It's terrible isn't it, how this stuff builds up, while the planet burns? And we are, one way or another, all, equally guilty. There's no point thinking you're innocent, because of your fanatical, and diligent recycling, if you drive a bloody-great 4x4-SUV-Crossover 'people carrier', which had less cargo space than a Nissan Micra with the seats down, and never carries more than two people or the weekly shop . . . becasue 'Status, init?"!
We all have too much stuff.
Case in point (no pun intended, but it's there);
This is probably a 240v (actually 220 volt) export model, and with the odd tool change, and the additional stuff lying in the tray, is probably remarkably well-preserved, albeit, commoner in the US? The Handee portable power-tool, a solid piece of kit, existing many years before Black & Decker's mini-tools would be a thing!
- Shock-proof Bakelite construction
- &
- Patented protective sleeve, protects all parts
both mean . . . it's got a plastic case!
The last line 'Trouble-free radial type seven bar commutator' (a word spellcheck doesn't like), is pure technobabble, designed to convince the uninitiated that what they are thinking of buying, might help put a man on the moon! NASA being exactly the sort of people who would have had a few of these in their workshops!
The paragraph to the left is also interesting - "Accurately made from seasoned grey-iron casting" - what? Seasoned? Did they lay them out in the sun for a year, running out with little umbrellas every time it looked like rain, so they didn't rust? Or did they cook them in sausage-fat until they were blacked down! It's literally nonsense!
You'll spot a few others if you read it all, but faintly amusing, especially if you followed Mad Men (which I didn't), are familiar with Death of a Salesman (which I am), or saw Tin Men, which I loved. However a price of $19.50 in say, 1955, is the equivalent of $235/240 dollars today, a lot of money, a point we'll return to in a minute!
And again, for many years, many decades, this was a technology, or application, only really made available to dentists, or very specialised workshops/research labs/facilities!
Now, of course, every mini-drill sold, comes with a flexible drive-extension.
Lidl now brand everything Parkside, and it probably comes from China, but this one was made in Germany by Ferm, and is a bloody-good, medium-range machine, I liked it so much, on first try, I went back the next day and bought several more, as Christmas presents that year (1990's/early 2000's) for other people. The two wobbly lines (top right of the case) are where the little tools were kept.
I've used some of them! I've even used a few to destruction, sanding drums and cutting wheels don't last long, and the smaller grinding stones quickly deform under use, but that only encourages further purchases - in case you're running short?!!
Top left are the diamond cutting wheels and milling-cutters, then clockwise in a spiral; the old bits, burrs and dental tools; the new bits, burrs and borers; nylon cleaning brushes; brass brushes for cleaning, polishing, and removing surface rust; sanding drums ready to go; large fibre-reinforced cutting wheels; round, shaped and small grinders; medium round-headed grinders; large ones; small drum grinders; medium and large drum grinders; shaped or reinforced disc grinders; saw-blades/cutters; small drum-sanders - ready and spares; flexible or paper sanding discs; standard-sized rigid cutting wheels; odd sized cutting wheels; and flat disc grinders.
Different companies use different colours, so I've never really known if there is a code, but I think as a rule of thumb, dark ones (black/grey) tend to coarse structure, for initial grinding/shaping, or removing heavy corrosion, buried nail-heads (which can't be cut at the shaft by finer tools), or similar tasks, orange is medium coarse, pink medium fine, and white ones are very fine, but so are some of the greenish ones, while a couple of reddish-pink ones, seem coarse. So, as far as I can see, there's no hard and fast rule.
Which seems to half-support my hinted narrative, but with sharpness at one end of the spectrum and durability at the other, nor does it include/explain the orage ones?
A while back, Jan, over at the Site of Curiosities found an excellent video, which goes some way to explaining a lot of it!
Which leaves the polishers, polish and chuck/spindle tools & spares, in the lid of the other box, soft, floppy mop ones top left, the rest are felt-pads. The little stones are for cleaning/re-shaping the grinding wheels when they get deformed, or the surfaces get smoothed, with embeded soft metal, wood-pulp or something else, which prevents them grinding properly.
Because Mum was a silversmith, I have some proper rouge somewhere, in a big tub, while people who have larger workshops, use blocks of different grades, with which they can directly charge the polishing wheels, as they are revolving, mounted on larger lathes. At the hobby end of things, we tend to get two, the basic oxide-brown, equating to rouge, and the green which is a bit coarser I think? If you want a really coarse, 'first pass', use Brasso or automotive T-Cut!
And if you are polishing plastic, especially transparencies, like model
aircraft canopies or watch-faces, use low speeds, light pressure and
something fine like silver-polish, automotive window-cleaner (which fills micro-scratches with wax, when you wipe it off) or Windowlene, and move the tool around, so nothing heats up.
There are intermediate heads, fabric pads, somewhere between sanders and polishers, I don't have any, but you can make them, or harsher ones, by cutting or punching discs out of scouring pads, sanding pads, or those surfaces scourers, fixing them to a mandrel, with a couple of washers, and then putting them in a clamp on full speed, and shaping them with a blade, the purple/brown sanding pads are good for getting surface rust off tools or garden implements, soft scourers will remove sanding lines in softer metal, prior to polishing/finishing.
Again some inherited (the duplicate Lidl/Ferm, being that Christmas present to Mum, many years ago), some acquired, on life's journey. The greenish-blue one is the Aldi version from a few years ago, which I thought I'd try, but which was a bit heavy at the back, pulling against the hand.
If it's a big job, requiring two tools in repetitive/alternate succession, I'll grab one of these and have two working at once. The Minicraft, or even the yellow one, are useful for very tight spaces, although I think the yellow-one is a single speed demented thing? Somewhere underneath is the whole shaft and motor from a broken one, which I had half a mind to convert into a static, mini bench-lathe, for shaping against, but I've yet to get round to it.
And that's the problem, we've all got this stuff, in sheds, drawers, attics, garages and cellars, waiting with hope for use, or plans of good intention, and really we need to be passing it on, or thinning it out, at some point there will be more stuff than people to use it!
Maybe then, we will escape capitalism, for something more community based, the kind of make-do-and-mend, each-to-his-own, wants-and-needs that the Native Americans have always espoused, that the Amazonians practice, that the Kalahari bush-people swear-by.
Not power-based 'Communism', not even socialism, but something more holistic, sharing and caring for the planet and each other. Or maybe we'll just "Drill-baby-drill", until there's nothing left, but there's nothing else out there, Musk won't save us, pissing-about on the Moon or Mars, if we can't save here, they'll be no use to nobody, and nobody is what they'll have.
At some point in the next ten or fifteen years, I will donate all this to some 'Men's Shed' community project, or workshop, so it gets the use I've not extracted from it, or which it still posesses!
Came in, in the last few months! I found the small kit lost/abandoned in a car park?
3-for-2 on the Parkside (Lidl), £1.98 for three packs - bargain!
That's two non-toy-solder posts in a row, whinging about the state of the world, or our part in it, but then, it's my Blog!
