Repairing

“ He must have a natural love of order and of cleanliness, and a systematic type of mind. This position calls for a man with an experience that will enable him to detect liability of breakdowns before they actually occur. He must be resourceful in repairing unexpected breakdowns in an emergency, and be able at all times to carry out literally the directions given on the instruction cards of the Planning Department for cleaning, maintaining, and repairing the machines. ”

“ With regard to details, I would make a few improvements at once—such, for example, as the laying on of water and repairing of dustbins, but, for the most part, improvements should be made only by degrees, as the people became more capable of valuing and not abusing them. ”

“ Strips of raw hide are without equal for repairing broken vehicles, wheels, saddles, and similar articles, because they shrink while drying, drawing everything tight, and set so hard when once dry that what is mended is often stronger than before. ”

“ Father and sons are, or rather used to be, all engaged in repairing the out-houses, patching them with thatch where it was wanted, mending mangers, paving stable-floors, fixing cow-stakes, making boraghs,* removing nuisances, and cleaning streets. ”

“ Provided always, that if any Damage shall be occasioned to any Building or Wall, or to any Rails or Palisadoes, by the affixing, setting up, taking down, altering, or repairing any such Lamp or Lamp Iron, or the Fastenings thereof, the said Trustees shall immediately cause such Injury or Damage to be well and sufficiently repaired, and the Expence thereof p. ”

“ I lay some stress on the fact that there should be some one in every family knowing how to repair, especially in metal, because there is no household in which there is not damage of tin and iron ware, trunks, kitchen utensils, and often even of jewellery, which a clever youth or young lady could easily restore. ”

“ There is hardly a village so small that one man or woman could not make in it or eke out a living by repairing different objects. In towns and cities the demand for such work is much greater, for there ladies break expensive fans and jewellery, and children xvi their dolls and toys, for mending of which the “rehabilitators” require “much moneys,” especially in the United States, where prices for anything out of the way are appalling. ”

“ The house, which had passed into more hands than one since it ceased to be used as a factory, has lately been bought by a gentleman, who has spent a considerable sum of money in repairing and furnishing it. ”

“ It is so far from true that everything is now snapped up, that I confidently assert that there is hardly a bric-à-brac shop in Europe in which a skilled repairer cannot find a bargain, and in most cases several. ”

“ I go so far as to say that an exhibition of specimens showing all that can be done in mending and restoration in ceramic art, leather, carved stone, books, carved and wrought wood, castings, metal, furniture, fans, and toys, would probably serve as sufficient beginning to establish classes and a school. The objects should, when possible, be accompanied by a duplicate or photograph showing the condition they were in before restoration, on the principle of the picture-cleaners, who amaze the public with such startling contrasts of dirt and splendour. ”

“ I have truly said that, while breaking and decay xx are universal, there are literally nowhere any generally accomplished repairers—that is to say, experts who know and can practise even what is set forth in this book. Certain menders of broken china there are, of whom the great authority on fictile restoration, Ris-Pasquot, declares that none can be trusted with anything valuable. There are so few needle-women who can sew up a rent perfectly that a lady “to the manor born” paid in Rome two pounds, or fifty lire, for being taught the stitch, described in this book, by which it can be done. ”

“ Temporary alleviation of symptoms—how to make the thing go somehow—when there is no fiddle physician within beck or call, is a problem frequently arising and very annoying, necessity then being the mother of invention, often of a most curious sort, as most professional repairers who have had the re-consideration of the matter will have impressed on their memories. ”

“ A very little reflection will convince the least visionary or most practical reader that what is wasted xvii or annually destroyed of valuable old works, which cannot be replaced, because they are no longer manufactured, if restored, would form the basis of a great national industry. It has not as yet, however, entered into the head of any one to conceive this, simply because no one has ever been educated as a general restorer, but only in a secondary, supplementary, small way as a specialist, generally as a botcher. ”

“ Most repair activities are classified as Services. However, some repair activity such as shipbuilding and boatbuilding and repair, the rebuilding of machinery and equipment on a factory basis, and machine shop repair are classified as manufacturing. ”

“ How best to disguise and repair the wear and tear of use or accident is quite as valuable an art, as that of making new things.
Under the head of mending, we include the strengthening and replacing of the worn and broken threads of a fabric, and fitting in of new stuff in the place of that which is torn or damaged. The former is called darning, the latter, patching.
DARNING.--When only a few of the warp or woof threads are torn or missing, a darn will repair the mischief, provided the surrounding parts be sound. When the damage is more extensive, the piece must be cut out. ”

“ One of these; unsigned, was published in the Century Magazine, and expressed the need for a "universal tinker," the man who can accept a job in a large household or in a community as master of all trades, with sufficient knowledge of each to be ready to undertake whatever repairs are likely to be required in the ordinary household, such as—"to put in windowpanes, mend gas leaks, jack-plane the edges of doors that won't shut, keep the waste-pipe and other water-pipe joints, glue and otherwise repair havoc done in furniture, etc." ”

“ A method of inspection and repair by which the man who inspects will be required to have some mechanical experience, who can talk and understand English and comprehend what the result will be if he fails to discover defects and have them remedied, and who will report, not to a foreman whose duty it is to repair the defect, but to a superior whose business it is to find them. ”

“ Of all the Restorations yet undertaken the worst have meant the reckless stripping a building of some of its most interesting material features; while the best have their exact analogy in the Restoration of an old picture, where the partly perished work of the ancient craftsmaster has been made neat and smooth by the tricky hand of some unoriginal and thoughtless hack of to-day. ”

“ For large repairs, like a leak in the water or waste system or shingle on a roof, a trained worker is needed; but for small repairs a special worker from outside is too expensive, and there needs to be a handy person in the house, who can put in a screw, and use a monkey wrench, touch up the paint or varnish, or mend the wall paper. ”

“ Repair of Buildings.—A body of men in various trades to be kept at the disposal of the authorities in every large town for consistent repair of buildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who, if no such provision were made, [Pg 139] could not employ workmen on their own houses, but would simply live with rent walls and roofs. ”

“ Now and again an effort to repair them is started, but as half the money intended for the work usually remains in the hands of the officials and contractors it is never well done, great care being taken not to do the repairs thoroughly, for fear of preventing fresh disaster and losing a chance to do it all over again. ”

“ Paris is full of repairers, and in the little streets on the other side of the Seine old women sit in doorways on a sunny day, defeating the efforts of time to destroy the loved toiles peintes. But this haphazard repair, done on the knee, as a garment might be mended, is not comparable to the careful, exact work of the restorer at her frame. ”

“ These two operations of destruction and renovation, inverse the one to the other, are absolutely connected and inseparable, in this sense at any rate, that destruction is the necessary condition of renovation. The phenomena of functional destruction are themselves the precursors and the instigators of material regeneration, of the formative process which is silently going on in the intimacy of the tissues. The losses are repaired as they take place; and equilibrium being re-established as soon as it tends to be broken, the body is maintained in its composition. ”

“ Employment of Men on Repairs. —The men, when not otherwise occupied, to do petty repairs, etc., within their beats, but not to be put on miscellaneous duties and sent about as messengers, nor to act as orderlies or khalassies. ”

“ Does a garden need to be weeded? Does an old fence need to be kept in repair? Do we paint our houses only once in a century? What about the musician—does he not need to keep in practice? Supposing that you never kept your muscles in repair by constant use or exercise—how long would you be strong or healthy? ”

“ Without being bred to any mechanical profession, the peons make and repair nearly every implement or tool that is used upon the estate, and this, too, without the use of a forge or of iron, not even of bolts and nails. ”

“ So long as the phenomena of waste and repair are in harmony—so long, in other words, as the builder follows the scavenger—so long man exists in integrity and repair—just, indeed, as houses exist. Derange nutrition, and at once degeneration, or rather let us say, alteration begins. ”

“ And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places—thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in. ”

“ Every day this sad task of mine has been going on, for more than a week, and now, tomorrow, this being Sunday, the workmen are coming in and the removal men, and the few sticks, at least such as are worth removing, will be taken away to a furniture hospital for repair. ”

“ If any society had come there and put those houses into a state of perfect repair at once, it would have been of little use, because its work would have been undone again by the bad habits and carelessness of the people. ”

“ We could dwell upon the significance of repairs in maintaining the efficiency of cars. Now we are prepared for the query, Is it not essential that we have spiritual garages for the souls of men, garages where supplies and repairs may be had? ”

“ Go to some manufacturing town where steam hisses and pants, and there is the throb and whirr of machinery from morn till night—yes, and onward still from night to morn—where the furnaces are never allowed to slacken—go there and visit the infirmary, and you will find plenty of wounded in the course of the year. You have the same result, too, in the agricultural districts, where, peaceful as is the labourer’s pursuit, he cannot avoid mishaps with horses, waggons, threshing-machines, even with his simple working tools. ”

“ Then the engineer hurriedly completes a new survey, and replaces the track around the scene of the accident, because reconstruction, as a rule, is more economical and quicker than attempting to repair the injury inflicted. ”

“ In addition thereto there may be permanent improvement work, such as the clearing of new lands for cultivation and enclosing them with good fences, the repair of old and the erection of new buildings and the manufacture of articles of furniture or comfort, for the better equipment of the many rooms in the buildings. ”

“ With so formidable an undertaking to contend with, it is cause less of surprise than of regret that the late repairs should have been restricted to the more accessible portions of the building, and that there should be no measures in prospect for its permanent security. ”

“ He would always, therefore, he said, be, by choice, an improver, rather than a reformer; introducing corrections and additions, from time to time, as occasion offered, rather than letting a building become so inconvenient or ruinous as to require being pulled down and rebuilt. ”

“ It is necessary that you should be able to mend and repair your engines, coaches, railways and the like, but to do this cheaply, you must also be in a position to make at home the things needing repair. ”

“ No local man could make the repairs. Through our American army headquarters at Nancy we applied to this French repair station. At eight o'clock next morning I was on hand to pilot a heavy wrecking truck to our car. ”

“ The managers of several of the Western railroad systems have decided to erect repair-shops along their various systems, by which repair work and new work can be more expeditiously and economically done. ”

“ Then, as rebuilding and alterations proceed, many houses will gradually be remodelled—at least as regards some of their rooms—in the same direction. Physicians will become increasingly insistent on the necessity for admitting plenty of light into the abodes of the sick, more particularly of families inclined towards consumption. ”

“ Everything is systematized, and the surroundings of the operatives, with abundance of light, with perfect ventilation, with steam-heat, with convenient retiring-rooms, justify the statement that the gain of the manufacture through improved machinery is no greater than the gain of the operative, which has come through the accompanying improvement in the construction and arrangement of the buildings in which these operations are conducted. ”

“ Merely as examples we will mention a few such opportunities which have thrust themselves upon us as important. The making of such improvements is so bound up with improved maintenance [Pg 12] that while the cost of them might properly be met either out of increased maintenance funds or out of special improvement funds, the work should be done mainly by the maintenance personnel. ”