Old-school fiddly-bits

For as long as I can remember I've always liked old stuff. Maybe not literally old, but old technology. Old mechanical things fascinate me. Not just the mechanicals, but old processes and tech.I'm not quite sure why. New stuff is better for the most part... but it just lacks soul. A digital watch can be accurate to within a second or two a month if care is taken. Modern pens never (well, almost never) splort out a drip of ink. Cameras give you pictures instantly without any mess. Analog electronics have a certain cool factor to them even though digital is faster and easier. (Though, admittedly, digital reverts back to analog when the speeds are high enough.) Old engines that you can fully understand just by looking at them have a certain appeal as well.Some things are still the same though. The lockwork of a gun is, effectively, unchanged in decades -- centuries in some cases. While the outsides are new, the insides are still just about as old-school as before.

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A while ago I got myself a cheap auto-winding mechanical watch off ebay. I think it set me back a total of around $50. It was around for perhaps three or so months before something caused it to stop ticking.I think I'm going to learn to take it apart and fix it. I found an online watchmaking school and I can get a set of tools and practice watches for not too much cash. It'll be a fun project I think. Either that or something not quite so fun.

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I've always liked the small precise stuff that we've shoved to the wayside. They have a certain designed-in elegance of a problem solved with parts. It moves from the abstract back to the tangible.You'll see where this is going tomorrow.  ;-)