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@secrets2/19/2023, 9:30 PM

Ghostpaw Snowmiaux @snowmiaux

Ghostpaw Snowmiaux @snowmiaux12/23/2022, 9:50 AM

Antique Restoration - What's it good for?

I absolutely love machining videos. And even moreso, I love restoration videos.

These are like, almost universally some Eastern European machinist somehow acquiring and researching early 20th century American garbage and making deli counter hardware or busted garage tools look like new.

I love the idea of upcycling and reusing shit, but I think what rubs me wrong about these is like... Who is the ultimate buyer of these things?

Yes in many cases these machinists are using the tools themselves, which, is really cool!

But who is actually buying like, restored automatic cake slicers and a special vise used for like a specific car brand or whatever?

I have to assume it's basically upper middle to upper class folks, and while I get the idea of a sort of patronage system keeping these crafters fed and housed, I can't help but think that that isn't exactly what I am excited about.

Part of me wishes I had this kind of skill and craft, to take junk and restore it, but for me I would want my goal to be clear from the get go, that my mission is to take an old thing and use it to prevent the need of a new thing. And ultimately, my kind of grandiose systemic wish there is something that would require scale, rather than these master craftsfolk remaking half century old toys or whatever.

I just keep coming back to my "Every block and neighborhood should have a 3d printer and someone with the expertise to help their community use it to extend the lives of their capitalism-crippled crap"

#machining #restoration #antique tools #3d printing #makers #makers on cohost

@secrets2/19/2023, 9:30 PM

Unfortunately having spent a bunch of time trying to set up a communal repair program, unless you place no value at all on your time it's usually far cheaper to just make something better from scratch that can be repaired eventually than fix the cheap shit people tend to buy.

Those YouTube videos tend to showcase a lot of specialty commercial equipment and high-end luxury items because those were designed from the ground up to be repaired and maintained indefinitely, with hard-wearing materials and all the working parts secured with more expensive reversible connectors. You can't make as neat looking a video of gluing back the load-bearing PVA arm that snapped off the plastic clamshell molded into the approximate shape of something useful, you certainly can't sell it for anything afterwards, and it'll probably fall right off again in a dozen more uses.

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in reply to @snowmiaux's post:

Handstands @handstandsonthecatastrophecurve12/27/2022, 2:53 AM

I have a feeling those items don't get sold, and it's just the ad revenue from making those videos and maybe Patreon that keeps them afloat. Otherwise yeah, some rich person with too much money (which depressingly is what a lot, if not most, of the vintage/upcycled/etc. seems to be marketed at where I live).

Fixer Restorations @Fixer-Restorations2/19/2023, 11:52 PM

I try to use what I restore. Occasionally I'll sell it (not for much and certainly not at a proper hourly wage)

Personally it rubs me the wrong way to let things that I know were built to last fade away to make way for things that are built to break

in reply to @secrets's post:

Ghostpaw Snowmiaux @snowmiaux2/19/2023, 10:01 PM

Thanks for the insight.

I think under the hood, that's really part of my desire for that local community sense of fixing and preserving, is to bring that distinction to the forefront, because once we toss the cheap broken thing we don't have to think about it, it's just memory-holed, but the materials continue on in our environment somewhere out of sight.

But even if people have the luxury of choosing durable and cheap over time over cheap now but destined to be replaced many times, they might not have the tools and expertise to repair those more repairable goods, so those get thrown out as well.

Ultimately, both durable and repairable, and disposable but reclaimable goods are better than cheap stuff which breaks and can't do anything but sit forever in a landfill. But I can't really influence larger, systemic industries that produce like this, so trying to build that awareness and share the burden of addressing those externalities with other folks in the community seems like one of the few ways to promote eventually changing our approaches.

@secrets2/21/2023, 12:29 AM

Oh yeah getting access to a makerspace with a wood and metal shop made a huge difference for me back in the day, the equipment is a huge outlay for one household and it takes more space than most people have to live in total but once you have access to that learning to make more durable furniture/home goods/basic electronics isn't really any harder than home cooking rly (even if I stink at cooking PCBs). They're incredibly valuable especially now that shop classes and the like basically don't exist anymore.

We're a long way from handcrafted goods that last 200 years replacing Walmart landfiller on the mass market, things have gotten much worse since all those Arts and Crafts movement communes got rinsed trying to do that in the early 1900s. But on a small scale being able to make that stuff is a solid trade, and knowing how to repair it is awesome for a community- all the nice stuff from 200 years ago is still around, but nobody bothers learn to even identify it so whenever it gets a little dinged up they do what their particleboard crap has taught them to do and throw/give it away.

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