formatting link
SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)
Don.
- posted
15 years ago
Do it herself?
Loading thread data ...
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
And they wonder why so many of our young men are such a problem ? Has there been just ONE single article ANYWHERE, over the last couple of decades, extolling the virtues of males ?
Andy
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
Football?
Anna
>- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
Read this:
formatting link
's really good!
Jon.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
I'd say assembling flat pack furniture isn't really DIY. DIY means doing something normally done by a tradesman.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
>>>>> Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
I doubt it.
half of them are of dubious gender anyway.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
> Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who was brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the instructions invariably produced something that did not work. so you had to decide what the finished article should look like and wing it after that. It was not until James May mentioned it in a programme, that I discovered that was a deliberate policy by the inventor, to make us think about what we were building.
Colin Bignell
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
I'll back that one up - I could never get the Meccano instructions to produce anything that worked. I suspect that in fact this was deliberate in that it sorted the men from the boys - the inventors and future DIY'ers from the rest.
To classify DIY and kit assembly in the same category is just not realistic and shows the ignorance of the journalist and the Ikea manager. But then this is the sort of c**p that papers thrive on - no one ever really thinks things out properly.
Rob
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
My first Meccano set was very secondhand and came without instructions or even box. It was so old the colours were gold for the strips and blue with a gold crosshatch for the plates. But was basically a No5. So I had to build things simply from pictures I saw in ads etc.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
> Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Ikea have lazy male employees. If the women want to get their hands dirty, why should us guys get involved. :-)
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
>>> Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Really? I never realised that...
I used to spend hours building stuff from Meccano, but very little of it I did exactly according to the plans (glad I didn't bother now!) More often it would be a case of use a documented project as inspiration for something and then make it up as I went along.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
formatting link
>> Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand
I'd agree, but fortunately many of my customers don't :-)
Two comments I've heard from customers; "My idea of purgatory is the never ending assembly of flat pack" and "I'd rather have a tooth out than assemble that".
T'other day I was chatting to 3 or 4 of the lads at my local plumbing supplies place. My van was parked right outside the window & one of them was reading the list of jobs I do.
"What's it mean by Flat Pack Assembly"? I explained that loads of people pay me to assemble furniture they have bought.
They couldn't believe it. All practical lads, they couldn't comprehend that people pay for something so simple.
Thankfully they do. I love it, money for old rope.
Takes all sorts.
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my experience.
MBQ
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
I must admit to being sceptical too. I collected Meccano as a kid - and got the magazine - and never came across or heard of any errors.
Watching the way those three on Top Gear go about doing any mechanical work I'd say non of them ever mastered Meccano. I wouldn't trust any of them to fit a plug either. I've seen Kevin Webster wield a spanner with more authority...
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but for something like this
formatting link
is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as far as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.
Colin Bignell
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
I built that model in 1963! And yes, I remember having to modify bits of it...
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
... and I remember looking at the plans for things like that, and never having enough bits to make them. Not like you rich B***rs!
Andy
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
I spent my money on little else! And for some models, a friend and I clubbed together...
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
My father bought a huge box of mixed Meccano parts, along with a couple of books of projects, off a street market stall. It wasn't as pretty as a boxed set and I had to buy extra nuts and bolts, but I don't recall ever running out of parts.
Colin Bignell
- Vote on answer
- posted
15 years ago
She's trying to sell those kits to women - and the men who fall for it. Whip up a bit of competition via friction.
The meccano set I had had metric bolts, imperial nuts and AF holes. The motors were ac induction types and didn't work well with batteries (not supplied). On the good side though, the parts were luminious so could be assembled under bedcloths.