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Do you ever think...

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JPSmit

JPSmit

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about the guys who built these cars?

Whenever I am doing quiet jobs (like rebuilding the calipers tonight) I find myself wondering who & how. As I do everything in my power to keep it scrupulously clean, I wonder about the Brit who after two pints at lunch, cigarette in mouth, reached a greasy hand into a dusty bin full of parts and leaning over a filthy workbench assembled the same part I am rebuilding. Yes I know I have to drive it & he didn't but it still makes me smile. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif
 
Probably the nicotine fumes and beer breath were essential ingredients of the lubricant, which is why it worked for them but not for you.

Seriously, these were ordinary assembly lines, with the necessary levels of cleanliness appropriate to the task at hand. Primitive by today's standards; no robots and computer terminals, but a lot more people.

I do think about these guys, though, and wonder if they ever imagined that some of their creations might still exist--and be enjoyed--50 years later. Most of what I do will be obsolete in a few years. I envy them, to some degree.
 
Most of what I do was obsolete a long time ago. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/angel.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
John, I do know what you mean, I have introspective moments like that too. I recently had to glue together a 2500 year old pot (long story there!) but as I glued the pieces, I could actually see the fingerprints on the inner surfaces made by the potter that long ago!!! It does give one pause for thought!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
I had a friend who told my of a visit she made to the Morgan factory when she was a girl (bout 20 years ago). She said she was blown away by the fact that all of the grilles were hand made by the same surely limey who had been making them for the past 30 years.

Also, it seems that to properly assemble a Morgan grille requires that one have a fag hanging from the corner of his mouth at all times. Imagine that on a modern US assembly line.
 
regularman said:
They get greasy too and are quite ill mannered at times. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
Click to expand...

Maybe you should let them smoke /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
bugimike said:
I recently had to glue together a 2500 year old pot (long story there!) /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
Click to expand...

OK, I'll bite - what happened?
 
I'd have to write a book! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/nopity.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif
 
bugimike said:
I'd have to write a book! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/nopity.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif
Click to expand...

Aw now Mike,you can't get off that easily. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
Spill the beans. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif

Stuart. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif
 
It's funny you should say that, because the pot was full of beans at the time of the breakage.
 
I think I can relate to the feeling. Working on one of my antique radios, I found a handwritten label on one of the vacuum tubes saying it tested good - in 1932! Just one of those "Wow" moments to realize somebody wrote that date on the label some 75 years ago.
 
My home was built in 1926.
When I remodeled the kitchen a few years ago I found a few things behind the door frame, a postcard from the Electric company saying the power would be off for an hour on a certain date and the business card of the original home owner along with a card from something like a box of baking soda that has a bird on it. Apparently they gave out little "trading cards" with birds on them.

Fun stuff, makes me want to dismantle the rest of the house...

Geeze... I'm a sick puppy!!
 
I helped a mate strip the inside of his house out some years ago and as we ripped up the different layers of kitchen flooring we eventually came to the original padding: a dozen newpapers laid out across the floor! We were able to get most of them put back together and as they had been laid flat all this time they looked in perfect condition! Also found an old carpenters file laying on the top of a door frame inside the wall cavity, but the newspapers were more interesting...
 
Just some ancient crockery, been (hehe!) in the family a while, handed down. Kids playing...furniture bumping...irreplacable antiquity gets broken /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif ...cobbled together, a shadow of its former self /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif ....say-no-more, say-no-more...a wink is as good as a nod /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif . Further details will have to wait for a book! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
reminds me of a video I have of them building 356's and a guy slides under the car with the engine on his chest, bench presses it up and two guys bolt it in /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
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