For the sake of prosperity!

Following on from yesterday's Blog entry I considered some of the comments.  If you have worked for many years learning a skill do you want to give it away for free?  I guess if you are a garage owner then the answer is no.  Why would you tell someone how to fix their leaky gasket and get nothing for your time?  Garages take on  apprentices to pass their skills on to but with the decline of apprenticesips in the engineering industries what do you do with your "intellectual property"?

I often experience this request for "free help".  "My laptop is really slow can you have a look at it for me?" - like there's a virtual button that can be pressed using magical code that will make it suddenly whir like the wings of very large Billy Witch!  It doesn't work like that people!  Or my favourite "why didn't it work like that the last time I tried?".  User error?  Some people should have a very large F1 sign on their forehead so you know to stay away from them.  The worst thing you can do is roll your eyes out loud of course.  Apparently it makes them feel stupid.

Anyway, I digress.  I think the difference between my scenario and a motorbike enthusiast is have you ever met a biker who doesn't want to be in the garage working on his bike or anybody else's who brings their bike to them?

http://nomadisbeautiful.com/travel-blogs/12-beautiful-photos-people-working/

Another girly scenario is when a "friend (I haven't seen her since)" asked me to help her make a roman blind.  I sat with her for 3 hours in my dining room and made it with her.  I didn't even get a bottle of wine for that.  I enjoy making blinds maybe I should have been grateful for the practice.  That brings me on to another time when a different friend asked me to take some photographs of a product that she was working on.  She was quite clear she wasn't going to pay but at least it would give me some experience.  Needless to say I declined that offer.  OK so now I am just moaning.

Moral of my stories: don't ask me to do anything for free because I will moan about you in my Blog!

As for mechanics - is it any different?  I guess that we live in such a world that if you want to learn about anything your first stop is normally You Tube.  But my point is the old folk who have so much to share are not online.  That's a shame.  Grab your cameras and document something for the sake of prosperity and then share it with me.

PS I have no idea why your computer is running slow!

How do we learn from the older skilled mechanics?

John Armarego has been restoring an old 400F and writing about it on his Forumer Blog. Take a moment to have a look through his rebuild notes and you can subscribe too if you're interested. 

I have seen lots of people documenting their restorations over the recent years. It is such a great source of help to other people when they get stuck. John details a lot of his jobs such as rebuilding the front forks.

http://hondacb400four.forumer.com/forums/66/Public-Forum#.VQqUlmf9mUk


Whilst I was at Stafford earlier this year I met Bernard Saunders; an older gentleman who has been restoring motorbikes for many years. You may recall my post on the 30th April on the David Silver Spares page. Bernard is currently restoring an old RS860 which is an ex Wayne Gardner/Joey Dunlop racer. I have no idea how he is getting on maybe I will try and get in touch with him to find out.

The point of raising Bernard's name is that one of my questions to him was whether he was documenting the project as a Blog or just taking photos. He said no. He doesn't use a computer really and certainly doesn't do any kind of social networking. He did say that he may take some photographs (film though not digital). It's a shame that we will miss the opportunity to learn something from Bernard; it seems to be the way of the older generation that they are so skilled but they have no means to document this skill to pass on as the more computer savvy do.

So my aim to encourage somebody to document their restoration who would not normally do so.