many well meaning and venerable companies. 

 

 

When Most People Were Makers

I grew up in a time and place where people made and maintained a large amount of their stuff.  It was in the 1930’s, the depression was on, and I lived  on a small orange orchard in southern California.  In those days it was possible for a family to live off of the income from 10 or 20 acres of oranges, but there wasn’t much cash around.  But all people needed was enough cash to buy necessities they couldn’t grow, and there was no incentive to buy luxury cars, live in huge houses, or wear expensive clothes.  In fact, such things were considered in very poor taste.  And people were proud of their ability to make what they needed and fix it if it broke.

 I was born in my grandparent’s house, which my grandfather had built, and my grandmother decorated and maintained, in addition to cooking, making clothes, taking care of kids and other "traditional woman’s work".  This was before the massive shift in occupational expectations among women, and what she did was essential for the family, so although an extremely bright and strong woman, she seemed more than satisfied with her role. In addition to building the house, My grandfather also built a large garage/shop, a barn, and an auxiliary building for their occasionally exploding gas generator, and was also the area blacksmith.  And he planted ten acres of orange trees and installed the irrigation system. When they were first married my parents also lived in the house.

But after I became mobile as a small child, they clearly needed a house, so  they signed up my grandfather and built one.  I was allowed to think I was helping.  The photograph shows me doing so.  Note hammer, also note I am not actually working on the house structure.  It was a separate structure designed to keep me amused and out of the way.

 I recently was visiting this house, since my brother now lives in it, and was reminded of how much building and making stuff had occurred in that spot.  When I was six, it was decided that I needed my own room,  The photo below shows it newly constructed,  (again by the family), lived in by me, and outfitted by furniture (the desk,bed, shelves, drawer chest, and even the boat model) built by my mother.  She had become the family furniture maker. 

Toys were home built.  The next photo shows my brother as a kid and a horse he built (with a little help from mom).   And then she really took off as a maker and fixer.  Mom had always made her own clothes, and now branched out into clothes for all of us.  My father liked to fish, and I remember her making him a pair of waterproof hip boots from old tire inner tubes.  I became tall early, and could not keep my shirt tucked in.   She designed a shirt for me that did not need tucked in and made them for me until I was well into my forties, by which time I was adequately equipped.  They don’t wear out, and I still wear them.  The photo below is  a back view of one she made me from the sacks of the pulverized sulfur that was then used as a pesticide. Her shirts were not always flamboyant, but mostly were, and they were partly responsible for forming my  persona in high school—I needed a little more extroversion.

 And on it goes.  When I was in high school I built myself a swell bedroom/bathroom addition to our
house with my grandfather’s supervision, as well as helping him build other additions and upgrades,  When my grandfather died, I became family carpenter and maintenance person, and happily retained those positions when I married and became the owner of my own house, which I could radically improve. Also I went to college and studied engineering and spent enough time in industry and in my shop that I could build and maintain more sophisticated things.

 When my brother and I went off to college (a first in the family) Mom became a water colorist.  She took a few classes from an excellent water colorist (Robert Wood), loved them, and away she went.  The photo below is an example.  She became very good, and broke the family tradition by selling her work.  She won a number of awards (one from the California Historical Society for a series she did on old houses, several in art shows), all the while trying to hide from notoriety.

 My grandfather was a metal worker, carpenter, plasterer, concrete guy – the whole works. My father less so, and was more interested in farming and the orange business.  My grandmother was more into “traditional” tasks.  But on recently visiting the family house, I was again amazed by my mother's work.  She died only a few years ago, in the house at the age of 97,  from falling down while carrying a stack of her paintings down a stairs and breaking her neck – a fitting ending for her—quick, at home, and with her work.  She was a quiet and humble lady, but the breadth of her interests and abilities would be astounding these days.  And whether it was cooking, sewing, painting, making furniture, mending, working with concrete, fixing the sink,or teaching me to make model airplanes (from scratch), play the piano, or type, she was always trying to improve her work (and me). She was after quality. I think I was encouraged by my mother and her father to do the same.  But did I inherit something?  Was it nature or nurture?  Probably both.

 Whatever happened, as you know I am a believer in the importance of working with the hands.   I do it not to make money, but rather for pride and sense of accomplishment- and once in a while to keep from going nuts.  Except for Mom going commercial with her  paintings, the rest of my family, and most of the people I knew who were drawn to growing oranges in my home town were the same.  I miss that aspect in the area in which I live, where most (but not all) of my friends seem to tend toward buying things rather than making them, and hiring other people to maintain them and do their manual work. They seem to think that their time is too valuable to do such things. Perhaps this explains why even though I don’t want to grow crops, I am drawn to rural areas, where it is more common to see welding equipment in people’s garages.  They remind me of my early days when most people were makers, not because being a maker was cool, but rather because people could not afford to continually buy new stuff and making and fixing things and tinkering with them was satisfying.  In my opinion it still is.

 Incidentally,  I have given many talks, courses, etc. using the title “Making, Fixing, and Tinkering”, and am well into a book on the topic, so you will occasionally hear more about it in this blog. I am writing the book not only because I am a believer, but need something to defend myself against attacks from my friends who fervently believe I am wasting my time when I could be thinking or touring the world instead of tinkering.  Been there, and you have to think to write a book.

Do It Yourself

Within the last week I have done the following things, none of them important to society in general.

1 . Cleared out our kitchen sink drain  – a long and dirty job in our 100  year old house, equipped with iron pipe and many right angle bends that do not like snakes.  The coagulated grease, garbage disposal residue, and other miscellaneous material clogged about 12 feet of this. (plumber)

2.  Solved a tricky problem in my wife’s car – would not start even though battery would turn the engine over (mechanic).

3.  Repainted a number of yard chairs- even though they could have been cheaply replaced (painter)

4.  Re-potted some plants – I am in charge of all cactus in our garden (gardener).

5.  Re-wired the lighting in my shop (electrician)

6.  Worked on another tractor I am restoring – (lots of skills needed)

 The media has been making much of the DIY (do it yourself movement), and I am a living example of a long-time member.  I  have enough money to hire people to do all of the above-mentioned work and more.  And in fact, for most of my life people (including my wife) have suggested to me that I should do so, because that would give me more time to do what in their mind they think I should be doing.  But I won’t, until I become too old to do it (my wife some time ago revoked my roofing license after I slipped with no safety line and almost came off of the three-story part of our house— I couldn’t argue with that one.)

 I won’t (can’t?) because I was brought up to do such things and I get great pleasure from doing and having done them.  I grew up in an area of small farmers, who although not considering themselves poor, did not have much cash.  It was routine to make and fix most things themselves, including houses,  yards, equipment, and so on.  I learned much about doing so as a kid, and added to that with my education and career as an engineer and engineering teacher.  I have good hands, know how to use them, and somehow find rewards in doing so —even unplugging the sink, and in fact, perhaps the more difficult the job, the greater pleasure I get from doing it.  My wife has somewhat the same instincts.  She is the sole proprietor of a large and complex garden and has no interest in hiring help to take care of it—perhaps because the gardeners retained by all of our neighbors, seem to have been overcome by machinery, with the result that surrounding gardens seem to all look freshly blown and mowed, and very similar to each other. Ours seems to be the only house that has leaves under the trees —a natural and attractive phenomenon.

 So it is not the money.  It is the satisfaction of doing the job well and having it done.  My very influential grandmother said it very well:  people who have homes, (gardens, automobiles, etc.) who don’t take care of them themselves do not deserve them.  Unlike  my grandmother, I don’t judge other people, but it certainly applies to me, even though Marian points out the seemingly long time (to her) it takes me to get such work done. But she is not very familiar with the hassle and delay of hiring other people, and can’t quite appreciate the importance to me of doing such seemingly mundane things myself, especially when I want her to steady the ladder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Wonderful One Hoss Shays

Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote a poem entitled “The wonderful One Hoss Shay”, about a shay (buggy) belonging to a minister, that when it finally failed, completely fell apart — all parts broke at once.  It is here. It was given quite a bit of notice when I was in engineering school, because one goal of designing a good product is to ensure that it does not contain weak components that cause early failures.  The last stanza of the poem is the punch line.

 The challenge to minimize weak components in a product is a worthy one, and my experience is that it is not receiving enough attention these days.  As an example, I have had problems the past few years with actuators (the components that convert electrical signals to mechanical outputs) in my cars.  Due to emphasis on reliability in the 1980’s and 1990’s, manufacturers have done a good job on the drive train (engines, transmissions, etc.) and body.  But cars have acquired more and more remote and automatic features.  The integrated circuits and wiring harnesses are quite reliable (until rats, mice, or squirrels chew on the wiring insulation— a common occurrence).  But many of the features (electrically operated door locks, windows, trunk lids, climate control systems, etc.) must at some point turn the electrical signals into a movement, and here the problem seems to lie. 

 A common way to perform this function is through a solenoid, a device that uses an electro-magnet to do the needed work.  But the last Ford pickup I owned had so many solenoid failures, typically in actuators that were difficult to replace, that I bought a Toyota because I could get one with old fashioned mechanical window cranks, door handles, and other features.  So far, so good, but as I write this I am feeling pressure because the front door lock actuator on my wife’s beloved Acura TSX has failed.  Viewing the internet and talking to a mechanic friend, I find that is not unique. Looking at a photo of one, I am not surprised, because the exterior is a very complex plastic injection molding, and I would bet that inside there is a plastic gear or two that has simply worn out.  But to replace this, I will either have to order a replacement from the internet and spend several hours cursing and dropping fasteners inside the door where they are difficult to retrieve, or take the car to a mechanic and give them several hundred dollars for doing so. 

 I was perhaps overly trained when I worked at JPL, since there are no mechanics in interplanetary space, so failures of components before the mission is complete are very bad news to everyone except the media. So attention is paid to all components to ensure that they will not fail and compromise the mission.

 I know from briefly working in the automobile business that the major components of automobiles are thoroughly life-tested for reliability, and much attention is paid to the design and manufacturing quality of them.  But how about things like door lock actuators?  Or if for some reason (cost or whatever) they are of shorter average life, how about making them easier to replace?  Instructions on how to do almost anything are on the internet, but how about ensuring their quality in the case of diagnosing and replacing components of complicated products that are likely to fail?  And how about having nuts and screw heads visible like in the old days with some attention to allowing the use of traditional tools,  rather than special plastic body panel removers, Torx-head drivers, and custom clips?  Arms with extra joints and tiny hands would help also, if maintenance is not better considered in design. 

My Cup Runneth Over

I figure that I have enough projects to keep me happily busy until I am 150 years old.  But judging from my friends and my body, I may not live to be that old.  Clearly trying to complete them more rapidly doesn’t work, because I am becoming slower.  I am still moving reasonably well.  I am well into becoming better organized (my wife will snicker at this), becoming more embroiled in writing my mythical two books, and catching up on my reading (difficult because excellent new books seem to be coming out faster than I can read).  And I am moving along at restoring stuff .  The photos below show the before and after condition of the McCormick mower I mentioned in a previous post.  It is now working well and I am about to take it up to my son’s farm and let him test it with a couple of his huge horses.

The photos below show the before photo of the high-pressure water pump I included in my last post, and the finished restoration, ready to pump. 

But I am still acquiring outstanding old hardware faster than I can restore it. And the hardware I have restored drastically needs more attention.  And of course there is my growing family,  my old and needy house, my failure to succeed in completely cutting my ties with Stanford, and frequent assignments from Marian.

What to do, what to do?  I am going to devote the next post to a book entitled Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, by Sherry Turkle, one of my favorite authors (Basic Books, 2011).  I read this when it was released, but re-read it when I ran across it recently, and it spoke more directly to me now that I am further behind and my grandchildren are older.  Turkle is a psychologist on the M.I.T. faculty, and specializes in the interaction of technology and society.  This is the fifth book she has written during the “information revolution”, the previous ones being quite positive about computers, the internet, and so forth.  Fifteen years had passed since the last one when she wrote Alone Together, and her daughter was now in college.  This book discusses many worries about what the internet is doing to us and our children, and I will recommend it highly if you haven’t read it.

 In particular, it got me thinking about the increasing chunk of time my computer and the internet are requiring from me.  When I wrote my Good Products, Bad Products book, also released in 2011, my publisher talked me, an innocent, into entering the social networking scene in order to publicize the book.  With some reservations I joined Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in, and started this blog.  I enjoy writing this blog, because it makes me think, but have never really felt comfortable with the social networking sites, with the result that I have neither tried to increase the size of the pool of  people who I presumably interact with, nor have I done a good job of interacting with the people in the pool.

 And like many people, my e-mail has gotten out of hand.  I seem to be showing up on lists faster than I can make filters to stop it—probably partly because of my Stanford connection, the exploding number of overseas students looking for financial aid and admission to college in the U.S., an increase in technical meetings and consulting opportunities, and just plain marketing.

 So during the next week I am going to think hard about my interaction with the internet and digital communication in general.  Some years ago, Don Knuth, author of the set of classic book entitled “The Art of Computer Programming”, informed his friends that he was quitting e-mail, in order to have more time to think deeply and work on writing projects.  Since he is a god in the computer field, this attracted a lot of attention.  I am not a god, but I am feeling the same way right now, especially toward social networking.  I am fortunate in that I have a large number of real friends I love, and am not looking for cyber friends  or contacts.  And my computer is demanding an increasing and already far too much of my time.  I am certainly not alone in this feeling.  People are waking up to the downside of all of these digital miracles. More about this in my next blog.

 

A Very Good Day Indeed

 Today was a wonderful California spring day, despite the drought,  and in fact thanks to day light saving time and the month of April, it was a long one (sunrise at 6:29, sunset at 7:48).  Being Sunday, it began with Marian and my traditional religious service, performed by staying in bed reading the New York Times, drinking coffee, and eating coffee cake.  Upon finishing that, I decided to do something with a relatively small incredibly rusted high pressure water pump I had rescued from a junk pile a bit ago, and that was sitting on a hand truck in a place where I was sure I would receive encouragement soon to do something with it.  The photograph below shows it in its rusty splendor.

  The first thing I decided to do, was to take it apart.  But to my amazement (and pleasure), that required the entire day.  I have been reading a book I enjoy a lot entitled The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt, subtitled How the World Became Modern.  It is beautifully written (Pulitzer Prize) and is a wondrous combination of history, philosophy, and stimulating thinking (Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, and does not screw around—41 pages of notes and 26 pages of “selected” bibliography, all in fine print, of course).  So I got to think about stimulating concepts while I took apart my pump, and since a baby shower was occurring in the house (for a friend of our daughter’s, not us ) and males were not invited, I could stay outside and play all day, except for sneaking in and making myself lunch.

 The rusting on the pump was so advanced that I had to heat the “moving” parts of the pump to a red heat to get them to move, and the piston was stuck so thoroughly in the cylinder that I finally reverted to not only heat, but a small sledge hammer (not recommended practice, but I ran through all of the alternatives, and none worked).  Heating rusty joints is a powerful method of breaking them loose, since the metal expands, and the rust layer seems to weaken.  But if not carefully done, the process may result in them never coming loose, so I took my time on the project, and finally got the pump entirely apart just in time for dinner, which was outstanding because it consisted of left-over goodies from the shower, in particular crackers, dip, cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, and other types of health food.  I’ll send you a photo of the finished pump when I am done.

 Now I am catching up on my e-mail, and writing this post, and will soon return to bed and read more of  The Swerve. Looks  like tomorrow will be a beautiful day also.   Can’t hardly beat this.

Matthew B. Crawford, and the Issue of Manual Skills.

In 2006, Matthew Crawford, (equipped with a Ph.D. in philosophy, an obvious fan of working with his hands and proprietor of a small business of restoring/maintaining vintage motorcycles), wrote an essay entitled Shop Course as Soul Craft, which was published in Atlantis magazine.  A friend of mine, Dave Beach, (who has built and is responsible for a very successful and large activity in the Stanford Engineering School called the Product Realization Lab in which students design and manufacture products), and I found out about it and spread it all around the local community.  It covered the advantages of manual skills in life and the importance to individuals, schools, and organizations of encouraging them.  I am one of a large number of people who are believers, and who take great pride in their ability to make and fix things and I have seen the positive effects of doing such things on the lives of many other people.   I depend on such activities for keeping me from occasionally becoming less likeable from lack of quick feedback and an overdose of mental activities seemingly divorced from reality (yes I am a professor). Dave and I are also both believers, along with many other people, in the contribution of such activities to producing products of high quality.

 Crawford's "Shop Course" essay was later developed into a book of the same name, which made a large splash because it made its way to many people of like mind, and coincided with a time of much worry about the inroads computers were making into skilled jobs.  If you haven’t read the article or the book, you can find the article here.

 Now Crawford has written another book entitled World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, N.Y.).  This one is somewhat broader in reach, having to do with our mental attention in an age in which large numbers of individuals and organizations, backed by powerful media, are competing for for this attention, to the point where we may be paying a cost in individuality and in the ability to focus as well on our main interests.  His “Shop Class” book was broader in reach than his Atlantis article of the same name, and this book is broader still.  I read it and loved it, but it is a more difficult read.  Crawford is now a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, as well as being a fabricator of components for custom motorcycles, and I think he is showing the signs of immersion in an academic scene .  It is difficult for academics to write books that are easy to read, because in a university, life consists of communicating with people in similar disciplines and assuming they have similar backgrounds and familiarity with material—in this case philosophy.  The result is an understandable tendency to refer to people and works that the general reader has not met or read, nor will probably ever do so.  After 50 years of fighting this problem, I know it well.  I even run into it at home because I occasionally find myself trying to explain something that is interesting to me, like quantum computing or the working of make-and-break ignition systems or the physical portions of the internet to my wife, who is brilliant, but was trained as an historian, and seems to  have little need for techie jargon and details.

 But the message in Crawford’s book is straight forward and powerful.  He again makes an argument for hands-on contact with the world,  He begins with the attack upon our attention from all sides, from advertising to internet communications and seductive digital toys.  He then goes into the problems resulting from handling an overload of stimulation by seeing it in terms of broad representations and generalizations rather than reality (“the public”, “government”, “farmers”).  He talks about joint, or group attention, its importance, and the increasing difficulty of obtaining it.  He worries that we are  losing the “real”, by dealing with these generalities and stifling our true nature and individuality in the process.  He finishes the main portion of the book by presenting what he considers an example of good focus—an old and traditional pipe-organ company, in which people learn from the experience of others and gain their pleasure from attaining expertise in the building of their products. Once again, the shop. 

This book is especially timely since many college students now seem to be trying to stay in contact with an ever increasing quantity of people and changing information and are planning to start companies even though they are equipped with little experience and with a minimum of skills learned through practice.  Even some devotees of creativity seem to be swinging away from experience and the learning of skills. I wish them luck.  These are invaluable tools in life.

 If you are interested in things controversial and in modern trends, I recommend you read this book and that you discuss it with your friends, especially if you are neglecting hobbies or work you love that allow you to get your hands dirty.  Dirty hands for me seem to result in a cleaner mind.  I recommend them to all.

 

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia

My oldest son has some farm-land in the Sacramento valley in California.  He works at U.C. Davis and is very involved in sustainable agriculture.  He also grows vegetables a well as usual crops such as wheat, tomatoes, etc.  A year or so ago he acquired four work horses (Belgians – about a ton each) and set about integrating them into his farm.  It is close to the farm where I fiddle with old machinery, and yesterday I took a visiting friend up to check out the area.  Bob was spreading manure with his horses (who had produced it) and we stopped by to say hi and maybe give him a hand.  We could not stay long, but it was long enough to help him load a few loads into the manure spreader and ride around with him.

 My grandfather worked 20 acres of oranges with horses in Southern California jointly owned by my parents and grandparent  when I was a little boy,  but  I was so young I don’t really remember much about the horses. But visiting Bob with his horses made me remember much about farming when I was a kid.

 Work horses have some similarity to huge dogs.  They like to be scratched and petted and talked to, eat, and be around people.  But they have differences.  They have been bred to be unflappable, love to pull heavy loads, and are extremely well trained (they have to be, or the owner not only would have trouble doing his/her work, but would probably spend quite a bit of time recovering from bruises, broken bones, and other such inconveniences). 

 Of course the pace of horses is far slower than that of modern tractors. As a result, the pace of farming when I grew up was much slower and simpler than modern farming.  Not only do horses move more slowly, but horse drawn equipment is straight forward to understand and repair should it need it—no panic calls for the repair van.  And riding on the spreader behind the horses on a beautiful day was in many ways the opposite of working inside in a university.  Plenty of time to look at the scenery, think, listen to the birds, soak up the sunshine, and feel like something worthwhile was being accomplished. Although I was too young to become involved with my grandparent’s horses, I did get lots of chances to help spread  sweepings from Santa Anita racetrack stables onto the grove from the bed of the  family Ford Model B 1-1/2 ton truck.  Same thing – no critical deadline, no interruptions from one’s cell phone, no need to be highly visible in the world or have a great deal of money.

I certainly do not want to be a farmer, horses or not.  I fled the bucolic life as soon as I was able.  But I very much like farmland, farmers, and now work horses (although  I have no use at all for riding horses).  And it is interesting to me to recall how two families could at one time live off of 20 acres of citrus (a beautiful, fragrant, easy-to-raise crop that tasted good) when now 1000 acres is considered a small farm.  True, my parents and grandparents had little cash, shared one very used car, and were without such things as TV, computers, micro-wave ovens, air conditioning, and central heating. And since I did not live in town, I was not surrounded by people my age.  And I was definitely expected to do my chores.  But there were advantages to traditional country life, and I am glad my son can experience some of them. And I have to say, horse-drawn equipment was so simple and so well tested, that to me much of it is downright elegant. I finished restoring my McCormick mower (red machine in photo), and it is an example.

 

 

 

The Forklift—A Good Product

 When I began my hobby of restoring old equipment, I realized I needed to lift heavy parts and sub assemblies.  So  40 years ago or so I restored a 1950’s Clark Yardlift 40 forklift, which was free to me, since it belonged to a farmer friend, was not in running condition, and no longer had the performance he wanted.  It is a relatively small machine (capable of lifting a load of 2000 pounds ten feet in the air, tilting its forks over a range of 15 degrees, traveling 9 miles per hour forward or backwards, and weighing about 6000 pounds plus load.  Although it has inflatable tires up front, it is unhappy on rough or soft ground, and the forks have no sideways motion)

 But of course, like most fork lifts, it is extremely maneuverable, and since it is only 42 inches wide and 11 feet long with forks attached, it is consistent with my yard and other spaces where I work. It also has the advantage of being fueled by Propane, so it does not mind being unused for long periods of time.  When I want to use it, it reliably starts and does its thing.

 What do I use it for?  More and more as my wife and I age.  The photograph (taken by a fascinated neighbor) shows my wife at low elevation and I attacking our front hedge.  We hide behind ten foot tall hedges, which are a pain to trim from ladders.  However, with my wife on the pallet, along with a small generator and an electric clipper (in her capable hands), no mere hedge can slow us down.  Similarly I can carry anything weighing up to two tons wherever the forklift can go, and I can’t remember ever being able to lift two tons myself.  In fact, I can probably do more aided by my forklift now than when I could leap tall buildings with a single bound, but was trying to live without a forklift.  And, of course, it has unlimited kid-entertaining potential (see next two photos.

 Unfortunately, forklifts are considered an industrial product and not designed for people messing around in their yard.  And perhaps there are not that many people doing so any more.  But I would think there would be a market for a cheaper, lighter, yard model, at least for those of us who are aging but still like to move heavy loads around, trim smaller trees, and work on second stories of houses.  Of course, there are many boom lifts (cherry pickers etc.) used by painters, tree trimmers, utility people, and other “professionals”.  But they are expensive, limited in load lifting ability, and one can get into trouble lifting large loads too far from the base.  And worse yet, for people like me, it is very difficult to find one that is free because it is broken. (I am under pressure go find one again, since my foot slipped on the clutch in our last hedge trimming session, almost dumping my wife in the hedge – cherry pickers are controlled by the person in the air)

  So I consider my forklift, even thought it is now 60 years old,  an outstanding product, which has become a friend that helps me live the life I choose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Is About More Than Money

In the March 22 edition of the New York Times, there is an article entitled “Why Not Utopia”, by Mark Bittman . It is here. Much of the article is about the loss of jobs due to more and more work previously done by humans now being done by computers.  This is a message that has and is being made constantly these days.  Bittman goes further and hypothesizes that this adds to the increasing economic inequality that bothers us.  He finishes by suggesting we go to another economic system in which the robots work for “us” (by which he must mean those who are not wealthy).

 Granted, there are more employment problems coming, although probably more about the quality of work than the quantity, but while everyone seems to be worrying about the effects that the “information revolution” may have upon the economy, we seem to be forgetting that jobs are about more than money.  Jobs, are a chief source of satisfaction to many of us.  My wife and I have worked  to support ourselves  and our family, but in addition we have worked, and still do work for the satisfaction we get.  In fact much of the work we do now does not pay at all.

 There is still work in the world that is stultifying, and even painful.  Agricultural stoop labor is an example, especially for older people in hot weather.  Miners in many parts of the world must work bent over in dangerous conditions, and such work is an excellent opportunity for robots.  Some work requires constant repetition, and would drive one mad if done alone.  But I remember when I was young, oranges were packed for shipping by hand.  This involved a large space full of women grabbing the oranges from bins that were constantly being refilled, wrapping them with a couple flicks of the hands and fingers, and tucking them neatly into the shipping boxes. I used to watch them with awe, because of the speed with which they filled the boxes.  And they did it all day long, day after day.  One would think they would have gone crazy, but instead they seemed to be having a wonderful time telling bad jokes, gossiping, singing, whistling at me, and generally carrying on.  The packing had obviously become completely automatic, and the day became a large social gathering.

 I have held many jobs that contained elements of what might be called drudgery.  I grew up on a farm, and did the usual shoveling of dirt, hoeing of weeds, trimming of deadwood, smudging, and irrigating.  But it was necessary, and probably added to the pleasure of being surrounded by the growing crops.    

 When I was relatively young (probably 9 or 10), I had a job mowing the lawns in front of the orange packing house where my father worked and the fore mentioned women packed.  It happened to be on the main street of town. The mower was hand pushed, and the grass grew fast, so it was a fair amount of work, especially in the summer (no shade, Southern California) and took several hours.  The work was tedious and physically hard at my tender age, but I was fiercely proud of the results.  I would go out of my way to ride my bicycle past it and realize that those were “my” lawns looking beautiful for all the passers by.  Did I get paid?  I don’t even remember, but certainly not enough to be considered a fair wage —that was often the circumstance when I worked at something in which my Dad was involved. But later I have worked in oil fields and in machine shops, and built a barn and several additions to houses, and served a tour in the Air Force.  I found it all to be rewarding.

 I have also done hard mental work, as a student, an engineer, a professor, and a consultant and loved it.  Now that I am retired, I am still working on writing books and restoring antique heavy equipment.  The photo at the left is a classical McCormick horse drawn mower that is completely restored except for the pitman stick, which converts the circular motion of the crank wheel into the linear motion of the cutting teeth, and which I will build from scratch this weekend.  I began this project with an incomplete rusted, twisted wreck, and have done a lot of work straightening it out, making the missing parts, getting it to run, painting it, and so on.  I am not going to sell it, and even if I did I could not rationalize the time I have put into it from the profit.  But I very much enjoy the process and the result.  I am proud of having the skill it takes to do such things and enjoyed learning about McCormick, reapers, and related subjects. A hobby?  Maybe but it causes me to sweat a lot.

 My wife is fortunately also a fan of working.  After her Stanford career, she started a consulting company. She is now doing research and writing books on historic houses at Stanford and on her family.  She is also taking an enormous number of continuing education classes at Stanford, and doing all of the assigned work even though she is not taking them for credit.   I am also working on a couple of books, and if you think writing books is not work, try one.  She also does all of the work in her larger-than-necessary  garden  and I repair everything that breaks in our 100 year old house. We must love working, because we have enough money to hire help to do such things—of course they would not do as good a job as we do.

 So as to Mr. Bittman’s article, digital equipment will continue to take over work that has previously been done by humans, and I say good riddance to work that is not somehow satisfying, but I do not want digital equipment to do things for me that I enjoy, and challenging and stimulating work is one of them.  When all automobiles are autonomous, I will be proud of converting one to manual drive (myself) and being ticketed for driving it. Finally I will be able to be a curmudgeon.

 

Life and the Distractions of Technology

In 2006, Matthew Crawford wrote an article in the New Atlantis magazine entitled “Shopcraft as Soulcraft”.  It is here.  My friends and I who are believers in the benefits, if not necessity, of working with the hands on tangible objects, loved it.  He followed with a book of the same title in 2008.  I have never met him, but think I should because I have been working on a similar book (working title Making, Fixing, and Tinkering) for several years. I am far from a full time writer— partly due to necessary hobbies involving working with my hands— so I don’t know when I will finish.  But I have suspected since I saw his original article in the New Atlantis that we think along similar lines.

 Now I am sure of it, because I just encountered an article he wrote in the Sunday Review Section of the March 8, 2015 edition of the New York Times entitled “The Cost of Paying Attention”.  The article was based on another book of his that is forthcoming entitled The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction.  The article from The New Atlantis is here.   I am excited about reading the book when it appears, and will comment on it in a future post.

 The article in the Times has to do with the constant distractions we have from such things as television, print, digital devices, and marketeers.  He uses the example of the difference in feelings and ability to think or focus on specific activities in the lounges associated with upper class flying, and the general waiting areas, which are papered with advertisements and filled with noise and other distractions.  His final short paragraph summarizes his thoughts: “I think we need to sharpen the conceptually murky right to privacy by supplementing it with a right not to be addressed.  This would apply not, of course, to those who address me face to face as individuals, but to those who never show their faces, and treat my mind as a resource to be harvested”

 To me, an example of distraction is social networking..  When I retired from active professoring in 1999, the internet and mobile phones and computers were not nearly as central to life on the campus.  But realizing that I was not yet dead two or three years ago, I figured that I had better catch up to our culture, and that social networking was a part of it.  So I joined Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in.  I linked to a few close friends, and was immediately overwhelmed.  I had not realized the capability of  these “services” to find people I knew in the world and harangue me about linking to them.  Neither did I realize the number of people I did not know in the world who wanted to link to me for reasons of possible employment, support for graduate study, a source of contacts, or simply to better brag about their number of “friends”. 

I enjoy writing posts to this blog, and sending it to a relatively small number of people by way of twitter and facebook, because it keeps me thinking about issues in which I am interested.  But I do an embarrassingly poor job of responding to comments, adding information to my sites,  accepting new “friends” and “contacts”, or otherwise following the etiquette of being linked to hundreds of thousands of people.  I am impressed with people who do so, although at some point it seems to require an assistant, if not a staff to keep up with all of this communication.  But I have more rewarding projects to do than I will ever finish, am constantly finding new activities that are rewarding, and I certainly don’t want an assistant or staff. Social networking, although seductive, I consider to be an attention pirate. And even e-mail has joined the list.  I seem to be spending more time making filters to trash information I don’t want than I do dealing with messages of value to me.

 Advertising is another evil.  There are of course the ads that interrupt TV programs, and the pop-up ads on the internet.  And I should apologize to the New York Times, because a couple of weeks ago I wrote a gentle rant against their “new” format for the Sunday magazine.  I could not stand it.  It was mostly advertisements for the usual luxury goods, and almost impossible to read because of out of control graphics —distractions.  To my amazement and delight, the very next issue had moved back toward its traditional format —back to a reasonable weight, articles whose continuation could be reasonably easy to find, graphics that did not disrupt the flow, and a reasonable amount of advertisement.  Perhaps the New York Times was simply making a quick chunk of money by selling ad space to the people who usually advertise in their ridiculously thick supplements on such things as Fashion and Travel, which consist most of ads.  Hopefully they were influenced by a large number of readers like my wife and I (and friends) who were thinking of canceling their subscription because of the issue that contained their “new” magazine format. 

 And what’s with grocery stores?  Next time you enter a “super market” pay careful attention to the advertisements.  The good news, is that your mind will soon refuse to do so.  The bad news is that if it did not, you would undoubtedly run into a shopping cart containing a couple of babies and being pushed by a shopper on their smart phone, either communicating with their spouse on what to buy or texting their friends, and end up in a hassle. 

 I am eagerly waiting for Matthew Crawford’s new book. Meanwhile I will re-think my interaction with social networking.

The Perfect Gift —An Old Rusty Tractor

The photograph  shows another project that will keep me from getting in trouble.  It is a model K 20 Cletrac tractor, probably manufactured about 1930.  It was given to me by the family of one of my best friends, Chuck Whitcher, described here,  who originally hooked me on the hobby of restoring old farm machinery, and who sadly recently died.  Chuck had wanted to give it to me but I resisted because my cup is overflowing with projects of this sort. 

However, I finally could not resist it, because it so perfectly fulfilled my requirements, such as:

1. I have had no hands-on experience with Cletracs, a very successful run of machines made by the Cleveland Tractor company.  I grew up around Caterpillar tractors, and my oldest son and I have several older models.  But Cletracs have fanatic and organized fans and fan clubs, and the owners of them delight in pointing out the advantages of them over Caterpillars of the same age. Obviously a chance to learn something here.
2. It is in my favorite condition – completely, but not terminally rusted, seemingly complete, and although not running, and probably not run for many many years, boasts an engine that with a large amount of effort, can be turned with the crank.
3. In its present state has low value (except to me), and therefore I can happily accept it as a gift.
4. It has that “Cletrac” look, from its Snoopy-doghouse engine compartment to its steering wheel (can you believe a steering wheel for a track layer?).  Also lots of track wheels, which will help make up for the local loss of Jacque Littlefield’s tank collection.
5.  In restoring it, I will meet large numbers of very likable people, who are not only owners and restorers of these machines, but know the way to replacement parts, if necessary.
6. It was owned by Chuck who was both a wonderful man and a mentor of mine.

The photograph to the left gives an indication of its present patina, and I plan to give the tractor special treatment to preserve it.  Ordinarily, I tend to de-rust old machines and paint them in original colors.  For this one, I will get it  running well, figure out how to smooth out the rust, and give it some kind of coating to retain it. I want it to be proud of its age, just as I hope Chuck was when he died at the age of 91. 

Minimalism,Organization, and Stuff

I seem to have become the home maintenance person for not only my own home, but for several of my friends and neighbors.  I also have several hobbies that require large amounts of materials and numbers of tools (new restoration project in photo at left).  To make matters worse, I grew up in a small-farm area at a time when the “great depression” had removed the little cash that was around, and was firmly taught that one never ever even considered throwing anything away that might have some use in the future, even if that use required modification.  So I have a lot of stuff.

 I often get subtle and well meaning advise from people who love me that I should have less stuff, and that I would  profit from better “organizing” it.  I thank them, but I am happy with my stuff, and “organization” varies from person to person.  I have probably mentioned my favorite theory which states that there are at least three approaches to organizing—by subject (what is it?), date (when did it happen?), or spatial (where is it?).  I am a spatial type, but “what is it” (filing cabinets, labeled boxes) people seem to dominate, especially if their stuff is not visible to the eye.  There are even consultants who help their clients dispose of stuff, and I am happy for them if they are successful, but they are not welcome in my life.

 This photograph shows the radial arm saw in my shop.  Notice that the table for the saw is clean.  That is necessary.  But the space behind the wall and the wall itself are simply full of things such as tools, tape, etc.  People who approach situations such as this by such things as painting outlines on the wall with hooks placed so that the tool, or whatever, can be placed on the outline think I  could improve the organiztion of my shop.  I thank that is admirable.   But this is my shop, and I don’t want to  take the time to place the tool exactly where its outline is.  I just want to get it off the table, and  hanging it on a nail is easy,  and I can find it rapidly because I can see it.

 This approach of being able to see stuff does perhaps require more space than if it is put into labeled boxes (drawers, etc) that are stacked.  But a tiny bit of thinking can help with this problem.  Take plumbing fixtures and associated pipes,
hoses, etc.  Since my house, and its sizeable yard, are equipped with 100 year old plumbing and wiring that tend to like frequent repairing, and since I mess around with old steam engines, orchard sprayers, and such, I have lots of pipe fittings and related objects around.  So I have taken to storing them by temporarily putting them together into hopefully interesting combinations and finding various places to keep them.  When I want something, I can instantly see what I want, remove it, and put it to use.  A few photos at right and below show some of these, which tend to be in corners either in my home office, my Stanford office, my basement, or my yard.

The final one, with the hoses attached, is my favorite.  It is in my yard, and almost always stops people who are walking around the yard, so that they can try to figure out its function and how it works.  It’s function, of course, is to act as a place for me to store pipe and hose fittings.  That’s all it does.

I  have found that I can smuggle great amounts of stuff into my house yard, and shop in a way that causes many people (including me) to think that it is “interesting”, instead of thinking I should either get rid of it or put it in a box. If you need/like large quantities of objects,and people you  love are bothered by that , keep them off balance by making the objects more “interesting”.  One person who loves me is Marian, my wife.  She also loves to make mobiles.  I am subtly encouraging her to make mobiles from some of my stuff.  Then it will hang around, be considered art, and I can cannibalize her mobiles if I need it  (although I may have blown my campaign if she reads this post). 

 

 

 

Good Product - The Cheap, Frozen, Thanksgiving Turkey

We are fortunate in having our children and grandchildren within easy driving distance.  Every couple of years, we host them all for Thanksgiving dinner.  But that gives us a minimum of eighteen people, ranging in age from three to eighty, plus usually a couple of parents or other relatives of some of them.  This year the total was twenty-one.

 Thanksgiving dinner is important to me, perhaps partly because it was a big deal in my own family when I was growing up, partly because it is an excuse to expend the necessary effort to get everyone together, and partly because it is an excuse to eat and drink far too much.

 Fortunately all adult members of our family can and do cook, a couple of them compete at making pies,  and all of them bring side dishes, wine, and such things.  My wife Marian is responsible for logistics (seating, settings, tableware, etc.) and is the vegetable person and I am the turkey and potato man.  I guess I acquired these responsibilities because I really like traditional Thanksgiving dinners, and when I was a graduate student, living with four others and taking turns doing the cooking, I snuck Thanksgiving dinner into the menu often, and have been cooking turkeys ever since, so I have a lot of experience with them.  Potatoes, of course, are a snap.  But nowadays so are turkeys, if you ignore all of the recipes in the magazines that precede thanksgiving and realize your job is to get the food on the table, hot and tasting good, and don’t follow the rules for gourmet cooking and healthy diet.  After all, Thanksgiving comes but once a year

 When I was young, people would raise a turkey or two for eating purposes.  They would now qualify as free-range and organic, but they tended to be tough, with little if any white meat, and with unpredictable cooking time requirements (they were also, incidentally, incredibly stupid, noisy, and generally unattractive).  Dinner was ready when the bird was ready.  Over the years, turkeys have been selectively bred to have more meat, be more tender, and have predictable cooking requirements and taste.  The ones sold frozen in grocery stores probably live short and terrible lives before they are killed, eat non-organic food, are filled with evil drugs, and so-on.  But they are standardized birds, even to their weight and price.  And before thanksgiving the prices are unbelievably low.

 I like the cheap ones not only because they are cheap, but because they have less flavoring stuff and unknown liquids injected into them.  And why do I like frozen ones?  Simply because I have had three experiences when the “ fresh “ ones I bought were spoiled, and I spent Thanksgiving morning trying to find a good one.

 Cooking Thanksgiving turkeys for our family now requires buying a couple of 25 pound birds (the family eats one, but my wife and I like leftovers),  letting them sit for two or three days on the washing machine in our unheated porch to thaw, stuffing them (an unprecedented opportunity to get rid of things such as stale bread, over-the hill apples, non-fresh nuts and so on), putting them in the pan, smearing some oil on them, finding a neighbor that will be out of town (we only, have one oven), putting the birds in the ovens, and waiting for slightly less than the recommended time (recipes involving meat always call for too much cooking these days because providers are afraid of being sued for e-coli or something).  It is necessary at some point to remove the giblets and put the yams in the oven.  And if you want you can do more chef-like things like basting them and cooking them until the legs feel loose.  But otherwise one is free to mingle with the guests, play with the kids, drink wine,  relax, and be assured that the turkeys will be done when you want them to be and taste swell.

There are good aspects to industrial farming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Projects, Working with the Hands, and Happiness

I have occasionally extolled the many virtues of working with the hands, so what am I up to now?  I am still working on restoring my vintage (1920’s) John Bean orchard sprayer. It has been a challenging project, because it required rebuilding a rotten wooden tank and providing it with a missing cover and other pieces of hardware, re-building the engine, a great deal of straightening bent pieces of metal and fabricating missing ones,  and de-rusting parts and painting.  Fortunately, I had previously re-built the pump, not knowing that a friend would someday give me the wagon, the tank, and various other rusty, but essential pieces..  I also had the engine on hand, but it is still not ready to run.  At one point a valve had stuck so thoroughly that the rocker arm that actuated it had broken.  And the wondrously novel carburetor still needs re-building.  But other than that it is in good shape, as can be seen from the third photo below.

 I love doing stuff like this, and this project is coming along well.  There is a good bit of plumbing and building of new parts remaining, and I have a ridiculous number of other projects under way, but the sprayer will be ready to go by spring.  And if it is not, I don’t have an orchard anyway.

 The photos below show the tank and the front of the machine as of now, (the truck in the background is a reasonably preserved 1955 Peterbilt, and is next in line), Marian,  my ever supportive wife (as long as I don’t neglect things she wants me to do) standing in the back of the rig, and the engine and pump.  The fourth photo is the engine before I began working on it, as evidence that it needed a bit of work.

Not only is the restoration satisfying, but it reminds me of the past, since a few of these machines were still in use when I was a little kid.  On taking the partly-rotten tank apart, I found that the inside surfaces were covered with a strange white material that had worked its way into the wood.  My first reaction was to go over them with a belt sander.  But fortunately I realized that pesticides in those days (before regulations) contained such things as arsenic, strychnine, and what were then called mercury salts, — a  timely realization, because undoubtedly I would have sanded them sans mask.  But maybe I have an immunity, because when we kids got too close to the rig, the men doing the spraying (this was before the feminist movement) would spray us.

The Oxy-Acetylene Tank Set

Welding with oxygen and acetylene gas (the fuel) has been around for many years—at least since 1903, when two French engineers, Edmond Fouche and Charles Picard, put their name on it. By using pure oxygen rather than air the flame burns at a high temperature (about 3,500 F) and easily melts common metals such as steel and aluminum. Welding is typically done by causing the two pieces of metal to melt and feeding the resulting “puddle” with a “filler rod”. 

 Before oxy-acetylene welding, metal was welded by heating in a forge and then pounding the two pieces together. But oxy-acetylene provided a much more convenient and controllable way to weld metal.  Of course, any temperature hot enough to melt steel can be used to braze and solder, and by increasing the oxygen pressure (it is usually about twice the acetylene pressure) steel can be easily cut.

 I like to weld, and was taught to weld both with oxy-acetylene, and with an arc, or stick welder.  In this form of welding, a consumable electrode of metal is used to strike an arc with the metal to be welded.  The material from the melting electrode combines with the molten area on the material to form the weld.  Stick welding is used in situations where larger amounts of material are to be involved and electricity of the proper voltage is available.

 Now there are more sophisticated approaches to welding.   Tungsten intert gas, or TIG, uses a non-consumable tungsten electrode to draw an arc and melt the metal and a filler rod, and an inert gas atmosphere is used locally to prevent oxidation of the metal.  TIG units have a foot pedal to vary the voltage of the current, making for much closer control.  And there is MIG (metal inert gas) in which the consumable electrode in wire form is automatically fed into the weld at a chosen speed and voltage.  This can be done in an inert gas or with a flux included in the wire.

 And there are many more. I must admit I usually use TIG and MIG equipment rather than oxy-acetlyene, but my trusty oxy-acetylene tank set, consisting of the two tanks of gas with pressure regulators, a double hose to conduct them to the torch, and miscellaneous tips, lighters, goggles, etc. (see photo)  still gets a great deal of use.  For one thing, I love it, because it is the first kind of welding I ever did, and is extremely flexible.  But also it can be used for endless purposes other than welding, brazing, and soldering— from heating rusty nuts and bolts so that they will unscrew, to re-warming coffee, to removing stubborn paint, to partially burning new wood to make it match older wood, to melting a large number of materials other than metal, to showing off for my grandchildren and repairing things for my wife. 

I also like it because to me, fire is endlessly fascinating.  Why should combining two gases, one of which we need for life (oxygen), and one which comes from dropping calcium oxide into water (acetylene) and lighting the mixture cause such a hot flame? And unlike electric welding (and  heating), such things as extension cords and generators are not required.  It is just you and the fire performing miracles. The oxy-acetyline welding set is an old, but still high quality product.

Musings on Historians, Collectors, Acquirers, and Tinkerers

 I have always liked old things, especially mechanical ones, especially if I find them in an unappreciated, neglected state, covered with rust and missing a few pieces, and if I have had personal experience with them in my life. Repairing them, de-rusting them, perhaps painting them,and getting them running again is one of my major hobbies.   The photo shows a 1920’s orchard sprayer I am restoring to health.  A friend of mine gave me the wagon and tank and a number of components that were in bad shape (see the  photo below, which shows a surge tank with rust).  I happened to have the proper pump which I had restored, shown on the left photo along with the restored surge tank.  I also had the proper engine, although as can be seen from the photo below,it has not yet been restored.  I have de-rusted and painted the main chassis and rebuilt the main wooden tank, which contained boards which were warped and rotten, and am working on the sprayer’s many other components.

As a result of this hobby, I am usually surrounded by such things and the tools necessary to do the work, and my house and yard, are replete with the results, many of which have overflowed to a friends farm. I laugh when I see the many articles about simplifying life by getting rid of stuff, usually featuring a person who acts as a paid consultant to help people do so.   I love my stuff, and usually assume that these consultants are simply obsessive-compulsive people who have figured out a way to make money by spreading their neat-freak approach to life.

 But am I an historian?  Definitely not.  I read what I can about these devices, their application, and the people who make and use them, but as one of my historian friends gently told me, “historians work from original sources—you are an antiquarian”.  My answer, was “why should I spend time looking for original sources, because historians turn them into books, that organize the material and present it in a more easily readable form?”.  I prefer reading books under a tree with a beer in my hand than searching through archives and stacks of papers to find what I want.  My wife, incidentally, was born and trained as an historian and loves to do such things.  She agrees I am not one.

 Collectors are often historians.  I consider myself an acquirer, rather than a collector.  I have veered in that direction a few times, but seem to always become sidetracked by a new interest.  Leo Keoshian, a retired hand surgeon and my friend who gave me the parts for the orchard sprayer does qualify as a collector, because for many years he has collected and restored vintage vehicles (Ferraris, Bugattis, etc.) and agricultural equipment. He leans in the direction of historian.  He learns everything he can not only about the products, but the people involved, the environment in which they were used, and so on. Once I accompanied him on a cross country trip  which he was making to pick up a small rare tractor on the East coast,  and he insisted we go  out of our way to pass through Cleveland Ohio, because the archives of the Cleveland Tractor Company, which at one time had made the one we were trailering, was there.  He happily spent the day in the archives, while I happily checked out the town. But Leo lacks one attribute of most of the historians I know —he doesn’t write books.

 Another person in the area, who is also a collector (see photo in his shop below) and also a historian of old machinery  is Jack Alexander, who lives close to me in Gilroy, Californa.  He is an  engineer who retired from Lockheed, and does write  heavily researched books about old machinery and the people who produced and used it. He has mastered the full range of historian, collector, acquirer, and thinker.

 I simply acquire things I am drawn to and want to work on, although in the process of working on them I learn a great deal about their background and the people and companies who were involved. 

The photo below was taken in  my back yard and shows a bit of agricultural eqipment.  Even though I know a lot about these beautiful things that I saved from death, ( perhaps more beautiful to me than to my gardener wife who might prefer plants),  I guess one of my main joys has always been not only being involved with designing and building machines but also tinkering with sick ones—diagnosing their  problem, making them the necessary  parts, restoring them to health, and painting them to reflect their past glory.  Perhaps necessary therapy to offset the years I have spent as a professor, during which the expectation was that I would use my head rather than my hands. To me, the key to happiness is to use both.

 

 

Doing vs. Watching

The Sunday edition of the New York Times usually has rather ho-hum articles on the front page, because they are probably prepared ahead of time so that the staff gets some break in their lives.  Predictably yesterday’s edition had an article about Congress, one about ISIS, one about gambling, and one about medicine.  But the main article definitely got me thinking.  The title was “Virtual Games Draw Real Crowds and Big Money”, by Nick Winfield.  I must admit I was oblivious to this major movement.  Turns out huge crowds are turning out to watch champion gamers compete on big screens—11,000 people filling Seattle’s basketball arena, 40,000 expected at a championship to be held in Korea.  And there is the TV audience—apparently more than 70 million people in the world watch “e-sports”, as gaming competitions are called.  A championship tournament last year attracted 8.5 million simultaneous viewers. As the article pointed out, this was the same number of viewers that watched the deciding game of the Stanley cup finals in hockey.  Prizes are large and celebrity awaits the champions.  Businesses are climbing on these events for advertising and sniffing profits.  If you haven’t been following this development, the article is here.

 I am familiar with the draw of computer games, since I have a step son who has spent years at Electronic Arts and grand kids who indeed love them. But strangely enough, I don’t seem to be attracted to them.  I like reality rather than virtuality.  I guess I am an extreme do-it-yourselfer.  I would rather do things poorly than watch others do them extremely well.  I  liked to play sports, even though I was never that good, more than watching the “pros”. I would rather make and repair things adequately rather than hire people who would do such things more rapidly, and perhaps better. And as a further complication, I prefer the outdoors to the indoors—odd for a professor.

 The N.Y.Times article discusses a champion gamer named Peter Dager and his environment as follows: “When not competing in front of thousands of people, Mr. Drager works from his childhood bedroom in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  At the small desk in the corner sit the tools of his trade, a computer with two displays, a webcam, a keyboard, and a mouse”  That is definitely not me.  My hobby of rescuing unloved heavy machinery requires much of my yard at home, a bit of a friend’s farm (barn and open space), piles of swell tools and materials,  loud cursing, forklifts, and such things as sunburn lotion, mosquito repellant, and occasional bandages.  I am starting to realize that my friends and I who do similar things are perhaps a vanishing species, but I like us. 

 I have always wanted a full life of various experiences, good friends, and accomplishments I could look back on with pride.  Oddly enough, although competitive, I have never wanted to be the best in the world at anything.  I look back happily at the way I have spent my time.  Dilletante?  Perhaps.  But the Times article has a short quote from Mr. Drager on how he reached the pinnacle of gaming: “What most people lack, he said, is a singular focus on games, a willingness to clear away all other distractions”.  Later—“I, and many players like me, sacrificed everything. We gave up on sports and friends and school just so that we can play more”.  Mr. Drager is apparently headed toward an income of $200,000 a year, but like most parents, his father wishes he would finish college.

 But selfishly, I have never wanted to sacrifice everything—especially sports, friends, and school— in order to play games.  And I sometimes worry about we homo sapiens spending more and more of our time “watching” instead of “doing”, I believe that as media becomes more powerful, and people in various parts of the world grow more affluent, there will be more and more powerful opportunities to experience life vicariously—television, travel tours, the internet, following the lives of celebrities. But is this consistent with the way we evolved?  We continue to do damage to ourselves (wars, violence) and nature still speaks out (earthquakes, tornados). Are we going to lose our ability to recover from such things?  Are we going to follow Rome and add lions and tridents to professional football?  If we are going to have gladiators, it is probably better to have them computer generated and presented over big screens.  But are we going to up the ante on  professional performers as a result?

 Enough of this.  The day is dawning and I will get busy on my mundane tasks.  In order to prevent nagging, when my wife wants me to do something, she puts my assignment on a post-it note and sticks it on the mirror I use while shaving.  When I can no longer see my reflection, the rules require I complete the task.  Today they read “put Formica on kitchen shelves over stove, fix fire-escape ladder, paint front and back porches, repair drain pipes in front, find a better home for TV and computer wires, fix screen door so it doesn’t bang, water orchids”  Straight forward common acts, but promising  a feeling of accomplishment when achieved.  Perhaps not as seductive as League of Legends, but the weather is nice, and I am capable of doing a high quality job on such things, and I should shave.  And since my wife is walking around the lake country in England with  a few of her friends, I can sneak away, work on my vintage orchard sprayer restoration, and cover myself with sweat, grease, and perhaps glory in the eyes of some beholders.

 

 

 

The Hand, Happiness, and Quality

I am late again on this post, because I was again off of the internet, in this case in Oregon mixing with people who have hobbies that engage the hand as well as the mind.  My non-rigorous study once again concluded that people that have hobbies that require manual skills as well as thinking are happier than those who do not, especially as they age, and understand quality in all of its dimensions.

 In particular, Bill Boller (mentioned in a previous post) and I attended the Oregon Steam Up last weekend (link here), a festival of old machinery, as well as visited a couple of individuals who love to acquire, restore, and preserve old machinery.   I will devote this post to a few photos, to give you a feeling to what some of them do.  I had been to this event before, but this time was so inspired that I am finally going to focus on my Making Fixing, and Tinkering book.  In fact, I will focus more on the interaction between hands, brains, and products in this blog for a while.

 You have seen examples of model steam trains in the post referred to above, but the photo at the  left shows a few beautiful models from the show .  The  photo on the right shows a project that is nearly completed by one of Bill's friends, George Lavacor, an ex Oregon highway patrolman, who lives in the area.  It is a full sized locomotive, being restored essentially by George himself with the help of his friends.  Granted that it has so far taken him 30 years, but he has other activities, such as a family and fire trucks.  And it is a large (in many ways) project. The next photo shows a group of happy people eating lunch by their steam engine.  The last  photos show a few of the objects acquired and restored by Alan Schurman, who lives in Ridgefield, Washington, and is the proprietor of a large machine shop that makes saw mills, and of Tired Iron Ranch (referring to his home).  A link to it is here.

If you don't have a hobby requiring using your hands, you are missing a bet— for instance  throwing pots, wood or metal working, spiffing up  old tools you like, restoring a cast off version of your first car, repairing a ragged tapestry, or otherwise making something old beautiful, do it now.  If you get hooked on the process, you may become less grumpy as you age, as well as less frustrated right now. 

 

 

 

The Internet and Me

I missed my weekly post last week, because I was at my Sacramento valley hideaway, which is not on the net, and I failed to write one in advance.  I could have found wifi somewhere and sent one out, but I needed a computer break, and reaching the Stanford server (due to constant attempts to hack into it) now requires not only a user name and a password consisting of a series of random numbers generated by the server, but also a second password so lengthy and constrained, that people tend to tape it to their computer in order to remember it, which of course partly nullifies the whole attempt at security.

I spent my the time in the valley working outdoors at revitalizing a 1966 Chevrolet pick up and a 1975 Alfa Romero—ex kid-cars, perhaps destined to become grand-kid cars, assuming we aren’t all stuffed into robotic containers (my feelings are nicely expressed by a column by Della Ephron in today’s New York Times entitled "Less Sexy, Better for Sex", which is here.) I also thought about my interaction with the internet, which seems to be taking more and more of my time (although not nearly as much as that of many people I know).

As I hammered, filled, sanded, and sprayed, I could not help but realize how much I was enjoying the work (even though the temperature was sometimes well over 100 degrees).  And also how much I did not miss my computer.  The picture shows me celebrating one morning at Las Maracas, my favorite restaurant in Knights Landing, Ca.  It was taken by Juan Barajas, one of the family that operates the restaurant. The meal on my plate was the first ever serving of “Mom’s Breakfast”, which I am encouraging them to put on the menu— a magnificent combination of biscuits, gravy, fried potatoes, eggs, bacon, and coffee—retro, probably unhealthy, but an excellent way to begin the day.

 I did miss access to some of the information on the internet while sweating in the sun, but not social networking as now constituted.  At my age, I am not looking to build a network of people I do not now know, nor sell myself or my wares.  I still hang around Stanford, which gives me more than enough interaction with people who have the same interests as I do, and am fortunate in having more real (not cyber) friends than I can satisfyingly interact with.   I enjoy writing posts to my blog, since it makes me think, and send notice of them to friends and connections at Facebook and Twitter, but I have made no efforts to widen my contacts, and find I would rather use my time for other purposes.

Clearly the internet will change over time, and it will be interesting to watch the process.  As an example, There is an interesting article by Gordon Goldstein in the July/August issue of The Atlantic entitled “The End Of The Internet?”, which is here. He points out that the internet in its present global form, which is largely an activity underwritten by large businesses, is becoming increasingly bothersome to governments and citizens in other countries, as well as in the U.S.  As you know, people world-wide are increasingly disturbed by such things as surveillance, hacking into “secure” data, general violation of privacy, ever increasing marketing, and material that is not consistent with their values.

In the article Goldstein discusses these pressures and possible new directions for the internet (or internets) which involve more regional and secure networks for various regions and nations.  Something to think about, since many people are.  Obviously such changes would result in more government regulation, less freedom, but perhaps also higher quality of information. 

The internet already is serving separate cultures.  Stanford  students tend to text rather than write e-mail messages, and my older friends still seem to be stuck in e-mail, although they universally complain about the amount of “junk” they receive.  Disagreeing interest groups (for instance liberals and conservatives or environmentalists and global warming non-believers) seem to like to communicate within the group, but not with each other.  People with younger children have different interests in the trips, pets, and parties of those who don’t (and vice versa).  And of course, there is the age phenomenon.  Few of my friends in my age groups are active social networkers.  They seem to want to use their time in other ways.

I am optimistic on the future of the increasingly digital world, although there are obviously lumps in the (driverless?) road ahead.  Predictions of job loss among white collar workers due to digital automation are large, and lawyers, accountants, managers,  and other highly educated and salaried folk are not going to be as quiet as factory workers when they lose their jobs to increasingly powerful and easier to use software. And I do think the fantasy of a peaceful, totally interconnected world population over a free universal system is somewhat like the 1960’s fantasy of a world of “make love, not war”.  I also think that the internet desperately needs more quality control.

We are definitely not living in boring times.

 

Good Products Last—Oldies but Goodies

The  photo at the left shows two tools that not only do their job beautifully, but are inexpensive and have been around as least as long as I can remember.  The red jack on the wheel of the tractor is a Hi-Lift jack.  It has a tested load of 7,000 pounds, and can lift a load to a height of over three feet.  It can also pull and clamp.  It is extremely simple to operate—kick a lever up and it raises the load, kick it down and it allows you to lower it. 

It is sometimes called a farmer’s jack, since it rapidly does its job , absorbs tremendous punishment without breaking, and has enough capacity and stroke to handle most farm jobs.  I am not a farmer, but I use mine constantly to do household maintenance, work on cars, and pursue my old machinery hobby.  Incidentally, these jacks are manufactured by a number of different companies, but I have had the best luck with those made by Hi-Lift, a company that was started in 1905 and seems to be as dependable as its jacks.

 The silver colored object on the ground is a come-along, called by many other names, since it is widely manufactured. It is a compact cable hoist that is capable of exerting large force for its size and weight.  The one shown is rated at 2 tons and inexpensive.  Of course, it would be easy to get one with more capacity (maybe a four ton one would outpull a Hi-Lift), but although I often need to lift heavy weights, I seldom need to pull that hard.  My 2 ton one will pull any vehicle I own and lift any thing I need to.

  But the real miracle can be seen from the more close up shot on the right of the come-along hanging on the Hi-Lift.  No electric wires, batteries, leaking hydraulic fluid, failing seals, or hidden complicated mechanisms.  I love them for that alone.  They are all hanging out there allowing one to see how they work, and fix if they misbehave.  In particular the Hi-Lift seems to be almost fail-proof, and should something break, replacement parts are easy to get and simple to install. And I must admit, I do like kicking a lever better than pushing a button—especially if I am the middle of a frustrating job.

The Hand and Product Quality, Part II

As I mentioned in my last post, last week I was to give a talk on the wonders of hands and the rewards of using them at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto.  I did so, and the results were surprising. Full house, rapt attention, and when the audio visual equipment failed (as usual), I was going to go ahead without slides, but the crowd insisted we fix the problem and continue as planned. 

I talked not only about the hands and how wonderfully capable they were in conjunction with the arm and the brain, but also  about my own hobbies (wood work, metal work, rescuing vintage machinery) and  those of a few people I know who are deeply involved in hands-on hobbies (building live-steam model railroad equipment,  gardening, modifying and erecting buildings,cooking, restoring automobiles, tanks, and antiques of all sorts, knitting,  blacksmithing, building airplane propellers , visual arts, and so on),  Afterwards I took questions and some people didn’t seem to want to leave.  I had obviously struck a chord.

 This is actually not that surprising, since most of the people in the crowd were older (probably 50 and above on the average), and living in Palo Alto and surrounding area, probably had not spent their life in manual work.  There is an increasing wave of interest in hands-on hobbies in the U.S. —maybe a reaction against the intangible nature of the "information revolution".  But it seems to be strongest in younger people (the Makers) , and focused in areas where facilities are available (TechShop ) and organized groups with similar interests have formed.  In any case, many people after the talk told me that they have been trying to find the time to do such a thing, but can’t seem to get started.  My advice to them is simple.  Make it your number #1 priority, assume your initial efforts will not be overwhelming, seek out experts for help and advice, but don’t compare your work with theirs.  I used my mother, Jean Adams, as a good example.  When we kids left  home she decided to learn to water color.  She had a background in making clothes, furniture, and other such necessities, but her painting experience was mostly confined to painting the house.

 She took some lessons from a well-known water-colorist in Southern California named Robert Wood, and the two of them got along famously.  At one point he convinced her to enter a painting in a show, which she did, and to her surprise won a prize.  This was not in a region that had a sophisticated art movement going —no galleries, art magazines, professionals, critics, etc., and people liked Mom’s work.  The rest is history.  She ended up with a good local- and-beyond reputation, and eventually won a Califronia state award for her work.  A few of her paintings are scattered around this post.  Had she begun in Boston or New York, rather than in Rialto, California, she probably would have compared herself to world famous painters and given up.

  I think I will spend a bit of time crusading to encourage people to dive into more activities that require the use of both their minds and their hands.  I think they know what they want to do.  They just need to jump into the water.

 

 

 

The Hand and Product Quality

 I am going to give a talk to the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto this coming week extolling the virtues of working with the hands, an activity which has been an important part of my life, even though I have earned my income as an engineer and a professor.  But manual work has brought me the pleasure and quick positive feedback that has enabled me to sail happily through the ups and downs of my mental work. And thinking about my upcoming talk is causing me to become even more impressed with hands.

 The other night my wife and I attended a Beethoven recital by Richard Goode, one of the top pianists of the world. I played the piano quite a bit in my youth, beginning with lessons in a small town and by the time I was in high school playing in the region.  I played quite a bit until I was in my 30’s, but more and more for social groups, and finally at one point quit, because I realized I had good hands, but was neither a musician nor willing to devote the time and effort required to become really good.  Goode is really good.  He is a wonderful musician, and has the kind of hands one can develop by constant practice over many years (he is 70).  Since I have not kept up my piano chops, I was amazed at his manual dexterity, and could not help but wonder what would have happened had I had better teaching and kept at it.

 Today I was leafing through one of my favorite books, The Hand, by Frank R. Wilson,(see recommended book list), a neurologist and long time medical director of the Peter F. Ostwald Health Program for Performing Artists at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco.  It is a well documented book full of thought provoking information and data about the human hand.  But as a life-long specialist in hands, Wilson does not simply mention that we are lucky to have opposable thumbs.  He goes into  detail about the evolution of the thumb, the arm, the shoulder, and the brain as a unit and a very important one.  As he points out, the opposable thumbs are only one part of the system, and would not be that significant if it were not for the grasping, positioning, and subtle feelings and motions we are able to do.  And he dwells on the sophistication and complexity of the hand (the thumb alone is controlled by 9 muscles entering from the forearm and the rest of the hand) and we seem to control it in its many tasks without even thinking about it.  Spend a bit of time watching yours and other people’s hands (and arms), and you should be impressed.  In one of the chapters in Wilson’s book, he compares the tasks the professional piano player’s hand must do with those of a professional rock climber.  Diversity of function indeed.

 I worry that use of the hand and related parts of the body is losing its centrality in the lives of many people.  Wilson makes the point that the brain and the hand developed together—a duo.   It seems to me that many people who seem to be neglecting one of the duo and making their living with their minds, are perhaps losing something by not building the manual skills that would bring them pride and pleasure.   I also worry  that hands are being neglected in education.  I started out in life by growing up on a farm and being taught a large number of manual skills, planning to be either a carpenter or a tool and die maker until I decided to become an engineer (I still worked in shops in the summer while in college). 

 Hopefully I don’t have to argue that hands-on experience in the basic processes necessary to design and build products gives one a better base to judge what is possible, what is not possible, what is good, and what is bad.  Painting custom antique and custom cars by hand gives one  valuable insights to programming a robot to do so, and working on the factory floor equips one to better supervise others that are doing so.  When I graduated from college, I was offered a job at Warner Swasey, then the premier machine-tool builder in the U .S.  I was quite flattered, because they had never offered a job to a Caltech graduate, and the fact that I had graduated #1 in engineering was not the reason.  They wanted me because I had worked summers in a shop.  And even then, I would have begun my career with two more  years working in their shop.  They wanted to make the best machines they could, and were not interested in engineers that had not served their time as machinists.  The U. S. is not doing such things as much any more, and perhaps as a result, the quality of our products has slipped relative to countries who offer more hands-on experience to their new employees.  In many (most?) cases. beginning at the bottom of an organizational chart results in unique proficiency at the top.  Why people working with their hands are often at the bottom of an organizational chart (except for the fortunate few like surgeons and piano players) is a topic for another post.    

 I have spent many hours in my life doing such things as restoring old machines, maintaining cars and houses,  and making and fixing electro mechanical devices and other things.  I think that without this experience, I would be much less competent at either engineering or teaching.  In fact, I have long had the pleasure of being involved in a growing activity at Stanford called the Product Realization Laboratory, led by Professor David Beach, in which students  design, develop, and manufacture products.  I am happy to say that now people are catching onto the value of such a program.  Once engineering schools gave their students hands-on problems.  Then they went through a long period of becoming increasingly theoretical.  Now hands-on work is coming back.  Good for individuals and for the economy—and for product quality.

 

 

 

Outstanding Products – The Joy of Beautifully Built Scale Model Trains

My favorite uncle, Ed Cooley, spent his career first as a machinist and finally as the shop foreman of Hunter Douglas Co. I worked summers in the shop when I went to school, and was in awe of his knowledge (even though he never finished high school) and ability. After retirement he built custom machines, and even though I was by then an engineer and pretty good at making things, I couldn’t compete with him.

 He had always loved trains, and one of the things he built was an extraordinarily accurate steam-driven model (7-1/2 inch gauge —distance between tracks) of a Pacific locomotive with tender. It took him two years part-time to build it and was accurate down to the handles on the valves in the cab.  It would have taken me five years and would not have been nearly as accurate.

 There is a large track layout in Riverside California named after Joe Hunter, who was my uncle’s boss and also a railroad fan, and each Sunday Ed would take his train to the track and haul carloads of kids (both young and old) around the track layout.  They loved it, and so did Ed.  Ed was certainly not alone. There are many people who have built such things, many track layouts, and even more people who like to ride them (usually free).  I concluded at the time that these trains were outstanding products.  The people who ride them have a wonderful time, and the builder not only has a great time building  and running them,  but also receives tremendous positive feedback from the people who ride them and who watch the show.

 I have been tempted to build one, but have never been willing to devote the necessary time to doing so to the standards I would like.  But I have had a few friends who have done so and I had the pleasure of watching a couple of them in action yesterday on an extensive track layout built by Jacques Littlefield, who was one of my students and who achieved fame by amassing a huge and beautifully restored collection of military vehicles, but unfortunately died a few years ago.  These two people,  who were good friends of Jacques, have built exquisite models and were running them along with trains belonging to a number of people in the San Francisco area who have made or otherwise acquired them. 

 The photo above shows Bill Boller with his locomotive and cars (cover story in Live Steam Magazine) at speed with passengers. The one below shows Peter Mosely with his locomotive.  It was a magnificent day, the Littlefield ranch is spectacular, and I had a wonderful time wandering around, watching the trains, admiring the craftsmanship, talking to people, and saying goodbye to the tank collection, which is going to cross the country and join the Collings collection of historic airplanes.  The result will be amazing, but I hate to see the tanks go, because the collection has been part of my life for a long time.  Fortunately the trains will remain.

 And I had my mind expanded by a person named Ron Siechen, who had a minimalist electro-mechanical driven engine pulling a couple of simple cars.  He unloaded it, put it on the track and immediately began pulling kids around without needing an hour to get the steam pressure up and the skill necessary to operate the steamers.  At first I was not so impressed by it, but it was so simple to operate and he was willing to let other people drive it (he is instructing Dick Denicola, the father-in-law of one of my sons, in the photo to the right), and at the end of the day, loaded it and drove away an hour before the steamers were able to do so.  I realized the joy of simplicity, low cost, and the even greater pleasure kids (once again both young and old) got from being allowed to drive it for a short distance in addition to being able to ride it.

 But if I were to play the game, I would probably go for steam and for scale accuracy.  The results are spectacular, especially if your life span has overlapped the age of steam locomotives.