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Youd think with the vast amount of U tube how to do its available,any one could do anything  (age excepted)......Ive been trying to get a new front fence built........I bought the materials ...which is a bad move ,cause a tradie cant sting me 50% markup......anyhoo ,I started digging and concreting the posts myself,and a couple of young guys came in and said they were expert fencers........but ,first they had no money,and one young guy said he d sell me the tyres off his truck for $200.......so OK,I bought the tyres and wheels ......start six AM next day......a week later they turned up at 9am ,ready to start...But no.......one had to take his pregnant girlfriend to the hospital,and the other guy had to go with him.........didnt see them for a while,when one guy turned up ,and said he d do the job for $40/hr cash.........so I had a dozen posts already done,and we put the tin sheets into the stringers ,then about two hours later ,someone else turned up ,and said he was the "boss"........now at least he knew fencing.......we had all the fence erected in about another 30 minutes.......then the "boss' starts mentioning $2000........I says no,we agreed to $40 /hr ,and Im willing to pay you the same .....so I gave each one of them 3 hours at $40,total $240.......they were not happy.......and came back later ...I says Ive spent all my pension money .no more cash.......not seen them since...and more of the front fence is falling down (I have 80 metres of fence)

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48 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I do everything myself; plumbing, electrics, engine servicing, basic carpentry, metal fabrication, painting, etc. The only things I don't do are welding as I never learned how to do that and although I've taken off cylinder heads I've never had to rebuild an engine, but I'm sure I could learn pretty quickly.

 

I have a university degrees, masters degree and a PhD. I take your point Tony, but there are plenty of people who are both academic and practical. 

 

I went similarly far into further education but far fewer practical skills than yourself. I am assuming I am younger.

 

There could be a correlation between people who went further into further education, and people with fewer practical skills. But there is another variable, age; younger people are less likely to have had the time to learn those skills, and are more likely to have gone into further education.

 

In a decade, we might find that there is a lower correlation between university education and practical skills.

 

This is all assuming that the stats match this. Lack of practical skills amongst the youth and any correlation with education could be the figment of our imaginations.

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Look inside a car bonnet ......do you see sparkplugs ,ignition coil,cylinder head?......no you see an impervious piece of plastic whose sole purpose  is to discourage any familiarity with the engine.....some euro cars ,if you change over the battery ,the car wont go until  Mercedes Benz say it can.........everywhere people are discouraged from doing anything themselves ......are you qualified? is the standard  query.........qualified to paint the kitchen floor?

Edited by john.k
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58 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I do everything myself; plumbing, electrics, engine servicing, basic carpentry, metal fabrication, painting, etc. The only things I don't do are welding as I never learned how to do that and although I've taken off cylinder heads I've never had to rebuild an engine, but I'm sure I could learn pretty quickly.

 

I have a university degrees, masters degree and a PhD. I take your point Tony, but there are plenty of people who are both academic and practical. 

 

I agree, but I bet their degree had a high practical content or included a year's work experience etc. That type of course I think is more likely to attract those with  an innate practical ability, but not all courses are like that. I can't see courses in pure maths, archaeology, English lit. doing much to engender and develop much in the way of skills for DIY boat maintenance or even practical problem-solving.  I think another major factor has been the insidious and ongoing actions to devalue those with practical skills. Successive governments seem to hold financier and banker skills far higher than the practical skills, including engineering.

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I enjoy working on my boat, though I must admit I no longer have any desire to do the blacking.  Also I call in an hydraulics engineer if I need any work doing on that side of things.  I have my engine serviced each year, not because I can't do it myself, but I'd rather support an excellent local mechanic.

I let the professionals take care of any welding that needs doing to an historic hull.

Edited by koukouvagia
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4 minutes ago, john.k said:

Look inside a car bonnet ......do you see sparkplugs ,ignition coil,cylinder head?......no you see an impervious piece of plastic whose sole purpose  is to discourage any familiarity with the engine.....some euro cars ,if you change over the battery ,the car wont go until  Mercedes Benz say it can.........everywhere people are discouraged from doing anything themselves ......are you qualified? is the standard  query.........qualified to paint the kitchen floor?

I quite agree,  My first motor bike was a BSA Bantom - dead easy to service and take apart.  My last one was a 1000cc BMW.  There wasn't even a carburettor - all electronic black boxes.  Mind you the BSA needed constant tinkering; the BMW ran faultlessly for years with just an annual service.

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5 minutes ago, john.k said:

Look inside a car bonnet ......do you see sparkplugs ,ignition coil,cylinder head?......no you see an impervious piece of plastic whose sole purpose  is to discourage any familiarity with the engine.....some euro cars ,if you change over the battery ,the car wont go until  Mercedes Benz say it can.........everywhere people are discouraged from doing anything themselves ......are you qualified? is the standard  query.........qualified to paint the kitchen floor?

 

And the various trade bodies are doing all they can to prevent by law homeowners from maintaining and bettering their own home. By all means grab the people who charge for their services and do a bodge job, but don't stop homeowners doing it themselves.

 

It is absolutely ridiculous that I can legally install all the mains wiring on my boat but have to jump through hoops and make payments to do the same at home. I can legally connect a cooker on my boat, but can't at home.

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I did all my boat fitting because I simply couldn't afford to pay anyone else. Same with car maintenance and fence building. Of course you can't do cars now and my back won't let me do much with a fence. 

Maybe people who  buy boats now are split between those who can afford to pay tradesmen, and those who can't afford anything at all including materials and tools?

A friend wants me to make her a storage chest, and I had to point out that it would be cheaper to buy one than to buy the materials to make it - it's been this way for years now. I've just replaced the bits of wood that stop the back deck flooding into the boat, and I reckon it's cost about £80 in wood and fixings for something about two foot long and four inches high.

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2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

And the various trade bodies are doing all they can to prevent by law homeowners from maintaining and bettering their own home. By all means grab the people who charge for their services and do a bodge job, but don't stop homeowners doing it themselves.

 

It is absolutely ridiculous that I can legally install all the mains wiring on my boat but have to jump through hoops and make payments to do the same at home. I can legally connect a cooker on my boat, but can't at home.

Apparently I have illegally installed an outside socket to run a pond pump. It appears I should have paid an electrician a few hundred quid to drill a hole in the wall and connect three wires. And I connected the cooker...

The rules are daft, even dafter than the Boat Safety...

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2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I agree, but I bet their degree had a high practical content or included a year's work experience etc. That type of course I think is more likely to attract those with  an innate practical ability, but not all courses are like that. I can't see courses in pure maths, archaeology, English lit. doing much to engender and develop much in the way of skills for DIY boat maintenance or even practical problem-solving.  I think another major factor has been the insidious and ongoing actions to devalue those with practical skills. Successive governments seem to hold financier and banker skills far higher than the practical skills, including engineering.

 

I think it's easy to point at university as the cause, but I don't think it's that simple. University specialises a person's skills - this is a requirement for a globalised world, we specialise and outsource. This goes as far as people being unable to cook for themselves. In the past we were required to have a larger range of skills because our world was much more limited in scope - our village, town etc.

 

Working on my boat myself was a large part of the appeal for me (being a bit of a younger boater myself, at 31). But then I was raised around parents working on their own cars, I got my first toolkit when I was about 8... 

 

My point being is that it is not the role of a university to teach these skills, it never was. Some of the smartest people I know, are the most smooth-brained people outside of their own field. "Particulars, as everyone knows, makes for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils"

 

Perhaps it can also be put down to shifting desires from boating. Perhaps some people see it more as a different lifestyle/house - rather than an opporunity to be more practical.

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6 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Apparently I have illegally installed an outside socket to run a pond pump. It appears I should have paid an electrician a few hundred quid to drill a hole in the wall and connect three wires. And I connected the cooker...

The rules are daft, even dafter than the Boat Safety...

 

Co incidentally I have just done exactly the same.

 

I used this guys instructions. He has lots of similar vids.

 

 

Edited by The Happy Nomad
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7 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Apparently I have illegally installed an outside socket to run a pond pump.

Why do you think this was illegal? As far as I can see the work is not notifiable under Building Regulations Part P if you have just modified an existing circuit to add the outside socket. It would be notifiable if you had run a complete new wire from the consumer unit.

The work does have to comply with the Building Regs and Wiring Regs but if it is not notifiable nobody will check.

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Nothing new in that. It was said  classthabitt some of the students on my university engineering course (late 70s) didn't know which end of a nail to put into the wood and which to hit with the hammer.

I spoke to my farrier about taking on his apprentice, this was before the lads were subsidised so we were hit with a twenty percent increase to pay for the lad.

He said he had guys asking for a job every few weeks, but most could not deal with metal. It took him ten minutes to assess them.

The lad he took on became a world-class farrier, doing demonstrations  all over the world, etc, and also top man in the UK farriers society. I was his first customer, £8.00 to remove four shoes, so he knew how to charge!

I was top in engineering in my class, but only cos I passed the written exam, I was not good at engineering. I could fill the tractor when it ran out of diesel, and pump the lift pump.

Edited by LadyG
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Practically everyone in my generation (old) used to build a den, take old moped engines apart,Mobylette, NSU Quickly and Raleigh.Aquiring practical skills was learned "on the job"

There were of course some humongous cock ups,but it was part of the learning process.

I do agree that modern cars and motorbikes are a bit beyond me apart from changing the oil and filter,but most DIY jobs at home and on the boat are quite within my capability.

I recently had to fix a none flushing toilet at home, and was quoted £150 from a so called plumber.

Went onto You Tube and found the information I needed (needed a new diaphragm) bought a pack of four for £5-99 and fitted it myself.

As an aside, the diaphragm that was in the toilet had been in for some sixteen years, so I don't think I will need to buy anymore.

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Liam did all of the work on NC himself. He was always tinkering with something. Although the engine and drive looked complicated they were fairly simple pieces of equipment.

 

I think he secretly misses it now. He has not had to fix anything on the van................................................yet :)

 

The bank balance doesn't miss it though.

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I was top in engineering in my class, but only cos I passed the written exam, I was not good at engineering. 

Similarly, I managed to scrape through 3 years of BBC engineering training by being quite good at exams. If I'm honest I never really understood much of it (olden days, pre-digital - I would understand even less now!). 😀

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1 hour ago, Mad Harold said:

Practically everyone in my generation (old) used to build a den, take old moped engines apart,Mobylette, NSU Quickly and Raleigh.Aquiring practical skills was learned "on the job"

Practically everyone in the current generation can set up a wifi router, make a TikTok (whatever that is) and use social media while walking while rarely stepping in to heavy traffic, another person, a lamp post. All practical skills learned "on the job".

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4 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

I blame the vast increase in university education that all too often produces highly qualified practical idiots, plus the easy of using social media etc so there was no time while growing up for more physical practical experiences.

Sadly my years of university education provide no protection against increasing inelasticity and stiffness, not to mention the dislike of my balance to being upside down!

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2 hours ago, koukouvagia said:

I quite agree,  My first motor bike was a BSA Bantom - dead easy to service and take apart.  My last one was a 1000cc BMW.  There wasn't even a carburettor - all electronic black boxes.  Mind you the BSA needed constant tinkering; the BMW ran faultlessly for years with just an annual service.

Back in the day, in my world, if you didn't or could sort mechanical issues out, you ended up at the bus stop, not cool! 

My first, was a 125cc D3 Bantam, with swingarm frame, 1958 from memory.  We had a love hate relationship, I used it for school boy scrambling, many occasion I would do the practice laps, all, good, get to the start line, and it didn't wouldn't, back to the paddock,  re set the points, and off she went, never cured it!!

50 odd years and many bikes later, I have a K1300s, I know where the petrol, oil and water goes in, I fit break pads, I have no working knowledge of any thing else. I do know route to the BMW garage, and they know my bank account details! 

 I do the servicing on my Isuzu 42 and moan a lot for the next two days!!

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2 hours ago, David Mack said:

Why do you think this was illegal? As far as I can see the work is not notifiable under Building Regulations Part P if you have just modified an existing circuit to add the outside socket. It would be notifiable if you had run a complete new wire from the consumer unit.

The work does have to comply with the Building Regs and Wiring Regs but if it is not notifiable nobody will check.

I think it said on the gubbins that came with the socket that legally it had to be installed by a registered electrician. It may well not have told the truth.

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4 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I think it said on the gubbins that came with the socket that legally it had to be installed by a registered electrician. It may well not have told the truth.

You would have to hope that the registered electrician was a bit more clued up than the one who wired our new build who managed to wire up the garage so that it was isolated through the light switch.

 

Somehow also got passed by the NHBC inspector 😕

 

Took us a while to figure out what was wrong. They were bloody quick at coming to rectify the problem though when we reported it 😲

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41 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

You would have to hope that the registered electrician was a bit more clued up than the one who wired our new build who managed to wire up the garage so that it was isolated through the light switch.

 

Somehow also got passed by the NHBC inspector 😕

 

Took us a while to figure out what was wrong. They were bloody quick at coming to rectify the problem though when we reported it 😲

 

Or the one that wired up the connection to our combi boiler using a chocolate box connector and paper masking tape.

 

I spotted it a few days after and after a bit of a heated (no pun intended) discussion I told him I didnt want him near anything electrical in our house again.

 

I fixed it myself using a wago box the following day.

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10 hours ago, john.k said:

Look inside a car bonnet ......do you see sparkplugs ,ignition coil,cylinder head?......no you see an impervious piece of plastic whose sole purpose  is to discourage any familiarity with the engine.....some euro cars ,if you change over the battery ,the car wont go until  Mercedes Benz say it can.........everywhere people are discouraged from doing anything themselves ......are you qualified? is the standard  query.........qualified to paint the kitchen floor?

Indeed... really disappointed when i found Haynes didn't and never will do a manual for my car.... like most nowadays!

12 hours ago, Rob-M said:

I find having the time to do anything more than minor jobs is my problem so would rather pay someone to do a job whilst I am not on the boat, leaving me time to go boating rather than spending it painting or doing other jobs.

I have to admit to being opposite. I think i enjoy the DIY/repairs on the boat more than cruising... am i odd?

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