On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 12:41:30 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip

I love seeing individual, clean, functional mechanical parts emerging
from a black greasy blob and knowing it has all gone back together
nicely and with fresh lube [1] etc.

Yeah, me too and it gave me a real buzz to be able to get it
going again with no spare bits left over

That's key or just the cherry on the cake (depending on what it is).

That and not enough bits. I've just repaired a little toy dog for my
niece. You press one of two buttons on a mock recoiling lead and it
either walks (of sorts) or barks and wags it's tail. It worked when
they bought it at a charity sale and she was upset when it 'died'.
'Maybe uncle Timmy could fix it?' Well, after testing all I could get
at from the outside, I had to skin it to get to it's guts and it
turned out to be a invisibly corroded battery terminal spring. In the
process of taking everything to bits it appears one of the controller
buttons has dropped out (unnoticed at the time) and we seem to be one
screw missing. Hopefully I can 3D print or turn a replacement button
and the 'missing' screw might be that I've used on the dog itself that
may not have been filled previously.

without even a diagram
or anything and only a vague idea about how they worked.

If you have 'the eye' and the thing used sufficiently to offer some
wear marks, you can often re-assemble things you haven't de-assembled,
even (as you say) without the diagrams, assuming it's not bizarrely
complicated.

It's like with flat-pack furniture. I tend to just glance at the
instructions in case there are things that need doing in a specific
order and to save time having to unassembled any of it. When there
aren't any instructions, you have to work it out yourself and maybe
just don't do any gluing until you see the bigger picture.

snip

I used a very light waterproof
grease (inc the ratchet pawls) and it works perfectly and I feel it's
less likely for 'lube' to migrate through from the gearbox to the
brake.

Its been too long now since I did it to remember, 50 years now.

I just picked up a second (at least) hand folding cycle, a Raleigh
Stowaway (often referred to as the Raleigh 20) as I have an issue with
one foot (hopefully temporarily) and still want to get out with the
Mrs walking the dog etc.

For now I'm going to have to use it 'as-is' (I might just put a longer
seatpost in it) but I'm really looking forward to going over it and
making sure everything is right. According to Wiki it would be between
36 and 49 years old and makes me wonder how many things made today
would still be going after that sort of time?

It worked fine for more than a decade or more until they moved
away so it must have been done right.

I'd say.

I still have all those oils and
greases but havent used them much at all in the last few decades
with modern cars not needing any of that anymore and that being
the only hub gear I have ever had anything to do with maint wise.

Quite.

Its also how I designed and built the house from scratch on a bare
block of land. The parents were getting a house architect designed
and built for them and I showed up in that town on the other side
of this country at the time, for a conference in my case. Unusual
post and beam construction which allows you to see how its put
together even when they had moved in.

Like all those log cabin type building they show you on the TV
programs.

I kept walking around
looking that the detail and decided that it would be a pushover
to do one myself. Went home, grabbed a bare block of land
in what you lot call a new estate and spent quite a bit of time
in the long summer evenings wandering around looking at
the houses being built in that new estate.

Out of cardboard it seems these days. ;-(

None of it is at all
complicated compared with cars and hub gearboxes.

True ... in standard house builds. Some of these real fancy homes with
glass fronts, cantilever beams and minimalist support or the floating
ones aren't quite so.

Even had the local council tell the local builders to look at how
I had done the prep for the massive great concrete slab on the
ground, because that's how its sposed to be done. I just followed
the instructions that came with the free design that the reo suppliers
supplied when you sent them a copy of the house plan. The use
bar chairs to hold the mesh as the right level when the concrete
is poured. The builders don't bother, they use a long T shaped
tool with a hook on the end and pull the mesh up as the concrete
is poured. The council inspectors hate that because there is no way
to check that the reo is at the right level in the concrete.

Quite. Did you mix / pour the concrete yourself or was it simply too
big and get a Ready-Mix load in? (Probably called 'Crete-O' over
there). ;-)

I was similar when we built the kitcar. I'd never built one before but
had done all the jobs I was going to have to do over many vehicles
over the years and so found it quite straightforward. 3 months of
evenings and weekends and in the open in our back yard. That was over
30 years ago now and it's still running.

Cheers, T i m