fixing

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Celebrating/talking about repairing stuff, the right to repair stuff, and the intersection of tech and solarpunk ideals.

What does it mean to use what we have, including technology, to try to build a better, more environmentally just world?

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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net to c/fixing@slrpnk.net
 
 

This was a more recent project. This lathe belonged to my brother’s girlfriend’s family. They were looking to get rid of it, and knew I had a workshop, so they offered it to me. (I accepted it sight unseen, as the description was vague enough that I honestly wasn’t sure if it was for wood or metal – worst case, I didn’t have a wood lathe yet, but you don’t pass up on the chance to get a metalworking lathe for free!)

It turned out to be a pretty basic Craftsman monopole wood lathe from the 80s. Most of the discussion I’ve found about these said that they were okay at best, fine to learn on but not worth spending much money to buy when there were better designs available out there.

It had been stored somewhere damp and had gotten pretty rusty, and the risk seemed low, so I decided to make a project out of it and learn some tool restoration skills. It ran as-is, but leaving tools rusty always felt kind of disrespectful to me.

I started by disassembling it, which took some doing and a lot of PB Blaster (once WD failed). I treated a couple of the little levers with white vinegar before reading that that was bad for the steel and the galvanized coatings, so I switched to evaporust, which I like a lot. You can save the stuff and reuse it, again and again, until it stops working (and even then it’ll work as degreaser).

All the small parts I dunked in a small bucket of evaporust, but the pole I had to wrap in paper towels soaked in evaporust and then with plastic so it wouldn’t dry. This stripped most of the rust but left a blackish crud that I had to scrape away with steel wool.

On metalworking tools, it’s common to protect them by coating them in oil, but I was advised that sawdust and oil aren’t a good mix, that the grease will collect sawdust and form a kind of cement-like crust as it dries. Considering the options I saw on tool repair forums, I chose two different ways to protect the cleaned parts. The little loose levers, bolts, screws, and threaded parts I treated with cold blue (often used to touch up scratches on guns) and on the monopole I used Johnson's paste wax, which is a floor wax that a lot of woodworkers apparently swear by.

The final result was pretty nice, I think. Between the coatings and the furnace keeping the workshop nice and dry, I haven’t seen the rust return.

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When my phone abruptly died a year ago, I stumbled into the world of degoogling and alternative ROMs for android devices while researching my options. Due to a lack of devices to try it on (so far, I’ve used each phone until it completely gave out) I haven’t messed with this yet, but I love the concept and wanted to share it here. This is just scratching the surface of options, and some of you may have more experience here, just wanted to share a resource for eking more life from devices which are no longer receiving security updates.

Ripping right from https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-install-lineageos-on-android/ : “LineageOS is the most popular ROM for Android devices. It garners vast success due to its near-stock Android experience with no bloatware, and a clean and uncluttered interface. It provides regular security updates and bug fixes that often lack in some stock ROMs. Additionally, it gives you a higher level of customization than the stock Android firmware. Even better, this ROM supports an extensive list of devices, including older ones that no longer receive official updates.”

For me, the security updates are the big thing. With the threat landscape online, I think the way most of use use smart phones, security updates are a critical requirement. Companies don’t really have any motivation to continue supporting legacy devices, though. Long-term support costs them resources and person-hours while providing an alternative to buying their brand new products instead. Some corps offer guarantees that they’ll support security updates for X years as a feature, but after that, they’re more or less incentivized to stop updates as soon as possible. Similar to planned obsolescence, though perhaps a little less underhanded.

To me, LineageOS and other community-based nonprofit alternatives represent a very solarpunk rejection of fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and tech as a quickly-disposable product. Thanks to various Linux distros, I’ve been able to keep computers limping along long after they lost OS support from Microsoft, Apple, or Google, so having a similar resource for phones and tablets is excellent.

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Hi! I’m Jacob, it looks like I’m going to be taking over as mod for this community. It looks like the original intent was to celebrate/talk about repairing stuff/the right to repair stuff, and perhaps the intersection of tech and solarpunk ideals and how to mix them. I’m a big believer in using what we have, including technology, to try to build a better, more environmentally just world (never been one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good). I like fixing things and making them last long past any planned obsolescence or sane expectation of the lifespan of a product.

I thought by way of introduction, I’d share an old project. When my grandfather died, I inherited many of his tools. This drill press belonged to my great grandfather. If I’ve got my understanding of the characteristics right, (three-prong feed lever, this specific chuck) it dates to 1951.

My great grandfather had a… casual relationship with electricity.

Everything still worked great but the wiring worried me. The original cord was non-polarized, not grounded, and the white (red?) wire's insulation had crumbled away basically anywhere I could see it. Great-Grampa had added in a light switch, by slicing back the insulation and cutting one wire, which worked but was unsafe. (Shocks aside, imagine trying to grab that in an emergency, when a piece has gotten away from you and is spinning, or when you’ve got an article of clothing caught in the works).

Luckily the motor's internal wires' insulation looked just fine. The motor has the old fabric-insulated wires, which, ironically, seem to have held up much better than the rubber stuff. I'm glad I didn't have to do anything with the motor internals, a couple rebuild videos have shown me they're a fun mix of overbuilt and delicate from age.

My goal was to overbuild everything, so I rated everything for the motor's power needs and added a grounding wire, weatherproof box, and a tool-grade switch intended for various Powertec power tools.

I had to modify the switch box to fit the new switch, and painted it to match the drill press. I like this because I can slap it into the off position without looking at it.

I love this machine. It’s big, bulky, and weighs a ton, but it’s on its fourth generation of users and I don’t doubt it’ll continue. I love the simplicity of it, the exposed and easily-replaceable belts and motor. I love how easy it is to maintain and fix.

About a year after I finished working on this, I read the book Ecotopia. The book is from the 1970s but it had a section dedicated to the Right to Repair in a society where most tools and appliances are designed with a similar ethos. From “Ecotopian Television and its Wares”:

“Objects that are available in stores seem rather old fashioned. I have seen few Ecotopian-made appliances that would not look pretty primitive on American TV. One excuse I’ve heard is that they are designed for easy repair by users. At any rate they lack the streamlining we’re used to – parts stick out at odd angles, bolts and other fasteners are plainly visible, and sometimes parts are even made of wood. I have, however, observed that Ecotopians do repair their own things. In fact there are no repair shops on the streets. A curious corollary is that guarantees don’t seem to exist at all. People take it for granted that manufactured items will be sturdy, durable, and self-fixable – which of course means they are also relatively unsophisticated compared to ours. This state of affairs has not been achieved easily; I have heard many funny stories about ridiculous designs produced in the early days, lawsuits against their manufacturers, and other tribulations. One law now in effect requires that pilot models of new devices must be given to a public panel of ten ordinary people (‘consumers’ is not a term used in polite conversation here). Only if they all find they can fix likely breakdowns with ordinary tools is manufacture permitted.”

While reading the vintage machinery forums, I came across a more succinct quote: 'These old tools don't break, they're just missing parts.'

I think that's a really nice way of looking at it.

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The event will consist of workshops and panels on regeneration and ReFi to foster the movement forward, and a hackathon to ideate and build SolarPunk tech in the Crypto Commons Hub!

  • A cyber-physical permaculture garden
  • A plastic recycling machine
  • Solar panels