Originally Posted By: Barry the Pirate


A lot of the parts are from making lamps. Not all, though. There's a lot of specialized pieces.

I went through a phase of trying to re- invent the wheel, I guess, but just making metal prototypes is cost prohibitive. I tried to come up with something to put on the little connection between the bowl and shank to make it cooler to the touch. The problem was any kind of glue would weaken from the heat. I'm just at a point of being happy to sit in front of the tv and make inexpensive but nice stuff.

I've always wondered who decides that "piece X and Y and Z go together". Probably the same people who decide when Daylight Savings Time starts.


I've never been a big arts & crafts type guy, but I like the idea of making things, and of craftsmanship. So, I recently took a month long course on basic woodworking (with hand tools--no power tools). Anyway, it opened my eyes to a whole culture of people who not only make everday things by hand, from scratch, they actually enjoy doing it... and not for profit, but for fun.

It was a bit like being raised your whole life on microwave meals and McDonald's hamburgers and then taking cooking lessons at a Michelin star restaurant that slaughters its own animals and grows its own fruits, veggies, and herbs and cooks everything from scratch. Sort of a culture shock.

Maybe I'm just still overly impressed with some of the folks I've met recently. A couple of weeks ago, I met my first master blacksmith (he designs and makes fittings for the master cabinetmaker I took the course from) and that is what made me think of the question. Anyway, I just know somewhere up there in hippie land is a Norm Abram type that could reinvent the wheel for you with one arm tied behind his back, while taking a nap, and enjoy doing it. Of course I know that is easier to say than to do.
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--Some of us look for The Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.