Crafstmen, Do-it-yourself, etc. (was: [T3] New Fastback photos)

[John Fessenden "fess" <fess-vwtype3.org@fess.org>]

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On Jan 31, 2005, at 10:35 PM, Toby Erkson wrote:

> Triple A is good for it's towing, no doubt!  I've used them multiple 
> times.
>
> My father made sure my sister was able to change a tire before she got 
> her first car.  You know I'll make sure Bella knows how to change a 
> tire, check the oil (after the engine has been SITTING for longer than 
> 10 minutes!), and replace ALL fluids...tranny, engine, windshield 
> washer, blinker fluid, etc ;-)

Well, I'm going to make sure my kid's smart enough to identify a good 
mechanic, and rich enough from his management positions to never change 
any part on a car.

*grin*,  ok, I'm just kidding.

but it's funny how we shun specialization for do-it-yourself-ness.  I 
can understand in the case where you can't find someone to do a good 
job, but I thought one of the things that advanced society was 
specialization.

I mean If I could be sure that the folks I was hiring were as good as 
some of the folks on this list, then
I wouldn't ever do anything to my T-3 myself, heck many would probably 
do a better job than I would.

I feel like I've hit all sides of this now,  10 years ago, I used to do 
everything myself,
I even taught myself to rebuild my motor. [ using only the how to keep 
your vw alive book. sheesh.. ]
I had more time than money.  [ and I ended up rebuilding it more than 
once, as I "learned", so it might
have been the more expensive route  ]

Recently, I've been out of time, so I went ahead and purchased a 
"rebuilt"
'67 squareback. If you recall, nearly everything was done extremely 
poorly. [ my bad for not doing a better job inspecting. ]

After that I wound up taking it to a mechanic because I didn't have 
room to drop the motor and deal with the clutch issues.  The guy I 
found was awesome, and I'll probably take more of my stuff to him, 
rather than attempt to do it myself.

Still, if you don't know a little about how to do something, it's 
sometimes hard to identify good craftsmanship.

And that's how I feel about paint and body work,  I was never any good 
at it, and I feel like I can't really discern good work from bad work 
very well.  Although, I'm learning, as I can tell that the work the
PO did on my '67 square is not very good work, and now I'm going to 
have to get it repainted.
and my '72 is showing signs of rust, even in california,  so I do need 
to find someone.

It sure would be nice if our society produced more pride in 
craftsmanship, then I wouldn't feel
like it was such a big risk to find help with body and paint.

--fess

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