Just Joined!

Nope. I never saw one. For good reason as when I was repairing consumer electronics, we just didn't get too many bottom end TV's to fix. I mostly did warranty work on imported tape recorders and hi-fi's with a few odd TV's mixed in. AC-DC xsistor TV repair is one experience I'm glad I missed.

His patience and my attention span were both short. We would do the clock repair about 20-30 minutes at a time. It was a race between my tendency to get easily bored, and his frustration with my ineptitude. The real trick was that I had to do it all, with no direct help from my father. That way, I would have some pride in the work. I've semi-convinced some of my friends to do the same with their kids, with mixed results.

Incidentally, I got my revenge many years later. I was working for Heathkit, so naturally, I bought my father a Heathkit digital clock kit to build. The roles were reversed. I sat there helping him solder the kit together while I watched and helped. With all the mechanical expertise he taught me, I expected this to be fairly trivial. It wasn't and he struggled with it for several weeks. It eventually worked and I still have the clock.

One of my friends is a programmer. His father was an auto mechanic and did not want his son to also become an auto mechanic. Every time his son picked up a tool, his father would take it away. The son grew up to be a very competent programmer, but is a total disaster with anything mechanical. Such things require practice, preferably early in life.

Good luck with your son. Despite the attention span problem, the experience is worthwhile. Without it, I'm sure my life would have taken a different direction.