Making old new

# Chapter 185

Making old stuff new is seriously difficult work and has more challenges to it than you would think. Even taking the old stuff apart is hard because everything is rusted and broke and stuck together in the wrong ways. But in comparison to rebuilding, taking it apart is quick work. We were disassembling a 55 year old truck bed yesterday and this involved cutting torches, impact wrench and regular tools and plenty of tenacious ingenuity. Oh and of course don’t forget the hammers. This is the easier part of restoration by far, the part that often requires brute force and little finesse and mistakes don’t cost too much.

Putting things back together, now that is real skill and work. This is no lego set style putting together mind you, but a careful returning to original condition. Putting the pieces back together is a small part of the restoration, returning the pieces to original or better condition, that is the bulk of the effort, and the highest level of skill. This takes decades long of development and learning and practice to master practically any of these skills. I am learning them later in life and so my expertise levels won’t climb very high, there just isn’t enough time remaining for me to garner many of these skills, but learning in and of itself is a pleasurable and beneficial, and so I will keep pressing forward. But you apply the 10,000 hour rule to 200 different skills and then you see the challenge. You have to choose and pick your skills to learn when you are almost 60 years young.