- Thread starter Seano
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Seano
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Will look at more of his stuff later, looks quite interesting.
Arc Tourist
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Frees both hands for positioning large or long items when needed. Good idea for those who may need it.
Screwdriver
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I have been watching this chap for some time now and his work just keeps getting better.
Many years ago while working at the BBC, I was amazed when the supplier of some very hard to find parts turned up with the read/record heads for an obsolete C format tape machine. This was one of those refrigerator size broadcast quality machines using 1" tape on reels. Proper hairy chested old school engineering, packed tight with unfeasibly dense boards that looked like an aerial photo of a large city, made from surface mount components. The spinning heads were fantastic jewels of precision needing to track microscopic magnetic channels on the tape surface. If I recall correctly, if you could find a spare, it would be circa £10k at a time when you could buy a house in London for that.
The engineer turned up to help us install them and I was involved in the process. He didn't speak much English but one of our engineers had hoarded a huge collection of Top of the Pops tapes he had been told to lob in a skip (instead he piled them under the floor in one of the bigger workshops). We needed some working machines! You know that scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules opens the case but you never get to see what's in it? C format tape heads made the same impression...
"Wow. Where do you get those?" I ask in awe.
"I make" he tells me in a heavy Polish accent.
Many years ago while working at the BBC, I was amazed when the supplier of some very hard to find parts turned up with the read/record heads for an obsolete C format tape machine. This was one of those refrigerator size broadcast quality machines using 1" tape on reels. Proper hairy chested old school engineering, packed tight with unfeasibly dense boards that looked like an aerial photo of a large city, made from surface mount components. The spinning heads were fantastic jewels of precision needing to track microscopic magnetic channels on the tape surface. If I recall correctly, if you could find a spare, it would be circa £10k at a time when you could buy a house in London for that.
The engineer turned up to help us install them and I was involved in the process. He didn't speak much English but one of our engineers had hoarded a huge collection of Top of the Pops tapes he had been told to lob in a skip (instead he piled them under the floor in one of the bigger workshops). We needed some working machines! You know that scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules opens the case but you never get to see what's in it? C format tape heads made the same impression...
"Wow. Where do you get those?" I ask in awe.
"I make" he tells me in a heavy Polish accent.
Seano
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Having worked with a lot of Russian engineers in the past it never ceases to amaze me the inventiveness of these people, I found out that this comes from what they needed not being readily available to buy therefore they make / manufacture it, some of his methods may be a bit rough and ready but you cannot deny the end products, check out his fire / hotplate made from 17" wheel rims, I was quite tickled watching the way he uses his stick welder (by holding the stick itself)
Screwdriver
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In some ways perhaps you're right. It's not really how you would approach the problem ideally.
My admiration is as much for the gung ho, getter done approach as it is for the application of "found materials". I've got a stack of useless rims, I want a woodburner. Hmm, what to do...
It is a very central european/ eastern bloc mentality to make the best use of scarce resources. Literally the definition of resourcefulness.
