"Cheap" and the Australian Ethos

[bitingmidge]

In another thread, SA (Bless him), who was probably nursing quite a large headache BEFORE he got hit with the red paint gun, suggested that my scrounging bits to repair my errr.... "economy model" compressor was "cheap".

In fact he actually said:

If you are to cheap to buy good tools you are too cheap to do the job right.

Which of course got me round to thinking that we are a nation built on repars of "baling wire and twine and she'll be right".

I think we owe it to the preservation of our national culture to fix things that aren't worth fixing, to scrounge when we can buy stuff for half the cost.

Why else would we have all those threads on converting battery drills to wired versions, or heaven forbid (sorry Apricot) using daggy old planes! :eek:

I did quote from my favourite philosopher on that thread, but I'll do it again, because I think she was right.

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.

My old fella drummed into me that all I needed to get on, was never to go anywhere without a pocket knife, a shilling and a piece of string, and I never do.

Cheap? Or an Aussie way of life??

P

[echnidna]

what was the deener for?

[Auld Bassoon]

Cheap? Or an Aussie way of life??

P

Hi Mr Midge!

I don't think that it's "cheap" to apply one's skills and intellect to make, fix, or improve an item, be it a machine or a simple tool, or whatever.

I don't qualify as an Aussie as I've only been here for a little over a dozen years, but it is apparent to me that Aussies are appropriately well reknowned for their inventiveness and creativity in reaching a workable solution to a problem.

This represents a much better attitude, methinks, than just buying anew because something has gone awry. As to buying cheap, I would only comment that if one looks at the tools that appear from time to time on this BB, many buy what they can, and generally of the best that they can; the real test, however, is what is produced, and the quality of work illustrated here is often of the very best kind indeed.

Cheers!

[bitingmidge]

What was the deener for?

Dunno, I guess it would have bought a pie, a bus fare home AND a clean pair of undies.

I'm not cheap, but I still carry the same one, it's good for getting the battery out of my camera.

P

[Ashore]

Midge
I suppose you could you still get a boy scout to mow the lawn , wash the car, or is bob a job too far in the past

As to being cheep , I have looked at a couple of US forums and they seem to take great delight into talking about the tools they have bought and how much they cost the more complex and expensive the better.
To me I stick to that old adage anyone can make good ingredience taste good but it takes a good cook to make everything taste good
And so be it with woodwork where skill with old, cheep tools produces a better result than having the most expensive tools.
but I still like my grifkins jig, oztool dowel guide, Makita.........................

[echnidna]

You see that on this forum too as some spend money on fancy tools that really only help a little bit doing some jobs.
And the ongoing chatter about Jet and Dewalt etc when you could get decent industrial machines at close to their price.

But each to their own.

That reminds me, some friends picked up a GMC dowller at Bunnies for $69 on a recent trip to Geelong. (theyre $169 in local home hardware and mitre 10)Should have it in a few days.
Now heres a power tool made by the oft maligned GMC company, From a practical viewponit its the only brand available in Oz.

I'll set it up and eventually get around to demonstrating just how valuable this tool could be to just about any non darkside woodie including commercial furniture manufacturers.

[Groggy]

Cheap? Or an Aussie way of life??

I reckon that's an urban myth we like to perpetuate because we like to think it's true. My father was a farmer and jack-of-all-trades. I can tell you he could apply a temporary fix to anything, and never ceased to amaze me with what he could do with levers by himself (take an engine out of the car on a bush track).

Anyway, when he built something from scratch it stayed built. A dinner table was stronger than most workbenches and the houses he built were strong as fortresses. But today's men don't get the common dog nouse they used to and we've become the numpties that we used to laugh at the yanks for.

Living off your wits nowadays conjures up images of phishing schemes rather than a labourer who can turn his hand to just about anything.

Sour bugger aren't I!

[Bodgy]

Even from a quick perusal of the forums, I shouldn't take a towering intellect to realise that it's not about money.

Its about the satisfaction derived from getting a 'bargain' tool to perform as well as the ludicrous $Fe$tool$, and about fixing or improving a tool using one's own ingenuity.

People who derive satisfaction from spending more money than their neighbour/friend on an item amaze me. They are the true marketer's bunnies - Shane Warne's Daryll!

Get a deal, or fix a dud. This provokes that warm, glowing and runny feeling inside - somewhat akin to surepticiously urinating in someone else's swimming pool.

[bitingmidge]

somewhat akin to surepticiously urinating in someone else's swimming pool.

Or even sometimes from the end of the diving board!


P

[Grunt]

Or even sometimes from the end of the diving board!


P

Midge, remind me to decline next time you invite me to your pool party.

[savage]

Not tooting my own horn, but many of my mate's come to me for advise on how to fix something, or can I fix it for them.

As I have always had an interest in woodie stuff but only been recently able to "have a go",I am only a novice in this art.

I am what I call a "compulsive tinkerer", I don't care if the item is worth a lot of money or a few bucks, to fix it or improve it, it is in itself an achievement, for meanyway. I think it's sad we live in a "throw away" society, and it's harder and harder to fix something as they are made with "planed obsolesance" (spelling)in mind, so to be able to overcome this fact, in it's self is a feat of skill, that's my way of thinking and that's why my shed's full of s.h.i.t.!.....

[Driver]

Getting back to Midge's original point (is that a reverse hi-jack? ), I reckon Australia still holds the world championship in making-do.

When we first came to Oz - back in 1986 - one of the first things that I observed was the way that remoteness and frequent lack of "the right part" didn't do much more than slow progress for a brief interval. It never took very long for an alternative to be found, made, invented, tied-together-with-wire or whatever.

This was so different from my previous experience (in various parts of Europe, the US, the Middle East and S E Asia). In all those places, if "the right part" wasn't available, progress ceased while we waited for it to arrive. Here, some bright spark will always find a solution. Sure, he'll curse and blame all the bludgers who have put him in this &&&&& position but he'll still lash something together that, with ingenuity and frequently amazing skill, works really well. This mindset operates all the way from the traditional bush mechanic's skill with baling wire and string to quite technically sophisticated modern engineering outfits.

As an example: in my previous career we installed a major piece of plant that was made in Taiwan. It worked OK but not to the levels that we wanted and needed. So, over a period of about six months, we modified it. All the while running it as hard as we could to achieve ever-increasing productivity aspirations. Within 12 months of initial installation, we had it producing to levels 12% better than the design spec. Ten years later, by the time I left, we had it running 65% better than the original design spec and the Taiwanese were sending their people to our plant regularly to learn what we had done to their machinery.

If necessity is the mother of invention then the tyranny of distance is its Aussie step-mother.

Col

[Shedhand]

Most of our forebears came here with a copper pot (if they were lucky) and the ar.se out of their trousers. Most came from the lower classes in the old dart and were used to improvising. We've simply inherited that trait. We are known for our inventiveness and I agree with the Midge, necessity is the mother of invention. That's why we've never started a war...too busy inventin g things.
cheers

btw. there's too much cr*p in my shed too..I'm a hoarder AND a tinkerer.

[Daddles]

Ahh, I'm reminded of my dear old Dad and my sister's first car, a Morris Minor. Now the old Morry had a habit of breaking clutch linkages. Said linkage could be replaced with the Morris part or a quarter inch bolt with a bend in one end. Two things came out of this habit - my sister's ability to drive a manual without a clutch (instead of asking Dad to bail her out) and my father's collection of quarter inch bolts prebent to enable quick restoration of the clutch.

Needless to say, this wasn't the only case of bush surgery to keep that old car happy and reliable (in a Morris sort of way). It was interesting to note that when my sister sold that car to her cousin, the daughter of a bloke who lacked Dad's bushman's skills and hence preferred to use the 'right' part for the job, that same ultra-reliable Morry (in a Morris sort of way) soon became too unreliable and expensive to own and was scrapped

Many years later, that same old Morry was observed by myself, still painted in that horrid pale blue, immaculately restored in a Bay To Birdwood Classic.

Richard

[Shedhand]

Ahh, I'm reminded of my dear old Dad and my sister's first car, a Morris Minor. Now the old Morry had a habit of breaking clutch linkages. Said linkage could be replaced with the Morris part or a quarter inch bolt with a bend in one end. Two things came out of this habit - my sister's ability to drive a manual without a clutch (instead of asking Dad to bail her out) and my father's collection of quarter inch bolts prebent to enable quick restoration of the clutch.

Needless to say, this wasn't the only case of bush surgery to keep that old car happy and reliable (in a Morris sort of way). It was interesting to note that when my sister sold that car to her cousin, the daughter of a bloke who lacked Dad's bushman's skills and hence preferred to use the 'right' part for the job, that same ultra-reliable Morry (in a Morris sort of way) soon became too unreliable and expensive to own and was scrapped

Many years later, that same old Morry was observed by myself, still painted in that horrid pale blue, immaculately restored in a Bay To Birdwood Classic.

Richard

I had a blue morry too. Sold to some guy who converted it to a little flat tray truck and painted it orange. That was 30 years ago and I still see it driving around the suburbs.