Ace-Garageguy

Congrats

Entirely true. And just try to hire an entry-level person with sufficient mechanical aptitude, intelligence (particularly reading comprehension and some math ability), and conscientiousness to ultimately make a good machinist, mechanic, bodyman, whatever. Try it, and let me know your outcome. I'm in a major metro area in the Southeast, and we have found exactly ONE young guy with those qualifications since 2016.

There's two BIG problems with "craftsmanship" that I've also had hammered home over 5+ decades, and the major reasons it's getting even harder to hire help than it was 20 years back. You can NOT teach mechanical aptitude. It's a God-given talent, just like playing the piano. Someone lacking it in sufficient quantity may become a reasonably competent technician, but will never be a true craftsman. Nor can you teach someone to CARE. Conscientiousness is now recognized to be an inborn personality trait, and without it in sufficient quantity, you'll get, at best, a slacker who CAN do good work but won't, and who'll always take the easiest way. (There's nothing wrong with "working smarter", thinking through more efficient procedures etc., but the fact is that much of "craftsmanship" is simply being willing to put in the hours, sometimes, on mind-numbing work until you get it right.)

Not saying this is your issue, but a lot of great craftsmen are poor business managers. They'll make the mistake of bidding a big job with a lot of unknowns to get the work, then get in over their heads financially and have to divert to short-term stuff to maintain cash flow, keep the doors open. It becomes a constant game of catch-up, and if they take an advance on the work, it can get totally out of control. I learned this the hard way, having done it myself on several occasions. The ONLY way to run a shop doing non-standard work (which means not crash work estimated from databases like CCC, or straight component replacement with "book time" readily available)...IF YOUR QUALITY CAN JUSTIFY IT...is to refuse making bids, and insist on an hourly rate for what is actually accomplished, billed monthly at the longest, with scrupulous record keeping (I keep stopwatch time and document everything with copious notes and photos). I was hesitant to do the no-estimate and progress-billing, but since I began, I still have inquiries for more work than I can ever do (or will, as I'm done forever after these last two big jobs), content clients, and cash flow has ceased to be an issue. For what it's worth, it was Chip Foose who made me see the light. When he was asked "how much will it cost" to build something, he smiled and said "I can tell you to the nickel what it will cost: however many hours it takes to do it, at the shop rate, plus materials". Smart guy.

I came across this... ...which is another way of saying that the more you learn, the more you DO know, the more you realize you don't know squat.

Today's primary irk, as always, this guy...

I see and hear a lot of complaints about why good carpenters, mechanics, and other skilled trades "charge so much". Once again, we get back to the widespread public perception that the people who perform this work are mental midgets who are too stupid to develop and maintain poorly performing glitchy websites or design 3rd-rate emojis. Apparently, their feeling is that skilled physical work is of such little value that a dog can do it (if only pooches had opposable thumbs), so a human doing it should only be paid enough to live under a bridge in order to make the totally physically inept more comfortable. Thing is, moderately physically-skilled workers used to be fairly commonplace, the poorly-skilled were always the norm, and the highly-skilled "craftsmen" in any given profession have always been the exception. But with the advent of the idea that anything worth doing can be done on a laptop or phone, even the moderately physically-skilled are in increasingly short supply...and a major part of the reason why vehicles are increasingly viewed as disposable items like old phones and computers. So my question to the too-smart-to-get-your-hands-dirty brigade is this: if the physical work you need done is so simple and undemanding intellectually that it shouldn't pay much, why can't you DO IT YOURSELF?

Time Enough for Love , published in 1973, was a Robert Heinlein novel of science fiction.

The wooden sailplane shown above was donated in 1933 by its owner's widow, and is pretty much as-was. The wooden sailplanes donated by my friend's father shortly before his death were also mostly original, having been maintained in flyable condition since just after WW II. The fabric coverings on the flight surfaces had been replaced periodically, but that's part of standard maintenance. When an aircraft is badly deteriorated, a lot of effort is usually expended keeping as much of the original material intact as possible, especially if the restoration is to display status only, where structural integrity isn't critical. Another friend's wooden plane was originally assembled with an early resorcinol glue, and as it turned to powder over decades, the aircraft literally became a pile of sticks. After cleaning and reassembly with a more stable adhesive, it's still the same plane, just put together with different glue...a far cry from the "Lincoln's axe" analogy where both the head and the shaft would be replacements, leaving nothing of the original but provenance.

The jet looks like '51 Oldsmobile...but maybe not. EDIT: Looks like there may have been two versions. This is supposed to be NOS '51 Olds...

Week after next, I should be starting on the custom headers for the '66 Chevelle SS project.

Balm is pronounced like bomb, but you wouldn't balm the enemy...unless you were very very nice.

Yup, thanks Ray. Looks like you made good use of your unplanned layover time...and looking at your photos was the most fun I've had all week. That wooden sailplane suspended above the P-26 Peashooter is, I believe, one of several donated by the father of a good friend of mine. EDIT: Nope. It's a Bowlus Sr. Albatross. https://www.si.edu/object/bowlus-1-s-2100-senior-albatross-falcon%3Anasm_A19350058000 My friend's father donated a Bowlus Baby Albatross, IIRC. The Nemesis racing plane was the reason the LS-9 powered Lancair project I was working on was cancelled. When the Nemesis debuted, it became obvious the hot-rod Lancair wouldn't be as fast, so the owner sold it, not wishing to continue dumping money into a second-place racer.

Yes, though I've heard it postulated by those not in the business that "EVs will take just as much skilled repair and maintenance as ICs". Wrong. Already, much of the "skill" has disappeared from IC work...particularly in the dealer environment, with everything late-model relying on onboard diagnostics, and "repairs" being primarily computer-guided component replacement. God help you if you have an older vehicle where many of the secondary components are no longer available. EVs, if well designed, will require even less working knowledge on the part of the servicing technicians, and repairs will be primarily replacement of modular assemblies and battery packs, drawing on only the most basic mechanical skills.

Seriously, expecting participants to follow SIMPLE rules is too hard, too stressful, too mean?

Looks good. Nice to see you building.

For the most part, it takes a craftsman to fully appreciate another craftsman. Today, sadly, tool-wielding chimps, not craftsmen, are the norm in the physical trades, and those who live in blissful ignorance of cause-and-effect physical reality often conflate the two. But a "first world" country that allows physical skills among its natives to wither and die, believing they can all be farmed out "offshore" or relegated to an immigrant underclass, is destined to become a "third-world" country in short order.

"Count" really seems to be a difficult concept for some people to grasp, as in ONE sentence game.

"Out with their spleens in the absence of guillotines!!"

EDIT: Some things, apparently, never change.

Parka you car arouna back, an donta letta da copsa see ya.

Car parts made in China don't always fit or perform like the genuine article.

Duplicolor green mica over Duplicolor gray primer...