I've always loved machines and engines.
I like a bit of nostalgia too.
Here's a 1962 Twin Tub in action - I spent many happy hours in the company of a machine just like this as a child!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvs1aJ7ES60
Have you got a favourite machine or engine?
Light? The eagles are about 10lbs - same weight as a gallon of water - try having that on your arm for any time! 
Nice, we did a bird of prey thing at Centre Parks a few years ago which was really interesting. Especially how light the birds were compared to what you'd think. And the owl was almost all feathers! We also saw a Harris Hawk recently when we went to see one of the Blue John mines in Castleton, Derbyshire. The owner's daughter had here's there and I think she does similar to your daughter.
another great one was the bloke manning the reception while OH took his motorcycle theory test. He starts making conversation with me (I was waiting for hubby to come out) and after a while asks whether, if he passes and gets a bike license, I will be following in his footsteps. That's a very sexist comment, I teased, prompting a look of alarm at the realisation that he has slipped up. His face when I said "not exactly, I've had a full bike license for 30 years) was a picture
I have a few great ones - being a female biker makes it even more common. one of the best was when my then boyfriend and I stopped at a bike shop, where he wanted to discuss trading in his bike against a new one. The salesman wanted to take a look at it, so came outside. A look of confusion as he took in the single seat on BF's bike .... then he looks at me and asks "but where do you sit?". I'm not going to lie, I really enjoyed pointing to the (considerably bigger) bike parked next to it, and replying "on that. why do you ask?" :-D
Yeah - I had the 1.3 GXL with all the 6-dial instruments. It had rust everywhere - the front wings each had about 3" of metal holding them on, the cills needed to be replaced, the rear arches needed 6" nails to bridge the gap to support the mesh to bodge them up, the lower rear quarters had disolved so the fuel tank flapped in the wind - a real rust bucket.
ha ha the escort would probably be worth a mint these days - if it hadn't dissolved of course!
hubby spends many a happy hour dealing with "light on dash", which seems to be the common malaise of anything modern. Our old beasts don't suffer to the same extent due to the lack of ECUs and other electronics to go wrong :-)
If you consider that most cars get zero maintenance and that most failures are minor electrical niggles that don't really matter, the fact that cars just start & work every day when left out in all weathers is just amazing. I drive a 16-year old car - passed its mot with no problems just last week. It is spotless and everything works.
My first car was a 10-year old Mk1 Escort - it was knackered! Rust everywhere!
My better half is a mechanic and would probably disagree about cars being too reliable these days. In his view, most are now built down to a price, and that usually means making sure it holds together until the 3 year warranty is up. He has seen 3 year old cars with bits hanging off them because they were so badly made, and that's not necessarily "cheap" ones either.
This is why I refuse to part with my 18 year old car. It was built properly (maybe that's the kind of vintage you meant when you referred to like new 15 year old cars) and is not overburdened with computers and ECUs to go wrong. If she ever gives up on me, I would buy something older rather than newer!
A film I particularly like for its portrayal of automata is Hugo. Such beautiful mechanics!
> Have you ever regulated a watch to run at a totally different beat rate? Say 28800 BPH to run at a 21600 BPH? I'd imagine the wheels need to be changed to a different ratio.
Yes you're right, you'd have to redesign the going train to work at the different beat rate. How much you'd have to change would depend on exactly what beat you were changing it to.
> I like the Hamilton Khaki Field mechanical that was recently released
Yes I've looked at one of the Hamilton Khaki field watches that I quite liked but I don't recall what model it was.
> That's something I'd like to do myself. Must have been great!
Yes, I'd like to do more, but I'm more interested in learning to design clocks/watches and then manufacture the parts. Unfortunately we don't really have anywhere where we're currently living to house a load of machine tools :-(. It's hard now in the UK to find anywhere to learn because the Horology industry has died so much.
I went to Epping Forest Horology Centre: http://efhc.org.uk/wordpress/ and spent a year working with Lalit and others.
The British Horological Institute run courses as well: https://bhi.co.uk/ and they have a distance learning course.
You can do a BA in Horology at Birmingham University: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/courses/horology-ba-hons-2019-20
And finally there's the British School of Watchmaking who are the only place in the UK that offer the Swiss WOSTEP certification: https://www.britishschoolofwatchmaking.co.uk/
If you're interested in that sort of thing I'd recommend:
And:
For some serious watch/clock pron:
George Daniels is a thoroughly interesting man though sadly no more. I've often wondered if he was an Aspie. His legacy lives on in his sort of "accidental prodigy" Roger Smith - https://www.rwsmithwatches.com/. The SO and I went to see Roger's Great Britain watch when it was available for viewing in London: https://www.rwsmithwatches.com/watches/great-britain/ and much drooling ensued. Probably never be able to afford one, but if money was no object I'd be happy to wait however long it took for Roger to knock me up something :-).
> When we're talking Chinese knock-offs, you mean Seagull, not Selita! The Selita is pretty good.
I don't know who manufactured the Chinese ones we were using - they were completely unbranded. They were an ETA 6497 copy and I also ordered an ETA 6497 (ETA were not the original designer/manufacturer). The ETA was superb to learn on. We had a tray of the Chinese movements and as a class we spent a lot of time over the year going through all the movements trying to cobble together a whole movement each that actually worked :-/. We were basically learning to do the Haynes manual complete strip-down and rebuild and then casing them plus we also looked at some older type pocket watches etc.
The first machine I ever owned was a humming top - a simple but fascinating toy: m.youtube.com/watch Did you play with mechanical toys as a child?
Yeah - Even the Fiat 500 is really a Ford Ka underneath. But the punters have no clue. Like an Aston Martin being a re-badged XJS from the 70s. There's a good website that lists the cheaper Jag parts so the Aston owners don't get gouged too badly by the garage.
There's a good chance the cheapo radio in your Skoda was made next to the Blaupunkt-badged one.
There's a saying that we live in the most technologically dependent times with the least number of people having any clue about the technology they use every day.
Like years ago, a Jaguar, mondeo base wasn’t it?
so many are mass produced and badged differently.
As a small company pick up truck, we had Skoda Felicia based ones, so basically a Felicia estate with open back,
I turned up at a job where there was a Volkswagen caddy, the guy said “ oh you have one of those cheap copies of a Volkswagen one”, no I said they are based in a Felicia estate, if they were Volkswagen then what model of Volkswagen were they based in?
No reply as he realised I was correct, the Felicia estate exited before the pickup. The main difference between each pick up was the radio, a blaupunkt in the vow and basic thing in the Skoda.
Certain big vans, Renault, Peugeot, are interchangeable in most ways, some Renault vans if you take a piece of trim off you will see Peugeot stamped inside.
Mass produced rubbish.
Mercedes lost their way trying to cover every market, they just stick badges in low end models to save making quality cars themselves.
There is no pride in owner ship and if asked what car they drive they seldom even know, never check anything, it is a commodity.. changed often, just a means for showing how much credit they are willing to have.
No one much fixes cars or indeed even washes and polishes them, under the bonnet??? What’s under there, doesn’t everything get done when serviced?
Land yiu do not have to know how to drive anymore as the car will have, anypti livk brakes, so close eyes slam in the brakes and hope it will all be ok.
It will park itself, if not drive into a parking space front first, find the tightest space possible, feel your way out in reverse, no concept of spatial awareness.
I have seen many people check their tyres, meaning go into a supermarket garage, just put the connector in and without realising let their tyres down as the machine resets to a low figure after use, they have no concept of setting it to balance the cars weight or speed with tyre pressures, one person I know thought the pressure in the side of the tyre wall was the pressure to set it too, that is a maximum for tyre, single axle and double axle application.
Clueless,
unaware.
Don’t really care.
No concentration.
They assume it’s a given right to drive, no thought of how lucky they are, no feeling of pride.
Rant over.
society has lost its way.
Sadly.
