It is perhaps in the spirit of our anxious, rickety age that antique tool, machinery, and toy restoration videos are becoming increasingly popular. There is something oddly comforting and therapeutic about seeing the old, the forgotten, the previously reliable (now seized with rust and neglect) being lovingly restored to life.
These videos are simple, quiet (usually with no spoken narrative), and most of the restoration process is carefully shown, from disassembly to cleaning, sanding, repainting to re-assembly and testing. This is a world in which time, Evapo-Rust, a wire wheel, and some rattle-cans of enamel paint can repair the past to near show room luster.
I can't get enough. And for makers, there are lots of great repair and restoration tips embedded in these videos. Here are a few of my favorite channels.
A man went on Antique Roadshow with a Rolex watch he’d purchased in the 1970s for $345 and never really wore. His reaction to be told it is worth $700,000 made me smile. Image: YouTube
Olmsted County, Minnesota’s History Center are sharing portraits of the creepiest dolls in their antiques collection. Folks can vote online for their favorite and the winner will be on display next week for Halloween. From MPR News: “The doll I disdain handling is the one with human hair,” said curator Dan Nowakowski as he holds […]
This video was far more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It’s not only the story of the restoration of a cool barn find, a circa 1890 candy-making machine, but it details how Greg Cohen of Lofty Pursuits in Tallahassee, Florida used it to make strawberry “drops” (hard candies). Cohen is a […]
Father’s Day is June 21st, otherwise known as the roughest shopping day of the year. Don’t get us wrong, Dad deserves an awesome gift for all the great things he gave you. But let’s be honest — buying for your father is often a chore. Your gift has to take into account what he already […]
Even in horrible economic times, a few simple rules hold unshakably true. And one of those rules is that if you possess an in-demand skill, you’ll always find work — and often, at a top market salary, to boot. If you understand Big Data and how to find order from the chaos of massive stockpiles […]
We live in a disposable era. If you can’t fix a broken item with a wrap of duct tape, there’s a very strong likelihood that its next destination is the trashcan. However, that probably leads to a trigger-finger death sentence for many household items that could be saved with just a bit more ingenuity. Before […]
