DIY a dying breed

Bird · Jun 4, 2006

We had the same thing, Pete. I had one year of woodworking shop in junior high and that was it. Most of what I learned was from a grandfather who had been a farmer a good part of his life, a father who had sold welding supplies and equipment for 5 years, and who then owned a service station and auto parts store.

Bird · Jun 4, 2006

We had the same thing, Pete. I had one year of woodworking shop in junior high and that was it. Most of what I learned was from a grandfather who had been a farmer a good part of his life, a father who had sold welding supplies and equipment for 5 years, and who then owned a service station and auto parts store.

bobodu · Jun 4, 2006

DIY is making a comeback as folks who buy $400,000 homes can't hire a painter and still make the payments!! What I find odd is how they throw out something that just needs the old gas flushed out of it.While they can handle a paint brush...hand em a WRENCH and they will try to hit a golf ball with it.... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

bobodu · Jun 4, 2006

DIY is making a comeback as folks who buy $400,000 homes can't hire a painter and still make the payments!! What I find odd is how they throw out something that just needs the old gas flushed out of it.While they can handle a paint brush...hand em a WRENCH and they will try to hit a golf ball with it.... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

cp1969 · Jun 4, 2006

( ... the ability to use some of the most advanced enterprise planning software in the world...)

Makes you wonder...who wrote the enterprise planning software? Where did they get the knowledge? No better than some of it works, I'd have to guess some of them didn't have much to start with.

cp1969 · Jun 4, 2006

( ... the ability to use some of the most advanced enterprise planning software in the world...)

Makes you wonder...who wrote the enterprise planning software? Where did they get the knowledge? No better than some of it works, I'd have to guess some of them didn't have much to start with.

rox · Jun 4, 2006

My husband who had plumbers, electricians, and painters practically on retainer has been forced to become a DYS'er!

it si so much fun for me to watch the transofrmation. We bought the olive farm and tok a big hit in our income. So with the big hit in the income guess what he now has to do all knds of things he never would hve before. Here is an example. Our house in southern France has the typical round orange roof tiles. But there is one little nich that sticks out and this has a flat roof, tar with gravel. Well the roof leaked. he walked up the hill to talk with our neighbor Claude adn ask where he would find a roofer. Claude looked at hm and flat out told him, you don't call anybody you fix it yourself! I LOVE Claude!! So claude tell him how to do t, where to get the products and my husband is up on the roof shoveling of many many kilos of gravel and guess what he did fix the roof.

My husband was raised in an apartment and never did anything remotly close to home repair. I was raised where my dad did everything except car repair. I love do it yourself and learning and the pride in finishing a project that I/we did.

Claude is really teaching my hsuband so many things and it is just wonderful. This is the same neighbor who is a retired mechanic and jsut fixed our tractor.

rox · Jun 4, 2006

My husband who had plumbers, electricians, and painters practically on retainer has been forced to become a DYS'er!

it si so much fun for me to watch the transofrmation. We bought the olive farm and tok a big hit in our income. So with the big hit in the income guess what he now has to do all knds of things he never would hve before. Here is an example. Our house in southern France has the typical round orange roof tiles. But there is one little nich that sticks out and this has a flat roof, tar with gravel. Well the roof leaked. he walked up the hill to talk with our neighbor Claude adn ask where he would find a roofer. Claude looked at hm and flat out told him, you don't call anybody you fix it yourself! I LOVE Claude!! So claude tell him how to do t, where to get the products and my husband is up on the roof shoveling of many many kilos of gravel and guess what he did fix the roof.

My husband was raised in an apartment and never did anything remotly close to home repair. I was raised where my dad did everything except car repair. I love do it yourself and learning and the pride in finishing a project that I/we did.

Claude is really teaching my hsuband so many things and it is just wonderful. This is the same neighbor who is a retired mechanic and jsut fixed our tractor.

earthface · Jun 4, 2006

I only think that DIY is a booming industry. Home shops have become more and more equiped some are more like small manufacturing shops. As fas as working on Cars I agree due to the computerization of them there are less home mech. But most of the rest of the spectrum is widing. Of coarse as more people move to areas of limited space and code restrictions these people are moving out of DIY. I think there are many more years left before it dies. More years than I have left before the end is in sight.

earthface · Jun 4, 2006

I only think that DIY is a booming industry. Home shops have become more and more equiped some are more like small manufacturing shops. As fas as working on Cars I agree due to the computerization of them there are less home mech. But most of the rest of the spectrum is widing. Of coarse as more people move to areas of limited space and code restrictions these people are moving out of DIY. I think there are many more years left before it dies. More years than I have left before the end is in sight.

BobRip · Jun 4, 2006

( As fas as working on Cars I agree due to the computerization of them there are less home mech. )

I would like to disagree on the computerized cars being difficult to diagnosis. You can buy the computer to read these codes from your car for less than $150 dollars. That is less than one trip to the shop. Quite often it is a sensor that can be fairly easy to replace. On the other side of that, I always buy the sevice manual to help find these sensors. They can be another $100 to $200. With the computer it can tell you which spark plug or spark plug wire is bad. A lot easier than the old way to find a miss. This narrows it down quite a bit.

Bob Rip

BobRip · Jun 4, 2006

( As fas as working on Cars I agree due to the computerization of them there are less home mech. )

I would like to disagree on the computerized cars being difficult to diagnosis. You can buy the computer to read these codes from your car for less than $150 dollars. That is less than one trip to the shop. Quite often it is a sensor that can be fairly easy to replace. On the other side of that, I always buy the sevice manual to help find these sensors. They can be another $100 to $200. With the computer it can tell you which spark plug or spark plug wire is bad. A lot easier than the old way to find a miss. This narrows it down quite a bit.

Bob Rip

PineRidge · Jun 4, 2006

Bob I may be mistaken here but I have heard that certain makes like Toyota won't divuldge what the codes mean. Dunno if there is any truth to that.

PineRidge · Jun 4, 2006

Bob I may be mistaken here but I have heard that certain makes like Toyota won't divuldge what the codes mean. Dunno if there is any truth to that.

robison · Jun 4, 2006

( Bob I may be mistaken here but I have heard that certain makes like Toyota won't divuldge what the codes mean. Dunno if there is any truth to that. )

MIke, all theh car manufacturers are required to explain what ALL codes for their vehicles mean and how to diagnose them.

Any car manufacturer selling cars in the USA has to have a web site that provides all the service material available to dealership technicians in a reasonably priced, accessible format.

Here is the link to the index of manufacturer sites:
http://www.oemaudit.com/Links.cfm

In addition to the web sites the manufacturers are also required to sell anyone who asks the dealer diagnostic tools and software, so if you are really serious about DIY you can do anything a dealer tech can.

I myself have supported this initiative by auditing web sites for the EPA group overseeing this. You can read more at the main oemaudit link I gave you.

robison · Jun 4, 2006

( Bob I may be mistaken here but I have heard that certain makes like Toyota won't divuldge what the codes mean. Dunno if there is any truth to that. )

MIke, all theh car manufacturers are required to explain what ALL codes for their vehicles mean and how to diagnose them.

Any car manufacturer selling cars in the USA has to have a web site that provides all the service material available to dealership technicians in a reasonably priced, accessible format.

Here is the link to the index of manufacturer sites:
http://www.oemaudit.com/Links.cfm

In addition to the web sites the manufacturers are also required to sell anyone who asks the dealer diagnostic tools and software, so if you are really serious about DIY you can do anything a dealer tech can.

I myself have supported this initiative by auditing web sites for the EPA group overseeing this. You can read more at the main oemaudit link I gave you.

Iowachild · Jun 4, 2006

....the powers that be decided to eliminate those courses because, and I must paraphrase since it's been so long, "every child had a right to go to college and all of them must be prepared for the entrance exams." Trade-type skills, it was decided by those well-meaning educators, should not be taught lest our children be shortchanged. 

Trouble is our youth have been short changed. We now have a bona fide shortage of skilled trades persons. Milwaukee tools started an ad campaign designed to convince young people that being a skilled trades person actually requires more talent than many "white collar" jobs. One of my favorites shows a carpenter holding a saw and says, "No one ever got a blister building a web site". College isn't for everyone. Besides, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education". Mark Twain /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Iowachild · Jun 4, 2006

....the powers that be decided to eliminate those courses because, and I must paraphrase since it's been so long, "every child had a right to go to college and all of them must be prepared for the entrance exams." Trade-type skills, it was decided by those well-meaning educators, should not be taught lest our children be shortchanged. 

Trouble is our youth have been short changed. We now have a bona fide shortage of skilled trades persons. Milwaukee tools started an ad campaign designed to convince young people that being a skilled trades person actually requires more talent than many "white collar" jobs. One of my favorites shows a carpenter holding a saw and says, "No one ever got a blister building a web site". College isn't for everyone. Besides, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education". Mark Twain /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Highbeam · Jun 4, 2006

I still work on my own cars as much as possible. The computer has changed how you diagnose things but not the basic priniples. My 1998 truck has a 350 gas GM engine, the same one that came out in the 50s. A computer tells it what to do now so all of the doodads that needed tuning and maintenance are essentialy gone. No points, carburetor, or timing to adjust. Heck I still have a distributor but if I loosen the retainer and turn it, the computer readjusts the timing by itself. The typical work of changing brakes, oil, ignition parts, and other things on schedule is all that's left. The good news is that after 145000 miles this old school GM350 burns no oil.

It takes a village to raise a kid and if the village doesn't include any hands on DIY type people then our youth will suffer.

Next time, change your own oil. Teach a kid how. I've had to teach all of my brother inlaws these types of things. I've had great fun getting each one of them to get over the fear of electricity by touching both terminals of the car battery, they thought they would be killed!!

Highbeam · Jun 4, 2006

I still work on my own cars as much as possible. The computer has changed how you diagnose things but not the basic priniples. My 1998 truck has a 350 gas GM engine, the same one that came out in the 50s. A computer tells it what to do now so all of the doodads that needed tuning and maintenance are essentialy gone. No points, carburetor, or timing to adjust. Heck I still have a distributor but if I loosen the retainer and turn it, the computer readjusts the timing by itself. The typical work of changing brakes, oil, ignition parts, and other things on schedule is all that's left. The good news is that after 145000 miles this old school GM350 burns no oil.

It takes a village to raise a kid and if the village doesn't include any hands on DIY type people then our youth will suffer.

Next time, change your own oil. Teach a kid how. I've had to teach all of my brother inlaws these types of things. I've had great fun getting each one of them to get over the fear of electricity by touching both terminals of the car battery, they thought they would be killed!!