[Chipmaker]

For some reason I find it more of a challenge to reverse engineer or come up with an alternative to fix something than just buying the replacement parts that are needed. In the U S Air Force they had what was called ABDR. Aircraft Battle Damage Repair. It was basically shade tree mechanicing at its best, and you were graded on your ingenuity on making a repair out of nothing, just to get one more mission out of the aircraft if need be. This same principal is what keeps a lot of old and out of production stuff running years down the road. I find that making or coming up with an alternative, and still having a decent item in the end that don't look all that thrown together and still be functional is a challenge. Most anything can be fixed if you gather up enough ideas and ask enough of folks, and put the ideas to work.

 

[Argee]

Re: shade tree mechanicing

I hear you there. I'm the same way, I like old stuff. A lot of the old stuff is long out of production. Some steel, a set of torches, and a welder makes one pretty improvisational (if that's a word). If it isn't a word we'll just improvise.
:truth:

 

[Ingersoll444]

My Dad was the king of that. He could start with a pile of just junk, and turn it into anything he happand to need at that time. Some of the stuff he made was pretty amzing. Never looked like much, but worked. He taught me alot, and I am learning to do some pretty good "Shade tree mechanicing" my self.

 

[Kevin Beitz]

I gotta do that every day at work...
Make it work with what you have...

 

[bontai Joe]

I'll bet we have a lot of fans of "Junkyard Wars" here where 2 teams have to build stuff like submarines in 10 hours from stuff found in a salvage yard. Great show on the Discovery channel for those that have not seen it.

"You can tell the quality of the craftsmanship by the smoothness of the duct tape" Red Green, Canadian philosopher

 

[Kevin Beitz]

Wow.... This is an old message....
I just found it again googleing my name....