The word 'homemade' conjures up probably a different thought to me, than it would for most. My Dad owned his own electrical construction business for 44 years, and I do not have the time nor the space to list all his tools that were homemade.
Robert Owens needed the capability to pull up to a job and start bending conduit, so he devised a “bending” trailer that would allow him to do just that. The first one he built looked quite a bit homemade, but the last one looked pretty professional. He had the need to haul 25 foot service poles with his pickup, so he started thinking homemade, again. He came up with a trailer that he secured one end of the pole to, and the other end was fastened to the truck. It mattered not how long the pole was, he could trailer it!
One job we had was installing high bay lights in a couple of factories. This would be no problem today, but around 1974, extending, drivable, boom lifts, were not a common contractor tool. Robert made his own tool for the job. He bought a 1959 two ton truck from the Coca-Cola company, shortened it six feet, built a frame around the truck that would accommodate a thirty foot scaffold, added an electric skate conveyor, and a generator, and we were ready to go. Alan Harris, my brother Dale & I hung many a light off that 'ol truck, in two factories. Republic Steel in McKenzie, and Tecumseh Products here in Paris. What a homemade contraption that was, but it did what Dad designed it to do, and it did it safely.
Another time, in the energy management business, we had the need to find out how long several pieces of equipment ran during a 24 hour period. A company tried to sell us a piece of equipment for between 4 & 5 hundred dollars that would do just that. Robert went to Uncle Lee's and bought 18 alarm clocks for not much more than 20 dollars, cut the end off the cord, wired them into the run side of the equipment, and 'voila, time clocks that would measure run time on 18 pieces of equipment. Homemade?.....definitely......genius at work?.....again, most definitely!
Much of my life, today revolves around homemade ingenuity. That is because during my formative years I was around a man that could invent whatever he needed, whenever he needed it. Learning to think outside the box sure has helped me as this world gets more complicated each day. I am glad I was so close to an inventor that was proud of his homemade "tools"!
1 comment:
When I think of homemade it is about food - homemade yeast rolls, homemade cakes and pies. There was no such thing as cake mix when I was growing up and even after there was, my mother would never have used it. Even though I have become more liberated than my mother and I do use cake mix on occasions and have been known to serve Sister Shubert Rolls, I still prefer my homemade yeast rolls, kneaded for 8 minutes and homemade cakes from scratch not a box.
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