Interested in what you have to say about ULINE; they’re local to me and have refused to acknowledge my application a couple of times, until I stopped applying because I have no desire to wear a shirt and tie to work or clock in and out every day.
That workbench is gorgeous, but I prefer mine which is from my wife’s grandfather. It looks like the top of yours will look 50+ years from now. The worn wooden top rests on two heavy file cabinets that were probably plundered or rescued from an office long ago. It replaced a laughably shitty Craftsman that was jettisoned when we cleaned out my wife’s grandma’s house when she died at 99 years old and I received this one.
I know how you feel. Sheetz just turned down my job application! Admittedly it was a tech gig for which I was slightly (meaning intergalactically) over-qualified, but still.
I have a 'belt' of some sorts in 'six sigma'. The number of times I hear references to japanese production terms and alleged best practices by clueless Americans who've fetishized it, could have allowed me to retire, if paid a dime for each time I heard it.
I have green belts from Motorola and Honeywell. It works great in a widget manufacturing environment, but trying to adapt it to everything you do (Motorola) or to large scale one off construction projects (Honeywell) it goes off the rails quickly.
Please shoot that - bullet/dart style into every moron with an MBA walking out of US business schools. This continues to be the bane of my profession, as none of this BS applies to development cycles, especially multidisciplinary ones.
Trying to apply Six Sigma to anything in the government or public sector is one of its most disastrous and laughable adaptations. Thankfully that trend seems to be dying out.
I recently worked at a company that had paid immeasurable sums to a company to show them how to do "stand-ups" and "scrums" and other shit that had NOTHING to do whatsoever with our job.
"This is how the Japanese do it," I was told.
"No it's not, I worked for Honda and it didn't look anything like this -- what we have here is ignorant cargo culture being folded and mutilated into a shape it was never meant to assume." And just like that, another warning note went into my file, for not respecting the fantasy.
Yes, a commonality among successful Agile (via Jira) users is how they can work around the management system to do good work in spite of it. We used to have a lean (not the methodology) team of cowboys ready and able to do whatever we wanted to make progress against decades of systems neglect. We hacked our way out of the dark ages like gods among men. Then mgmt wanted more visibility; now our team has doubled in size and we do half the work we used to do. As projects and teams mature, they wither and die -- a sad thing to see.
yeah the wife deals with that shit - but the flattery via mimicry drives me up the wall, ESPECIALLY when it is to your actual detriment to do so, AND forced.
I worked for a company that had a “kaizen” department that consisted of a few engineers who sat upstairs and came up with different ways to “improve” the way we did things in production. Nobody knew what kaizen was other than it was some Japanese thing and all they ever ended up doing was frustrating people in production by changing things that didn’t need to be changed. Then that department was reorganized and renamed “A.M.E.” Nobody would explain what that was supposed to mean so I looked it up. African Methodist Episcopal? That can’t be it. Took me weeks to figure out they meant Advanced Manufacturing Engineering. And they continued thinking up ways to screw with production and continued to frustrate the people who were actually making things. Needless to say, that job didn’t last much longer and the company isn’t what it used to be.
My dad was over in Iraq in the late aughts and he said even there, 6-7 years into the GWOT many officers had this inferiority complex towards the British. Our people had way more real-world experience in combat and assym warfare, but they had those fancy accents.
I loathe AGILE, the miracle methodology of the moment. I refuse to use the terminology in meetings, which is as far as I'll go to fight it, as I like the work I do where I do it.
The secret no one mentions about Agile is that it still allows slackers to slack while using all the correct BS words, so they look good while slacking. The people who want to work are just burdened with a process that they didn't need to be productive in the first place.
“The Man Who Broke Capitalism” is a decent account. A bit biased but tells the story well. You can also just look at the market share and financial performance of most companies that follow Six Sigma religiously within 5 years of adoption--they’re either struggling, or surviving by selling off business units to play beach volleyball w the share price. My grandfather was VP of R&D at GE Chemical under ‘Neutron Jack’ and had plenty of horror stories. They had what was essentially a Six Sigma church in New York--which 30 Rock later parodied--where he went for a week. They described Six Sigma in the same terms we would use to describe religious conversion.
It goes quite a ways back. I remember when the naval shipyard where i worked found out about "Zero Defects". The first thing they did was to make ZERO DEFECTS front license plates to install on all their vehicles. It wasn't long, needless to say, before those plates got beat to shit - after all, they were on work vehicles used by people who didn't own them - but noticeably longer before they were all discarded.
One time at DuPont the CEO decided the company needed to reduce variable costs by $100 million. I don't know how much was spent on the custom "Project 100" PostIt pads, but the ink on those was barely dry by the time company employees had identififed $150 million in wasteful spending.
When I hired in, DuPont was known for technological home runs inventing superior products like Teflon, Kevlar, and in paint Imron (I believe that was the first polyurethane automotive paint). I knew things were not going to end well when they started tossing around the term "process, not products".
My employer spends X amount of the customers' money building the products we manufacture, but everyone I've spoken to on the matter at work agrees that only about 20% of the funds are actually spent on the product - materials and equipment.
The rest goes to pay guys like me to cross T's and dot I's in the associated CAD models and paperwork.
I'm convinced we could unfuck the process if we wanted to, but that would involve remembering that process is only the servant of the product.
Agile is the biggest scam ever perpetuated on the software industry. It doesn't work, it never worked. The people who push it don't have a damn clue and it's actually counter-productive in most of its behavior. I went from doing QA and QC for companies that made medical devices and tactical nuclear weapons systems, to companies that couldn't make a damn thing and never understood while all their programs were 6 months behind schedule and didn't work worth a shit when they went out the door because they bought into the whole 'agile' BS.
Fifteen years ago, I’d heard from someone certifying people to the standard that Six Sigma and other programs were simply a way to standardize paper-shuffling, and nothing more. (Or was that ISO 9000? 🤔)
Well, damn. I'd been PLANNING on building myself a new workbench over the winter - as all horizontal space is filled with detritus, I need to make or acquire new horizontal space so I can accumulate more, nicer, less-dusty detritus.
I know what you mean about scoring the top. I offer a very low cost First Scratch Service; I will come over and deliberately ding the top so you are relieved of the anxiety and apprehension of when it will happen. You will enjoy a much more relaxed state of mind when you are working at the bench. Cheers!
If you actually like how it drives and it's not rusty, go for it .
Bimmers are made to empty your wallet whilst keeping a big grin on your face .
They're complicated but not unbearably so (says the man who loved BMW Motocycles but never owned a BMW car) so if you're reasonably handy with tools, enjoy .
If it has rust holes anywhere, clean it up and get it detailed, sell it on now whilst you still can .
There was a tangle of rose bushes outside a bike shop I used to run. We told customers who were worried about the finish on their new bikes to toss it into the bramble to solve the problem!
I used to tell my service customers that maybe they should just kick one of the doors on their new car just to get it over with. Got some pretty strange looks from that statement.
Just a suggestion, if you have the time to do it. I applied 5 heavy coats of oil based clear Minwax Oil Based Poly on mine. I scuffed the original finish with 3M pad and again between 3rd and 4th coats. Small can of Minwax will be more then enough. I think it really made a difference with durability.
Might want to coat the bottom too. I've seen kitchen island tops curve like a banana. Flip them over and coat the bottom a couple of times and they flatten out in a few days
I'm a few years older than you, so I got to watch that disintegration first hand. I got to see the culture change around me as we were told to 'take that down, or some gal will file a harassment suit' and all of the behavior that went with it. Suddenly only women were entitled to the awards, rewards, and bonuses, because anything else would be sexist.
Fun times.
I built a nice 4'x4' workbench earlier this year in my shop. I love to make stuff, when I can, and I've built a few guitars and basses (strictly a hobbyist - I make things for my own sanity) and I've decided I'm going to start building the necks and bodies from scratch, (instead of buying them) mainly because it will take -longer-. That's what hobbies are supposed to be about, right? I'd debated buying a CNC router to cut things, but then I might as well go back to buying them pre-cut. Sure I'll end up just giving them away, but sometimes it's about the journey, about the making, more than the destination or the finished product.
Back to the original point - I do miss when we were a nation that BUILT things, but we let our enemies rule us and they know the quickest way to destroy a society is to take away their ability to create, as well as to provide for themselves. Maybe after the collapse it'll come back one day. But there were so many industries in which we, America, were the leaders. Now all that stuff is third rate chinese crap.
I enjoyed this, both for the nostalgia and because I've been thinking a lot lately about where things are made and how they are made.
First, the nostalgia. My first several jobs were in restaurants, starting as a busboy before climbing the back-of-house ranks. I remember punching a mechanical time clock and putting the timecard in a stamped-steel rack on the wall. Later, at my first journalism job, I had a phone with a dozen backlit extension buttons and one of those foam blocks on the handset to cradle it on your shoulder. I typed away on a mechanical keyboard while stating at a CRT monitor with exactly one color: green. (We also had two laptops - a pair of Tandy TRS-80s - for the sports writers.) I sat at a steel desk with a wood-veneered particleboard top that was probably made in USA, scribbled notes on a spiral notebook that was probably made in USA, and looked up phone numbers in a phone book. At 1030 pm each night the floor would begin to vibrate ever so slightly as the enormous printing press - run by hard-working and cynical men with union cards and lunchboxes - would rumble to life. I always enjoyed watching the press run. It was always rewarding to watch something big and heavy and not a little dangerous churning out something you'd had a hand in creating.
That all seems so long ago.
As to where and how things are made, I've always preferred buying things made in the USA, but it wasn't until several years ago that I actively sought out American-made items and was willing to pay more for them. Lately, I've come to, wherever possible, seek out things that are made by hand by people who love what they do. Putting aside the obviously superior quality of such an item, the item means more to me if I know who made it, and even more if I've talked to them (or at least exchanged emails). It makes that item more personal by giving it a story, and makes you appreciate the effort that went into creating it.
Don't suppose those laptops were the infamous Model 100?
There is a sympathetic magic to the massive undertaking, to the hard thing done not just well but routinely, to the plainspoken mastery of man over his environment, to the airplane designed and drawn with slide ruler and protractor. I love handmade things and seek them out whenever possible but I would also just once like to hear something like a printing press waking up in the building next door.
Wow, when I think of Burroughs, I think of a maker of mechanical adding machines and one of the losers (to IBM) of American-designed-and-made computers, when they were all large boxes. Is it still the same company? What a pivot. I am still an unpaid subscriber -- still determining whether your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men. But you yourself are still an endless fount of interesting cogent iconoclastic (even, dare I say) counter-cultural information; I especially liked the entry on English and the ability (and interest) to use it correctly. I'm a little surprised I'm allowed to comment this time, so I'm taking the opportunity before the privilege is revoked.
I made the same Burroughs/Borroughs connection, but it ain't so. Wiki tells us:
"Borroughs was established in 1938 under the name Probar Company. The company began as a contract fabricator, producing saw cabinets. It soon branched out and began producing fluorescent strip lighting fixtures as well as continuing contract work for automotive accessory firms. In 1939, the founder, Walter L. Borroughs, changed the name to Borroughs Manufacturing Company."
As to whether we are a sad little internet silo full of resentful men -- is that so bad? The vast majority of even slightly educated men turn towards the past as they age, with a concomitant insistence that things used to be better, but as Robert Downey says in Tropic Thunder, "Just because its the lyrics to a song don't mean it ain't true."
The unfortunate truth is that we have become so filter-bubbled as a society that we have become easily shocked by any opinion that does not align with ours. I've had about a dozen "unsubs" due to difference of opinion. As I continue to write on various topics, the probability of me writing something to annoy each individual subscriber approaches 1, so I have to rely on them being open-minded and intellectually flexible. There are at least two people on there who pay real money just to criticize me in every post; I cherish this.
I think the majority of people on here know you well enough through your writing that they won't be driven off simply because they disagree with you. Those that can't deal with it I think the community is better off without. I've disagreed with you multiple times, but never seriously enough to comment. Having said that, what kind of man pays to have his new S5 custom painted by the factory and then chooses Lime Green over Speed Yellow? Bizarre.
Well I was in the middle of a serious personal disagreement with Rene von Richtofen so I was styling myself THE GREEN BARON to make fun of him. Thus the color.
Do you plan on writing about this? I seem to recall you writing something about it once before, but I don't recall many details. Hopefully the incident had something to do with what he considers "art", and could also be called 'Violence against innocent matchbox cars.'
As always, I am honoured by your prompt personal reply. I am also grateful you did the research I should have done before posting my comment. If I was as smart as I think I am, I would have noticed the difference between "Bo" and "Bu". I have no problem with most any position that can be cogently defended. I think of you in your rural Ohio compound as a less-drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson (with, hopefully, a better outcome). I admire you and even read Airframe specifically because of an oblique mention you made of it. I generally don't prefer such a public forum, since I am decidedly in the second half of my life. You and your substack help me answer my existential question: Is what I see around me the depressing devolution of a once-great society or am I just another old fart wistfully maundering about the good ole days. (Available evidence supports the former). I am old enough to know that change does not necessarily imply improvement. So, for now, I will continue to be the voyeur, even if it means I miss the second half of the provocative Rodney story. I am not perverse enough to subscribe simply to criticize. However, Christmas is coming up, and my wife always has trouble buying presents for me...
Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the invitation. It would be better if, when you partially quote someone, you add ellipsis to the beginning so it's obvious the quotation is an extract and the meaning isn't distorted. The missing piece is "...still determining whether...". I am still undecided; the tenor of comments is a big factor.
I meant no offense, as I liked your description and felt it was true for me -- the sad silo, resentment, etc. But there's so much more going on here, in addition to that. Any article (or comment) I read that helps me think just a bit differently than I did before, or adds perspective I didn't have is a huge win, and adds to my enjoyment of the richness and variety the world offers.
There's a lot of positive provocation going on here, in my opinion.
I also feel that - and this is a much bigger discussion - men have a right to be sad. In particular, the Euro heritage middle class men who have operated America through its greatest moments have a right to be sad. This country was once more than it is now. It was never perfect. Never morally impeccable. And never without shocking inequities. But it was a country on the way to better things. I believe we will eventually return to being that country. It just might not be with all fifty states attached.
Yes there are some men like you're concerned but the ratio of intelligence is so high it got this broke old man ('poor' is in your head) to pony up the $, hopefully you can afford it too .
I think my dad has a smaller one of these as a loading bench. That or a ULINE but the top looks the same in terms of finish and fit and one definitely had to drill it oneself for construction.
I can attest that it's a great bench. His is dented and has had a variety of materials spilled on its top; it's a work bench and shows it which is better than a pristine one!
Very cool. This is where mine was made. I got mine for 80 bucks from a scrapper that takes crap from my plant for scrap. Flipped the top to hide the worn part. Found a bunch of tanks and mixers I never remembered decommissioning. Which led into the negotiated price.
Jack, I spent 45 years working in new car dealerships doing everything from washing cars to service manager, often on the same day. I’d love to read some stories from others.
I'm skeptical of libertarian economists who have never operated businesses. I'd challenge Posen to demonstrate that his life's work has any economic value.
my father sold reda pump company to trw a bit over a half-century ago. dad said 'they'll bring in some engineers to re-engineer parts of the pumps to give them the feeling it's really theirs; and in a year or 2 they'll ask me to consult on how to make stuff better by putting it back the way it was.' and that's what happened!
Which reminds me of another topic you should write about, the suicide of brands.
Take the Mark 8 VW GTI. Please. I have never hated a car more than this, wholeheartedly, for the three months that I owned it. As you no doubt know, VW decided to take their pleasant, near-luxury hatch and take out all the tactile switches and replace them with touch controls that do not work mated to screens that distract you and piss you off whatever you do. The company cheapened the leather on the seats, redesigned the dash to make it uglier, and made the steering wheel fat as an urban mama. I can think of a number of reasons why they would do that, but none really make any sense except for management to forcibly kill the model ahead of the EV cult coming for the GTI.
(I sold my GTI to an Audi dealer for 94% of what I paid and ordered a deep blue Audi S3-- the GTI or Golf R with switches and nice seats.)
VW is so good at breaking the hearts of their enthusiast customers. They've been doing it in one form or another since... the Super Beetle? The KG? The Mk2 Westmoreland 8V GTI?
“There’s no reason to think it won’t outlast me.” That line just opened my eyes. Is anything made now with that thought in mind? Also, I never thought of Ross Perot as a prophet, but now I do. Thanks for a great read!
Interested in what you have to say about ULINE; they’re local to me and have refused to acknowledge my application a couple of times, until I stopped applying because I have no desire to wear a shirt and tie to work or clock in and out every day.
That workbench is gorgeous, but I prefer mine which is from my wife’s grandfather. It looks like the top of yours will look 50+ years from now. The worn wooden top rests on two heavy file cabinets that were probably plundered or rescued from an office long ago. It replaced a laughably shitty Craftsman that was jettisoned when we cleaned out my wife’s grandma’s house when she died at 99 years old and I received this one.
I know how you feel. Sheetz just turned down my job application! Admittedly it was a tech gig for which I was slightly (meaning intergalactically) over-qualified, but still.
I'da thought being over qualified meant they couldn't hire one fast enough .
-Nate
I have a 'belt' of some sorts in 'six sigma'. The number of times I hear references to japanese production terms and alleged best practices by clueless Americans who've fetishized it, could have allowed me to retire, if paid a dime for each time I heard it.
I have green belts from Motorola and Honeywell. It works great in a widget manufacturing environment, but trying to adapt it to everything you do (Motorola) or to large scale one off construction projects (Honeywell) it goes off the rails quickly.
Please shoot that - bullet/dart style into every moron with an MBA walking out of US business schools. This continues to be the bane of my profession, as none of this BS applies to development cycles, especially multidisciplinary ones.
In my experience, it is rare to encounter a smart person with an MBA.
As the old joke goes:
Lim GPA -> 0 = MBA
Trying to apply Six Sigma to anything in the government or public sector is one of its most disastrous and laughable adaptations. Thankfully that trend seems to be dying out.
I recently worked at a company that had paid immeasurable sums to a company to show them how to do "stand-ups" and "scrums" and other shit that had NOTHING to do whatsoever with our job.
"This is how the Japanese do it," I was told.
"No it's not, I worked for Honda and it didn't look anything like this -- what we have here is ignorant cargo culture being folded and mutilated into a shape it was never meant to assume." And just like that, another warning note went into my file, for not respecting the fantasy.
Yes, a commonality among successful Agile (via Jira) users is how they can work around the management system to do good work in spite of it. We used to have a lean (not the methodology) team of cowboys ready and able to do whatever we wanted to make progress against decades of systems neglect. We hacked our way out of the dark ages like gods among men. Then mgmt wanted more visibility; now our team has doubled in size and we do half the work we used to do. As projects and teams mature, they wither and die -- a sad thing to see.
yeah the wife deals with that shit - but the flattery via mimicry drives me up the wall, ESPECIALLY when it is to your actual detriment to do so, AND forced.
I worked for a company that had a “kaizen” department that consisted of a few engineers who sat upstairs and came up with different ways to “improve” the way we did things in production. Nobody knew what kaizen was other than it was some Japanese thing and all they ever ended up doing was frustrating people in production by changing things that didn’t need to be changed. Then that department was reorganized and renamed “A.M.E.” Nobody would explain what that was supposed to mean so I looked it up. African Methodist Episcopal? That can’t be it. Took me weeks to figure out they meant Advanced Manufacturing Engineering. And they continued thinking up ways to screw with production and continued to frustrate the people who were actually making things. Needless to say, that job didn’t last much longer and the company isn’t what it used to be.
We'll rename the kaizen department something catchy, perhaps "A.M.E.", and no one will ever joke about BL"A.M.E."
My dad was over in Iraq in the late aughts and he said even there, 6-7 years into the GWOT many officers had this inferiority complex towards the British. Our people had way more real-world experience in combat and assym warfare, but they had those fancy accents.
This is reflected in Charlize Theron's character, Rita, in the MR. F plotline of Arrested Development.
I loathe AGILE, the miracle methodology of the moment. I refuse to use the terminology in meetings, which is as far as I'll go to fight it, as I like the work I do where I do it.
The secret no one mentions about Agile is that it still allows slackers to slack while using all the correct BS words, so they look good while slacking. The people who want to work are just burdened with a process that they didn't need to be productive in the first place.
Silly games.
Unfortunately six sigma and lean are used the same way for buzzwords and for bums to be unaccountable.
Six Sigma at GE, followed blindly and religiously to disastrous ends, is one of the biggest tragedies of American capitalism.
I’d love to learn more about that, Bryce. Can you point me in the right direction?
“The Man Who Broke Capitalism” is a decent account. A bit biased but tells the story well. You can also just look at the market share and financial performance of most companies that follow Six Sigma religiously within 5 years of adoption--they’re either struggling, or surviving by selling off business units to play beach volleyball w the share price. My grandfather was VP of R&D at GE Chemical under ‘Neutron Jack’ and had plenty of horror stories. They had what was essentially a Six Sigma church in New York--which 30 Rock later parodied--where he went for a week. They described Six Sigma in the same terms we would use to describe religious conversion.
You think they even know what a "cargo cult" is, or rather was?
It goes quite a ways back. I remember when the naval shipyard where i worked found out about "Zero Defects". The first thing they did was to make ZERO DEFECTS front license plates to install on all their vehicles. It wasn't long, needless to say, before those plates got beat to shit - after all, they were on work vehicles used by people who didn't own them - but noticeably longer before they were all discarded.
One time at DuPont the CEO decided the company needed to reduce variable costs by $100 million. I don't know how much was spent on the custom "Project 100" PostIt pads, but the ink on those was barely dry by the time company employees had identififed $150 million in wasteful spending.
When I hired in, DuPont was known for technological home runs inventing superior products like Teflon, Kevlar, and in paint Imron (I believe that was the first polyurethane automotive paint). I knew things were not going to end well when they started tossing around the term "process, not products".
My employer spends X amount of the customers' money building the products we manufacture, but everyone I've spoken to on the matter at work agrees that only about 20% of the funds are actually spent on the product - materials and equipment.
The rest goes to pay guys like me to cross T's and dot I's in the associated CAD models and paperwork.
I'm convinced we could unfuck the process if we wanted to, but that would involve remembering that process is only the servant of the product.
Agile is the biggest scam ever perpetuated on the software industry. It doesn't work, it never worked. The people who push it don't have a damn clue and it's actually counter-productive in most of its behavior. I went from doing QA and QC for companies that made medical devices and tactical nuclear weapons systems, to companies that couldn't make a damn thing and never understood while all their programs were 6 months behind schedule and didn't work worth a shit when they went out the door because they bought into the whole 'agile' BS.
Fifteen years ago, I’d heard from someone certifying people to the standard that Six Sigma and other programs were simply a way to standardize paper-shuffling, and nothing more. (Or was that ISO 9000? 🤔)
Well, damn. I'd been PLANNING on building myself a new workbench over the winter - as all horizontal space is filled with detritus, I need to make or acquire new horizontal space so I can accumulate more, nicer, less-dusty detritus.
I might need a Burroughs, instead.
Sir, you also need to call me about a storage unit, which is about to be empty.
are you emptying it, or the thieves?
Whoever gets there first will be the owner of a Neon
I know what you mean about scoring the top. I offer a very low cost First Scratch Service; I will come over and deliberately ding the top so you are relieved of the anxiety and apprehension of when it will happen. You will enjoy a much more relaxed state of mind when you are working at the bench. Cheers!
you could offer the same service for the wheels on a new (or new-to-you) car.
That's why God made wives
bad but keep it anyhow
Depends. How fast can you change a turbo?
If you actually like how it drives and it's not rusty, go for it .
Bimmers are made to empty your wallet whilst keeping a big grin on your face .
They're complicated but not unbearably so (says the man who loved BMW Motocycles but never owned a BMW car) so if you're reasonably handy with tools, enjoy .
If it has rust holes anywhere, clean it up and get it detailed, sell it on now whilst you still can .
-Nate
I recently bought a car with a N54 (135i). Maintenance is $$$$, deferred maintenance even more. But OMG, what a motor!
Hey-oh!
Tools not jewels!
There was a tangle of rose bushes outside a bike shop I used to run. We told customers who were worried about the finish on their new bikes to toss it into the bramble to solve the problem!
Ride your gravel bike on pavement (or singletrack) instead of gravel. fewer chips.
Primae noctis but for workbenches?
Well I was gonna do it until YOU PUT IT THAT WAY
I used to tell my service customers that maybe they should just kick one of the doors on their new car just to get it over with. Got some pretty strange looks from that statement.
Just a suggestion, if you have the time to do it. I applied 5 heavy coats of oil based clear Minwax Oil Based Poly on mine. I scuffed the original finish with 3M pad and again between 3rd and 4th coats. Small can of Minwax will be more then enough. I think it really made a difference with durability.
This is a GREAT suggestion.
Thank you
Might want to coat the bottom too. I've seen kitchen island tops curve like a banana. Flip them over and coat the bottom a couple of times and they flatten out in a few days
I'm a few years older than you, so I got to watch that disintegration first hand. I got to see the culture change around me as we were told to 'take that down, or some gal will file a harassment suit' and all of the behavior that went with it. Suddenly only women were entitled to the awards, rewards, and bonuses, because anything else would be sexist.
Fun times.
I built a nice 4'x4' workbench earlier this year in my shop. I love to make stuff, when I can, and I've built a few guitars and basses (strictly a hobbyist - I make things for my own sanity) and I've decided I'm going to start building the necks and bodies from scratch, (instead of buying them) mainly because it will take -longer-. That's what hobbies are supposed to be about, right? I'd debated buying a CNC router to cut things, but then I might as well go back to buying them pre-cut. Sure I'll end up just giving them away, but sometimes it's about the journey, about the making, more than the destination or the finished product.
Back to the original point - I do miss when we were a nation that BUILT things, but we let our enemies rule us and they know the quickest way to destroy a society is to take away their ability to create, as well as to provide for themselves. Maybe after the collapse it'll come back one day. But there were so many industries in which we, America, were the leaders. Now all that stuff is third rate chinese crap.
I know the impulse. I built a shelf for my barn stereo by cutting a birch ply board with a hand saw. Wasn't exact, but it was exactly mine.
I'll never understand why RCA or GE never even tried to copy the Trinitron.
I enjoyed this, both for the nostalgia and because I've been thinking a lot lately about where things are made and how they are made.
First, the nostalgia. My first several jobs were in restaurants, starting as a busboy before climbing the back-of-house ranks. I remember punching a mechanical time clock and putting the timecard in a stamped-steel rack on the wall. Later, at my first journalism job, I had a phone with a dozen backlit extension buttons and one of those foam blocks on the handset to cradle it on your shoulder. I typed away on a mechanical keyboard while stating at a CRT monitor with exactly one color: green. (We also had two laptops - a pair of Tandy TRS-80s - for the sports writers.) I sat at a steel desk with a wood-veneered particleboard top that was probably made in USA, scribbled notes on a spiral notebook that was probably made in USA, and looked up phone numbers in a phone book. At 1030 pm each night the floor would begin to vibrate ever so slightly as the enormous printing press - run by hard-working and cynical men with union cards and lunchboxes - would rumble to life. I always enjoyed watching the press run. It was always rewarding to watch something big and heavy and not a little dangerous churning out something you'd had a hand in creating.
That all seems so long ago.
As to where and how things are made, I've always preferred buying things made in the USA, but it wasn't until several years ago that I actively sought out American-made items and was willing to pay more for them. Lately, I've come to, wherever possible, seek out things that are made by hand by people who love what they do. Putting aside the obviously superior quality of such an item, the item means more to me if I know who made it, and even more if I've talked to them (or at least exchanged emails). It makes that item more personal by giving it a story, and makes you appreciate the effort that went into creating it.
Don't suppose those laptops were the infamous Model 100?
There is a sympathetic magic to the massive undertaking, to the hard thing done not just well but routinely, to the plainspoken mastery of man over his environment, to the airplane designed and drawn with slide ruler and protractor. I love handmade things and seek them out whenever possible but I would also just once like to hear something like a printing press waking up in the building next door.
Wow, when I think of Burroughs, I think of a maker of mechanical adding machines and one of the losers (to IBM) of American-designed-and-made computers, when they were all large boxes. Is it still the same company? What a pivot. I am still an unpaid subscriber -- still determining whether your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men. But you yourself are still an endless fount of interesting cogent iconoclastic (even, dare I say) counter-cultural information; I especially liked the entry on English and the ability (and interest) to use it correctly. I'm a little surprised I'm allowed to comment this time, so I'm taking the opportunity before the privilege is revoked.
I made the same Burroughs/Borroughs connection, but it ain't so. Wiki tells us:
"Borroughs was established in 1938 under the name Probar Company. The company began as a contract fabricator, producing saw cabinets. It soon branched out and began producing fluorescent strip lighting fixtures as well as continuing contract work for automotive accessory firms. In 1939, the founder, Walter L. Borroughs, changed the name to Borroughs Manufacturing Company."
As to whether we are a sad little internet silo full of resentful men -- is that so bad? The vast majority of even slightly educated men turn towards the past as they age, with a concomitant insistence that things used to be better, but as Robert Downey says in Tropic Thunder, "Just because its the lyrics to a song don't mean it ain't true."
The unfortunate truth is that we have become so filter-bubbled as a society that we have become easily shocked by any opinion that does not align with ours. I've had about a dozen "unsubs" due to difference of opinion. As I continue to write on various topics, the probability of me writing something to annoy each individual subscriber approaches 1, so I have to rely on them being open-minded and intellectually flexible. There are at least two people on there who pay real money just to criticize me in every post; I cherish this.
I think the majority of people on here know you well enough through your writing that they won't be driven off simply because they disagree with you. Those that can't deal with it I think the community is better off without. I've disagreed with you multiple times, but never seriously enough to comment. Having said that, what kind of man pays to have his new S5 custom painted by the factory and then chooses Lime Green over Speed Yellow? Bizarre.
Nick Salvatore did orange for his S5 the following year. Nobody even noticed. It really frosted his wheat.
Well I was in the middle of a serious personal disagreement with Rene von Richtofen so I was styling myself THE GREEN BARON to make fun of him. Thus the color.
Do you plan on writing about this? I seem to recall you writing something about it once before, but I don't recall many details. Hopefully the incident had something to do with what he considers "art", and could also be called 'Violence against innocent matchbox cars.'
Sadly no but it might be just as funny
Hell Jack ;
I disagree on a regular bias, if I were to let that drive me away I'd be like a trump supporter .
-Nate
As always, I am honoured by your prompt personal reply. I am also grateful you did the research I should have done before posting my comment. If I was as smart as I think I am, I would have noticed the difference between "Bo" and "Bu". I have no problem with most any position that can be cogently defended. I think of you in your rural Ohio compound as a less-drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson (with, hopefully, a better outcome). I admire you and even read Airframe specifically because of an oblique mention you made of it. I generally don't prefer such a public forum, since I am decidedly in the second half of my life. You and your substack help me answer my existential question: Is what I see around me the depressing devolution of a once-great society or am I just another old fart wistfully maundering about the good ole days. (Available evidence supports the former). I am old enough to know that change does not necessarily imply improvement. So, for now, I will continue to be the voyeur, even if it means I miss the second half of the provocative Rodney story. I am not perverse enough to subscribe simply to criticize. However, Christmas is coming up, and my wife always has trouble buying presents for me...
"your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men"
Yes, and it's wonderful. Come, join us.
Seems he will fit right in.
Resentful of whom?
Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the invitation. It would be better if, when you partially quote someone, you add ellipsis to the beginning so it's obvious the quotation is an extract and the meaning isn't distorted. The missing piece is "...still determining whether...". I am still undecided; the tenor of comments is a big factor.
No, no, we’re a resentful man silo through and through!
A towering, rock hard man silo of resentment.
(I’m embarrassed but) I laughed out loud at this retort. Well played, Sir!
I meant no offense, as I liked your description and felt it was true for me -- the sad silo, resentment, etc. But there's so much more going on here, in addition to that. Any article (or comment) I read that helps me think just a bit differently than I did before, or adds perspective I didn't have is a huge win, and adds to my enjoyment of the richness and variety the world offers.
There's a lot of positive provocation going on here, in my opinion.
I also feel that - and this is a much bigger discussion - men have a right to be sad. In particular, the Euro heritage middle class men who have operated America through its greatest moments have a right to be sad. This country was once more than it is now. It was never perfect. Never morally impeccable. And never without shocking inequities. But it was a country on the way to better things. I believe we will eventually return to being that country. It just might not be with all fifty states attached.
No offense taken.
Michael ;
Yes there are some men like you're concerned but the ratio of intelligence is so high it got this broke old man ('poor' is in your head) to pony up the $, hopefully you can afford it too .
-Nate
I think my dad has a smaller one of these as a loading bench. That or a ULINE but the top looks the same in terms of finish and fit and one definitely had to drill it oneself for construction.
I can attest that it's a great bench. His is dented and has had a variety of materials spilled on its top; it's a work bench and shows it which is better than a pristine one!
Very cool. This is where mine was made. I got mine for 80 bucks from a scrapper that takes crap from my plant for scrap. Flipped the top to hide the worn part. Found a bunch of tanks and mixers I never remembered decommissioning. Which led into the negotiated price.
Fellow readers , how much interest is there in Made in the USA articles? I may have one which which is car related.
I like them and have used them to locate Made in the USA items and buy them.
I would love to see more Made in the USA articles. If Jack will tolerate/moderate guest contributors that’s great by me.
I will. I am sitting on a half dozen GREAT guest contributions that I'll be putting up soon.
Jack, I spent 45 years working in new car dealerships doing everything from washing cars to service manager, often on the same day. I’d love to read some stories from others.
Yes sir!
And I as well, mine was a similar work arc and I raced shitbox SCCA sports cars in the middle of all that.
For that matter, I can probably steer folks in the general direction of hardware store items which are truly Made in America.
INTO MY VEINS
Mine as well.
I'll start to put something together. Might take me a bit, but will send it your way eventually! (in the meantime, happy to answer on specific items)
I appreciate it.
I’m all ears, tires of chinese crap at the big box stores.
I’m in. Would love to learn more.
I got some Grado SR80X headphones, maybe I should spew a wall of text if anyone cares.
Someone will care.
i certainly will care
I would love to see some car-related articles, but my thoughts are if they’re on “made in the USA” they’ll be pretty short. 😬😬
Jack, did you see this? When I saw it I wondered what you would have to say about it. https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/07/egghead-adam-posen-cato-institute-manufacturing/
I'm not fond of stereo typing middle America Citizens as 'dumb hicks' simply because of where they live .
-Nate
Someone should scalp that fellow.
I'm skeptical of libertarian economists who have never operated businesses. I'd challenge Posen to demonstrate that his life's work has any economic value.
my father sold reda pump company to trw a bit over a half-century ago. dad said 'they'll bring in some engineers to re-engineer parts of the pumps to give them the feeling it's really theirs; and in a year or 2 they'll ask me to consult on how to make stuff better by putting it back the way it was.' and that's what happened!
That process, minus the part of getting it right eventually, is the product development of every modern American tech company.
and i thought borroughs was a computer company :)
Borroughs vs Burroughs. You made me look that up, because I had the same thought.
So I guess we won't learn which color was originally desired.?
Oh I just wanted their deep blue.
Which reminds me of another topic you should write about, the suicide of brands.
Take the Mark 8 VW GTI. Please. I have never hated a car more than this, wholeheartedly, for the three months that I owned it. As you no doubt know, VW decided to take their pleasant, near-luxury hatch and take out all the tactile switches and replace them with touch controls that do not work mated to screens that distract you and piss you off whatever you do. The company cheapened the leather on the seats, redesigned the dash to make it uglier, and made the steering wheel fat as an urban mama. I can think of a number of reasons why they would do that, but none really make any sense except for management to forcibly kill the model ahead of the EV cult coming for the GTI.
(I sold my GTI to an Audi dealer for 94% of what I paid and ordered a deep blue Audi S3-- the GTI or Golf R with switches and nice seats.)
VW is so good at breaking the hearts of their enthusiast customers. They've been doing it in one form or another since... the Super Beetle? The KG? The Mk2 Westmoreland 8V GTI?
Not even enthusiast customers, my wife who thinks her mk 7 is the perfect car. She thought the mk 8 was ridiculous when I brought it home.
“There’s no reason to think it won’t outlast me.” That line just opened my eyes. Is anything made now with that thought in mind? Also, I never thought of Ross Perot as a prophet, but now I do. Thanks for a great read!