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OT: a great TV show if you like to tinker with stuff

I'm watching this really interesting program from the BBC. It is called (James May) "The Reassembler." He takes everyday stuff, appliances and such, and takes them apart and reassembles them. He keeps a running commentary is intelligent, quick thinking, has a good vocabulary and has a great sense of humor/social awareness. You see him start with a table full of parts and he puts together (in this instance a toy electric train). The commentary goes to which manufacturers built what under which patents and brand names, how to repair, what goes wrong, what to watch out for; in between all that is commentary like "back before these 12 volt trains were the norm, electric trains ran on much higher voltages, and back then, many a kid succumbed to electrocution playing with them, but kids were cheaper then too. I lost many of my old mates to train sets..." (interjected in the running commentary)

He had a long monologue on the differences between what is a bolt and what is a screw, along with the ambiguity in definitions, then winds up the monologue with "what's the difference; nobody cares..."

When they pan out you can see several people filming and working boom microphones, and once in awhile he addresses the production crew directly.

I just watched the one show so far, and it doesn't look like there are many episodes. And it must be incredibly time consuming to produce one show. The show itself is ~1 hour, but no doubt he's probably fiddling around with the stuff for 4-5X that long to figure out how to put it together, and taking notes as he takes it apart. (I know how much time it takes to do that sort of thing) It seems fairly recent too. Wikipedia series 1, 3 episodes, 4 April 2016 - 6 April 2016 series 2, 4 episodes, 28 December 2016 - 18 January 2017

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Aahem, Excuse me!! For those blokes that live in that area of the planet that can't get BBC-4 channel (such as I) and have a desire to watch the bloody show listed above then go here:

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Cheers

Reply to
ABLE1

He's pretty funny too. :)

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Rick C
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rickman

I guess I should have mentioned, I used "bit torrent" to download it.

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I'm out of town at my daughters (college graduation) for a couple days, she started disassembly of her KitchenAid mixer which my wife purchased in the early 80's. She says it is a little noisy and thinks it needs lube. My daughter is not intimidated by anything, she will take on most any repair. (She even changed the oil in my truck many years ago, turned out to be transmission fluid, but that's another story.) She ran into a problem getting the drift pin out to remove the housing to open up the planetary gear assembly, she tried several of her tools including a drill bit, without success. I suggested we go to Harbor Freight and get a set of punches. She managed to get the pin out and the gear assembly is dry and has hard grease in it. She said, OK, let's stop, I need to start getting ready for the Graduation ceremony. We can do this tonight or tomorrow.

Anyway, I digress, I looked to see if The Reassmbler had a video on mixers, he does, >

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It's quite enjoyable with a bit of philosophizing and marvel about the technology in a gear. Mikek

PS. The graduation is not a big deal, it is her second BS, also today starts the first term for her Masters Degree. After that graduation she will start on her DMD or DDS, depending on where she gets accepted. I'm tired and please send money. :-)

Reply to
amdx

I have a Kitchen Aid 5 qt mixer I bought in ~1978. I use it twice a week to bake bread or crush grain or grind meat. The brushes died about two years ago, that and cleaning the contacts on the speed regulator is the only maintenance I've had to do on it. They use a really ancient speed regulator: an extra winding on the AC/DC motor kicks in (via springs and fly weights) to speed things up and the regulating lever just changes the position of the contacts on the extra field coil. (I think the newer ones use a Triac circuit)

If I remember... when the housing was off I could get to the planetary gears in the mixing head without removing the drift pin.

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In 79 they added a Solid State motor speed control and they added SS to the Model number. You definitely need to remove the pin to get a look at the planetary gear on her model. Starts at 1:30.

Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Fun thanks, I need more hours in the day. I do enjoy trying to keep old things working.

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

I got an email from my daughter this morning, she got the mixer apart, moved some of the grease from the top end to the planetary gear area and reassembled it. It works. I sent her an email suggesting she check the brushes in the motor, and get them on order if they are short. Hopefully she can get another

30 years out of it. She wants to start fly tying as an effort to show she has fine eye hand coordination for the dental school. Her fiancee likes to fish, so that might work out. Mikek 
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Reply to
amdx

I recall years ago that someone told me the exam involves carving chalk. I guess that is not entirely unlike dentin. Practice, practice, practice...

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Rick C
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rickman

With the right staff and a little fantasy you can get more hits than anyone on youtube:

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Bret Cahill

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Bret Cahill

You didn't get it...

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