Werehatrack wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:38:44 -0500, Peter Cole
> <peter_cole@comcast.net> may have said:
>
>> Werehatrack wrote:
>>> Years ago, a
>>> neighbor's experience with trying to make his own granola, snack bars
>>> (we'd call them "energy bars" now, but this was before the boutiques
>>> latched on to the idea),
>> I think you mean the food industry (e.g. Quaker).
>
> Quaker and their competitors got around to it eventually, but the
> health food stores and other boutique/niche merchants had them first;
> the big industries seldom lead in such things. Early granola bars
> tended to be dreck as often as not; the Quaker products, though
> lacking in many areas, are at least acceptable to the average buyer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granola_bars
From Wikipedia:
"The names Granula, Granola and Ganolietta were trademarks in the late
nineteenth century United States for foods consisting of whole grain
products crumbled and baked until crispy; compare the contemporary Swiss
invention, muesli."
"Granula was invented in Dansville, New York, by Dr. James Caleb Jackson
at the Jackson Sanitarium in 1863."
"The food and name were revived in the 1960s, and fruits and nuts were
added to it to make it a health food popular with the hippie movement.
Several people claim to have revived or re-invented granola then."
"Granola made a major appearance at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art
Festival.[4].
"In 1972, Jim Matson, an executive at Pet Milk (later Pet Incorporated)
of Saint Louis, Missouri, introduced Heartland Natural Cereal, the first
major commercial granola[5]. At almost the same time, Quaker introduced
Quaker 100% Natural Granola. Within a year, Kellogg's introduced Country
Morning and General Mills Nature Valley[6]."
""Granola bars" were invented by Stanley Mason [1] [2]and have become
popular as a snack. The granola bars are identical to normal granola
except in their shape. Instead of a loose, breakfast cereal consistency,
granola bars are pressed into a bar shape and baked into that shape. The
result was a more convenient snack."
>> It's a new world.
>
> It may be a new world, but there's a lot of both old and new bad
> information in it, and it takes quite a bit of experience and/or
> research to figure out what's good and what's bogus.
[snip]
> You've obviously learned how to critically
> evaluate much of what's out there in the form of DIY project plans and
> background information; my experience is that your skill in that
> specific area is, in itself, an uncommon thing.
As I said, I find the experience and opinions of others to be the most
valuable thing, that's what's missing from library books.
> Fifty years ago, every US town of any size (and major neighborhood of
> large cities) had a hardware store which contained (in most cases)
> everything that a craftsman required to complete all of the typical
> tasks of fabrication, construction and repair of common household and
> workplace implements. Fifty years before that, the blacksmith was
> still a fixture of every town and most neighborhoods of large cities;
> many things that were needed could be produced on demand. Today, the
> hardware stores are mostly gone; the Ace and True Value chains are a
> pale imitation, with far less coverage and often little of the skilled
> advice formerly available. And as for the blacksmith, whose services
> were instrumental in bringing about the dawn of industrialization
> itself, hardly any can be found at all now aside from some specialty
> artists and artisans catering to the modern carriage trade.
Don't know what I would use a blacksmith for. As for hardware stores,
our local one is over 50 years old, is True Value affiliated, but stocks
lots of stuff (used by many trades contractors), and has excellent help.
Last year my neighbor wanted to make an aluminum tube canopy frame for
his 25' boat. He bought the stock, cut, mitered and bolted it together
temporarily and took it to a local tech school where the instructor
welded it for a reasonable fee. For small jobs, there are lots of
Internet accessible machine shops that will work from drawings or even
CNC from uploaded CAD files. I recently had need for a 20" diameter,
1/2" thick glass disc, with various holes drilled. I found there are
Internet shops that will do this reasonably, from a variety of glasses,
including tempering after cutting. Although I sew, I have had garments
custom made by Internet suppliers with excellent results and prices.
BTW, I have a circa 1910 drill press (electric motor probably added in
late 20's) and an early 50's table saw. While both are perfectly
functional and well made, newer equivalents would be much nicer and are
very inexpensive. I'm just sentimental. To refurbish the old drill press
and its now very unusual electric motor (repulsion start, radial
commutator with centrifugally raised brushes) and high pressure oil port
lubrication, I found all the necessary information on the Internet.
> What has killed DIY (and yes, from where I sit, it's dead in many
> areas, surviving for the most part only in the area of home
> improvement) is the combination of forces that have done away with the
> blacksmith and reduced the hardware store's range and necessity.
I don't see that, but even if true in some areas, I think it's more than
compensated for by Internet resources.
> Those forces are the black-boxing of the world, in which manufacturers
> have deliberately designed their products to be essentially
> unrepairable (there are many reasons for this, and it's not worth the
> space here), and the advent of cheaply mass-produced versions of
> virtually everything, often leading to quality stratification for the
> maximization of profit.
I recently purchased a new combo DVD/VCR deck (mailorder) for $70. It
arrived damaged in shipment. I disassembled and repaired the DVD tray
mechanism (broken plastic cam). A truly dumb thing to do from a cost
POV, but I just wanted to see if it could be done. I have performed many
similar repairs on inexpensive small appliances. For major appliances
and cars, the Internet makes all the difference. I can, and have,
ordered small, but critical, parts (alternator brushes, gaskets,
switches, sensors, etc.) from on-line suppliers using excellent
web-based catalogs. I overhaul electric motors in my vacuum cleaner,
bathroom/kitchen fans and even my computer fans. Maybe not too
reasonable economically, but I enjoy it -- and I hate throwing stuff
away. My point is that most of this stuff can be repaired and it's
easier to do it today with the info and parts that are available.
Another story: My son bought a Creative MP3 player (~$200). A year
later, he bought an IPod. He said the right channel on the Creative had
failed. I Googled, found it was a common failure due to a weak solder
joint, found a web site with complete disassembly/repair
instructions/pictures, fixed it (~30 min), got myself a new (to me) player.
I could go on.
After many frustrating experiences with local merchants, I typically
don't bother shopping at local stores any more. If I know they have it,
need it right away, or actually want to see it before I buy, I'll
schlepp over, otherwise I just leave it to UPS -- and I live in Boston,
hardly the boondocks.
> For most people in the US today, the
> satisfaction of handcraft and the very language of basic technology
> itself (at the nuts-and-bolts level) is as foreign as any Chinese
> dialect; they simply have never learned it, and they are lost if
> challenged to undertake a task more complex than sewing on a button.
That may be true, but it's a matter of choice. There's never been a
greater wealth of information.
> If it were not so, by way of one example, Sheldon Brown's highly and
> rightfully praiseworthy website, with its large collection of very
> basic information, could be much smaller and more terse. I know how
> essential that basic information is. I have had lots of first-hand
> experience with the techno-ignorance of the general public.
I think Sheldon's site supports my point. Years ago, I spent lots of
time pestering him with questions while hanging out at his shop. It was
lots of fun (for me anyway), but now, thanks to the Internet, everybody
can pick his brain virtually.
>
> You might be amazed at the number of times I had people come up to me
> during my auto parts days and ask for a bolt...without knowing what
> size they needed, or having a clear description of what the
> application was. Then there were the ones who asked for a bolt, and
> after some further querying, it was established that they really
> wanted a stud (but did not know what to call it)...and that the old
> one was broken off flush, and they wanted one that could be used as a
> replacement *without* having to drill out the old one. "Will epoxy
> hold this on an exhaust manifold?" "Can I weld this on? I have a
> propane torch" I'm not kidding. I got a lot of questions like those.
> The problem is that the question reveals how little the person really
> understands about the task; the response has to assume *nothing*.
When I was a teenager and first working on cars, these were the kind of
questions I might have asked. I learned the hard way about easy-outs,
cold chisels, nut splitters, vise-grips, penetrating oils, etc. It took
a long time and many painful experiences. Today, if I just Google "stud
extraction", lots of sites show up with tons of great information. I
could have *really* used that 40 years ago.
> There are a number of reasons that I got out of the parts business.
> One of them is that having to deal with incompetents all day long, day
> in and day out, grinds you down after a while. I've had more of it
> than I want.
As I said upthread, I replaced my cylinder heads last spring. It was
quite a challenging job (transverse mount V-6). I found a wealth of
on-line information and resources. It would be tedious to list it all,
but just one example -- when ordering rebuilt heads via the local
Autozone franchise, I got a mismatched set (turns out there are lots of
different heads for this particular block). I found an on-line reprint
from a engine rebuild industry trade magazine that detailed all the head
versions and casting numbers. I was able to straighten things out
because I then knew more about the issue than either the Autozone guys
or their head supplier (probably more than most dealer parts guys, too).
I had the Autozone manager call the head company, grabbed the phone and
explained it all. They overnighted the correct head to me.
> (By the way, up the thread, you asked how I know that EMT used as an
> axle on a tadpole would break off at the weld due to flexing. Since
> I've seen exactly that tried several times over several decades, on
> garden carts or their functional equivalent, I can say that my
> prediction is based on direct experience. Supported at both ends, EMT
> will hold lots of weight, and is adequate for intermittent light-duty
> use as a cart axle. Used as a stub axle, welded at one end only, it's
> going to break if it gets significant loading, which the weight of any
> adult or teenager on the trike would provide.
I don't know, I think it depends on the weld geometry. It could always
be beefed up with a gusset or you could use a little high strength
tubing there, no biggie.
> And while the spec
> calls for a .005" tolerance, that's a lousy fit on a wheel of this
> diameter, and the usual EMT surface would require polishing before it
> would fail to eat a bushing anyway.)
If you could center-chuck the piece, you could remove the surface finish
and improve the runout at the same time. Again, no big deal, the design
only needs 10" for axles, if EMT was NFG for the application, better
stuff is easy to get (just Google for it).