Making Tour Own Clevis Pins

"Much dumpster grade Chinese electrical components are giving Lucas, the prince of darkness a good run for their money. Japan? The stupid fan motor for a Fantastic Fan costs a buyer in excess of sixty dollars."

Heh, I haven't heard that term in many years. In my youth I owned a Sunbeam Alpine, and that car had Lucas Electrics. On Monday the headlights would not work, Tuesday headlights on, radio off, Wednesday radio and headlights OK but no turn signals and so on.

fj12ryder wrote:
When I was in high school in Iowa, they had what was referred to as the "College Prep Course", it included what they deemed necessary to prepare you for college. IIRC it was 4 years of English, 4 years of Math, 4 years of Science, at least a couple years of a foreign language, and I don't remember the rest.

The non "College Prep" course were more biased toward the skills necessary to help you along if you weren't planning on attending college. It actually admitted that not everyone was headed off to the university. The courses offered tended toward skills that you would help you prepare for "everyday life". Drafting, wood shop, home ec, metal shop, and other classes that I don't remember.

Same for me, that is called 'Tracking' and is anathema to the current crop of so called educators.

There's nothing sadder than an average kid who cannot seem to get good grades graduate and then become a burger flipper or a cash register with symbols key puncher.

They have no future at all.

When cars were repairable we kids broke them shamefully then had to repair them or walk. Some got interested in why their car radio vibrator broke, others tore into engines, and transmissions. We had a hydramatic nut who became one the most gifted automatic transmission gurus in the business.

I went to school with a person by the name of Art Himsl. A genius with paint, and design.

But somehow this country got all twisted around. We no longer manufacture stuff that can be tweaked, or messed around with. So youngsters do little besides hang out, listen to music or get involved in tragic activities. Sadly many of them get lazy and refuse to learn anything extracurricular.

The bad part about being forced to live with a product that is fixed and not tweakable is the product design may not be optimum -- not by a long shot.

I lived in the Golden Age of charging systems. Nothing was impossible. In Mexico 32 volt marine charging systems did not exist -- they switched to 3 twelve volt batteries. And controlled the charging by hand -- a rheostat. I got together with some voltage regulator company CEO's and designed 42 volt voltage regulators and the marine industry down here went nuts for them. I sold in excess of two thousand voltage regulators. That cannot happen today. Everything is offshore and the furthest a person can get with a Chinese manufacturer would be to the desk of "Brigette" Chang.

I still do not understand why wages in Germany are higher than they are here. Land costs more, energy costs more. Yet Germany produces better screwdrivers than Snap On at half the price -- what am I missing?

Those drawer pull handles I mentioned earlier...hardware store stuff comes from China. Ghastly quality. Look at Chinese made electrical ring terminals sometime. Very thin material. The hole is more than likely off center. Power supplies rated for five amperes have 25 gauge wire.

Audiophiles love vacuum tube amplifiers. SOVTEK is a big supplier. Old stock from the USSR?.

Hardware store fasteners are likely made in China. And they are far worse than the British fasteners I used to ridicule.

Much dumpster grade Chinese electrical components are giving Lucas, the prince of darkness a good run for their money. Japan? The stupid fan motor for a Fantastic Fan costs a buyer in excess of sixty dollars.

And a majority of our high school graduating students are as sharp as a butter knife.

When I was in high school in Iowa, they had what was referred to as the "College Prep Course", it included what they deemed necessary to prepare you for college. IIRC it was 4 years of English, 4 years of Math, 4 years of Science, at least a couple years of a foreign language, and I don't remember the rest.

The non "College Prep" course were more biased toward the skills necessary to help you along if you weren't planning on attending college. It actually admitted that not everyone was headed off to the university. The courses offered tended toward skills that you would help you prepare for "everyday life". Drafting, wood shop, home ec, metal shop, and other classes that I don't remember.

Here, locally, that school is far to the east in the county. Far from the population center in the west. And has the unfortunate reputation of being for kids who cannot get along in mainstream schools. Troublemakers in other words.

I am in favor of mainstreaming apprentice type education like we had when I went to school. Germany has an admirable program for apprentices but it could never work here since in Germany the apprentices are legally bound for a certain number of years to work for the master craftsman. A lot of kids would be better off as plumbers, electricians or other trades than they are with a degree in gender studies which is essentially worthless.

Ah, FWIW, here in NY we have BOCES. Acronym from Board Of Co-operative Educational Services. Basically, this is a county-wide trade school offering programs in welding, machine shop, auto mechanics, electronics, masonry, plumbing, carpentry, food service, solar energy, etc.

Their classrooms are WAY better equipped than any high school could afford on their own. Especially since each high school might have only one or two students interested in a particular program.

Kids from all the school districts in the county, who are not on a college track, spend half a day in their home school taking English, Social Studies, etc. and are then bused to the central BOCES campus for the other half-day.

BOCES also offers night classes for adults. Awesome resource.

But you're right that kids on a college track don't get to take shop anymore, which is a shame.

Now that's a good idea

No sweat 2112 :)

Here's another goodie for some do-it-yourselfer's.

Drawer pulls using 1/4" or 5/16" aluminum rod

Studs to secure standoffs to cross-bars. Takes an SAE tap, and some SAE bolts to cut the threads off of.

I haven't had much luck finding big, strong handles for less than a king's ransom. Then they looked chintzy.

Harbor Freight sells ("Good enough") drill presses and machine vises for affordable prices. And may I ask "why" fender washers "must" be round? Actually it's rather stupid. Square or rectangular stock can be clamped in a machine vise. Then burr the corners to soften them.

I made a lot of "Custom" fittings for Quicksilver including EMT and LPG pipe standoffs.

But the youtube video caught my attention as being clever.

2112 wrote:
I mentioned knurling to my son and he had no idea what I was talking about, and he's a Mechanical Engineer!

Dont be too worried, thats the new norm no matter what the discipline. I could go on for hours about the new breed of Architects, structural, and mechanical or electrical engineers. In the real world (THE FIELD) We used to joke that "it works great on paper". It applies more than it ever had in the past.

And as far as political, I was interjecting humor, or at least attempting to, but I had a temporaty memory lapse and forgot about the serious lack of sense of humor at RVnet.

I would shop, and wish I had taken welding
Learned that many years later on my own