ok,,seems alot of people talking bout being ripped off when taking there car to someone else to have work done on it. In response some have stated that part of the 'hobby' is doing most if not all of it yourself. With that in mind,,I'm sure many new to the whole car 'scene' had lil or no real hands on experience prior to now. So I guess this is actually a question.. Back in High School what did you take? That has helped you with the hobby I know in our school they offered Architectural Drawing , Carpentry,Auto body,Auto Mechanics, FFA, Meta Shop.. etc etc I took Metal ( we sand casted our own Hurst shifters woo hoo ) and Auto Body ( should have tried mechanics )
I didn't take any classes that really helped me. Took wood class and made a ball bat and a lamp on the lathe.
I was taught by a lot of trial and error Had a god friend teach me bodywork and listening to others on materials and what to use .Mechanical Trial and error Welding self taught.Practiced on other peoples cars Patch panels ,Till township shut me down Had the knack .read alot Switched to arc Im better at arc. Haven't tried tig I want to But I don't know anybody that has one.I've got a mig and a arc welder that's all I need. 110 mig and 220 arc Painted all my cars and a few for other people And for what I took in school I didn't take any courses . You can learn alot from friends
The class that I think about most now (I'm 54) is woodshop, and a walnut bowl I made on the lathe. I had this chunk of walnut that was 4" thick, 16" wide and 4 feet long I cut up, glued up and turned into a salad bowl. I got tired of sanding, and sanding and sanding, oiled it up and called it good. I figured the scratches in the bowl would be covered by lettuce anyway, so who'd care? Turns out, my instructor (who wasn't that much older than I was) did, and gave me a C. It was much later I understood the reason for that.
I was born with it....used to dismantle battery operated toys and use the various components to build motorized cars ,cranes etc. Moved onto building go karts with gas engines when I was around 12. Also fixed up mowers from the dump to make money at that age. Had my first car at 14. Took 3 years auto shop in highschool because it was a breeze.Didn,t start in the auto business until I was 20 though,3 years of tech college and have been with Chrysler dealerships for 28 years now....Really can,t think of any other job I could be good at.
i'm still young at 32 yrs but was fortunate enough to have an old school shop teacher and programs , took drafting , wood shop , welding , electronics , auto class , small engines , got to sandcast parts , had a lathe and mill , valve grinder , and i got early school release for my job workin in a body shop ! all around the age of 14 ! life was good ! i need to send my old shop teacher a thank you card i didn't realize how good we had it and how these things would truly affect me later in life !
To address the issue of feeling ripped off in work hired out, it's hard for me to feel sorry for a guy who drops a project off at a shop without a contract, without knowing what kind of work is (and has) been done, what the other customers think of the work they had done, then complain about the job. Do your homework, or learn to do things yourself. Not sound arrogant, I do everything myself. If it's screwed up, or wrong, or breaks, I do it over. If it's not perfect, it's the best I could have done, given my skill and knowledge at the time. When I learn a better way, I do it over. I think those who've followed my '36 build know what I'm talking about. There is an element of overcoming impaitence, as I'm by nature, very impatient and tend towards the "close enough for who it's for" category (see my salad bowl comment above), but I'm learning to balance that with getting things "right". I do think I strike a fair compromise, or I'd never be able to get a project done. One has to be able to stop somewhere, and drive the thing. It's awfully easy for somebody to say they've been ripped off, screwed over, or otherwise had an orifice rubbed raw who can't do anything other than write checks. There's usually two sides to a story, and we only ever hear one... Brian
I was lucky with that too,,though in my younger years there were alot of part of alot of things laying around.. Single greatest thing I did learn from that was if something us 'to hard ' to take apart..don't force it ,,your doing something wrong Also was taught alot by the Bikers I grew up around,,I'm sure in many cases your surrounding def. make a difference
We had auto shop at school and a after scool paint & body class.The teacher was big into the indoor shows at the time so we had a high school 'club' and built some cars to enter in the Starbird show when it came to town, even took them to some out of town shows. Learned a lot there that has stayed with me my whole life, even choose a career of building custom cars thanks to that teacher's influance. 35 years later that teacher is still one of my best friends, we have stayed in touch all along.
I didnt learn much in any shop classes in school. Before I went into the auto shop class in high school me and my dad drug in a 56 merc out of a field. He bought the parts and I put them on during the summer while he was at work. I would get the car running and was driving it down the street and back with no tags and drivers license. I was about 15 or 16. Talk about learning the hard way. When I went into shop class we were shown how to check the oil in a car, I was oh shit! I already put a field find back on the road.
Had a dad that would tell me what to do but never did it for me...he had learned at an early age working for the town mechanic....was fortunate enough in my senior year of H.S. to go 1/2 days to the vocational school in town..took auto body...learned enough that I knew I didn't want to do it for a living..Figured if I had to wear a mask to do my work I'd rather rob banks and make BIG money...at any rate am glad I did learn what I did as I sure as hell couldn't afford to pay and when I have it seems as tho' I still have to fix it after I had paid someone to fix it..Got tired of that !!!
I took college welding and automotive classes at night every semester from sophmore till I graduated as a senior even the summer classes. I took college construction classes during the regular day classes my second semester junior year all the way through my graduation. I would have taken the summer classes of construction but worked at the local Ace Hardware 40+ during the day all summer. I was in Future Farmers of America from freshman all the way through graduation. I raised pigs, chickens, rabbits, and was an officer numerous times. I have a state degree from FFA. I also played football and helped out my class when I could squeeze them in. I feel really bad for all the younger people who do not have the oppertunities I had. I lived in a rural community that had a small JC that was very well funded and supplied to make my secondary education and vocational education a lot easier. I was the Teachers Aide in my welding classes my senior year. I used to bring projects people had asked me to work on to the welding shop as a real world learning aide for the other students. The amount I "charged" for these project fixes was just food for the classmates. My instructor let me do what I wanted pretty much because I got the students to learn and work on their assignments for him. I learned all kinds of techniques, practices, time management, and "outside the box" thinking that I still apply daily. While in these courses I feel we all learned more then the regular general education classes ever taught us.-Weeks
For me it was a split. School work was school work and mom made sure of that. Though I did take mech.drawing, arch.drafting, and art classes. But after school if i didnt have sports or music it was helping my dad or brothers out in the shops. My dad was an old yankee and built and fixed everything himself. I am the youngest of seven kids and my dad being older had retired by the time i was in high school so he was always home dabbling with something and "needing a hand". I tried college in the environmental field but it just wasnt for me and started working with my hands right then. so for me it wasnt really what i could or couldnt learn at school it was more of what i could learn just by living. I too have been screwed by so called pros..its always at that point where i learn how to do what i just lost money on and make sure i dont screw the guy who comes to me for help.
I had woodshop, metal shop,electric shop,Ceramics,handicrafts [we made plastic knobs] chemistry,geometry,beginning physics, all those helped Plus my Mom was real good in crafts,, and Dad could work on the car an he fixed everthing.also I made model airplanes and RR models an wiring.Also learned basics of metalshaping [pounding out metal bowls] in the scouts. I didnt need auto shop as I had a Model A.
L. A. City Schools had a great Industrial Arts program, wood shop, metal shop, elec. shop, handicrafts, all helped through out my life, the one that helped the least was auto shop, our auto shop teacher was hard core "what makes you bunch of knuckle heads think you know more about building cars than the college educated Engineers in Detroit?" we learned how to do brake jobs...not much else. I will add the edit: I graduated in 1968 so this was awhile ago...
yeh I went to LA schools and they had some great shops baknthe day. they don,t teach much of that today.
I was lucky to be raised by a depression era father and war time England mother both were and are creative and learned to do alot with not much. And as for high school I had great wood , metal , and art teachers. Seems a forgone conclusion that I would end up a carpenter that also builds rods and racecars for fun . Rob
My high school had a "shop" class, but by the time I was old enough to take it, I'd already been welding and building stuff for four or five years. My old man owned and ran an industrial construction company, building machinery and platforms and such for factories, and the big steel buildings to house them, so I was emmersed in that stuff from a very early age. Spent one whole summer when I was eight or nine making booger welds on chunks of 1/4"x2" angle with a Sears buzz box stick welder and a tin of 7018 rod. The old man wouldn't let me touch the MIG and TIG machines until I could run a nice bead with the stick. I learned many things that summer. For instance: stick electrodes are always "ON", you don't have to be outside to get a sunburn, welding makes angle iron very hot, even leather will eventually catch on fire, welding machine don't work without a ground clamp, and most importantly, never strike an arc when you're standing in a puddle. Call it the fabrication school of hard knocks, but by the next summer, I could lay a horizontal stick bead that the slag would curl up and fall off of, and things just went on from there. Next came the MIG machine, then the saws and the drill press, and on and on. Just enough instruction to make sure I wasn't gonna kill myself, and then he sent me to it. By the time I was 15, I had plenty of fabricating under my belt, and I needed a car, so my old man and I went together and found a clapped out Mustang ('65, 289, auto, factory AC, very swanky, lol) to rebuild. We did a fair bit of the work on that one ourselves, but since neither one of us knew anything about doing good body work, we left the rust repair on the quarters and the exterior painting to a local guy who was real sharp. However, I spent every day after school getting in the way and watching what they were doing. Looking over their shoulders and stealing their secrets for my own uses later. When the car was done, it was too nice to drive to school. lol So I parked it and bought an old pickup to drive, and showed the Mustang in the summer. I sold it shortly thereafter because it was too nice to drive, and I wanted something that was more go and less show. So, logically, that next summer we built a stock car, or rather, bought a used one and re-built it. THAT was my automotive school of hard knocks (some literal, some figurative). The fab skills were utilized fully, and I got a chance to work on some sheet metal too, plus learning how to be fast, learning how not to hit things, etc. It was a hoot. If I had to do it again at my current age, I'm sure it would kill me, but then I was invincible. I have two things that I have tried to do myself and found that it is much better to let someone else do it who does it every day: 1) Exterior Paint Work and Chrome (IE, the Shiny), 2) Upholstery Work (IE, the Squishy and Soft) The reasons for this are: 1) They know what they are doing, and do it every day (they've got their shit together), 2) They have all the proper tools to do the job correctly, 3) In the case of paint, they have the knowledge to deal with that nasty shit and live through it, and 4) Again, in the case of paint, they have spray booths, so their shops do not end up colored a fetching hue of overspray (as mine does every time I've painted a chassis or body panels inside). I know I could learn how to do these things myself, and in the case of paint, I already have a pretty nice selection of Binks guns, and even an airless sprayer if I were to suddenly develop a latex fetish ( ), but there is only so much time in life, and you gotta set your priorities. As I've gotten older, I've realized that I cannot learn everything there is to know about every activity I come into contact with, and even if I could, the tools and stuff required to properly undertake said activities would eventually bankrupt me, to no useful end. Ergo, I decided to pick my battles, and to find the best I can around me to fill in the gaps that I cannot justify filling myself. That all said, I have found in the last several years that competent and trustworthy folks are getting harder and harder to find, so I am once again learning to do everything I bump into on a project, and buying the tools so that I can do it properly by myself, no matter what I'm actually doing. There may come a day where I have to learn to paint well and build some equipment to facilitate that, but it's going to be at the very bottom of the list, I assure you. I'll buy a sewing machine and learn how to lay out pleats before I build a spray booth.
At the ripe age of 60 I can reflect on many many life experiences. We were poor, not dirt poor but poor, So we had no car but that did not stop my desire for one. The poor part necessitated the requirement that when I got one I had to fix it my self. In collage I took Body and fender which has really help out me and my buds. All mechanical was self taught. Like my Dad always said "Keep you ears open and your mouth shut and you might learn something"
I took woodwork, mechanics, tech ed, drafting, and during the rest of high school I drew pictures on almost any available paper. All in all I'd have to say the drafting and the drawing help quite a bit, espescially since I can use autocad pretty well. All the other stuff just kind of helped me out a bit with tools and some theory, but I'll have to say I learn more in a couple days through trial and error than I really ever did in school, might have had something to do with me drawing pictures all the time. "If Derek applied himself he would be a great student"
Would you believe...band? When I was a freshman in high school, the system hired a guyfresh out of college to teach music and band. I was a band member and took an instant liking to the guy, and he taught me a lot about music and life in general. He also had a '35 Ford 2-dr sedan with a '48 Mercury flatmotor in it. I would hang out at his shop after school and on weekends. He actually put up with my endless babble and dumbass questions while progress was being made on his hot rod. He explained how and why, while I held parts in place and handed him tools. He also taught me to clean up tools and put them away properly so that you could find them quickly when needed. The man WAS a teacher. Once he got the '35 running, he would take me along with his wife and two small kids, and we would cruise around while I listened to him make future plans for the car. I will never forget the sounds that old Ford made. Dual 97s sucking air, dual Smitthys crackling and popping, and the unique sounds the '39 toploader as it was put through its paces. Those were great times, almost 50 yars ago. These are among the many things I was priviledged to learn from a REAL TEACHER.
Good. I was worried I might be the only band nerd here, but, you have made me realize I'm in good company.
Pretty much self taught here...Started on a 79 Cadillac and kept gettin older from there...As additional skills were necessary used trial and error.
Ha beat them all and went to "Trade school" guess they don't call them that anymore not to PC. Anyway got the best of both high school diploma and automotive mechanics certificate. A bit OT but then after went into the USMC after trade school and got a lot of education for working on cars electrical systems by going in for aircraft electronics. I wanted to go for aircraft sheetmetal but they said my test scores were too high and made me go to electronics (recruiters never LIE right) but it turned out good. After school and service went the state apprentice route for automotive autobody repair which was the best. Had a great old time master who taught me a lot. So bottom line there are a bunch more options out there if you are serious.
I got to spend half the day in vo-tech. Started my ASE in the auto shop there as well as welding certifications. It was a good jumpstart in both fields. I also learned exactly how much armour all it takes to lube a hallway before a firedrill.
What did I take in H.S.? I dont know man but I've been trying to replicate the colors every since with no luck.
Our son majored in Auto mechanics in his high school years. He tried an auto body class, but had to drop out because the fumes from all the solvents and such drove his allergies crazy, the poor kid had four major migraine headaches during that semester. When he was a senior he joined the Army and took a test for for being an auto mechanic. He aced that test, so when he finished boot camp he got to come home for two weeks and went directly to his duty station in Germany. Two days after he graduated from boot camp, Desert Storm stared. After that conflict was over, his new superior returning from that war pitched a fit when he found out our son had not gone to AIT school. Our son told him the Army decided they couldn't teach him any more than he already knew, so he told him he would take the final test that was givien to those who went and if he couldn't pass it, he'd take the course. The guy agreed to that, he aced that test too, and not another word was said. Mike, my husband, never took any mechanics classes, he went to a Catholic school so it was never offered. Mike's experiece simply came from being a back yard mechanic, with our son right there beside him as he grew up, today it's really kind of nice at our house, what Mike can't do (mainly electrical stuff which he is terrible at) our son can pick up and finish. Our son's best friend came out of high school majoring in body work, his step-dad owned a Mustang restoration shop, so between both of them, Mike and I don't have to go far to get our cars worked on!!! At our age? What could be better? LOL Carrie
I was lucky enough to be born into a hot rodding family so I learned from my father growing up. No better teacher out there! My school didn't have any form of 'shop' class, the closest to that would have been the science department! My school concentrated on academics rather than 'hand's on' experience, that kinda sucked. Doc.
Dad left when i was 6 and mom was too sick to raise us so i lived with my grand parrents who were too old and wanted nothing to do with cars. My biggest influances were our neighbors.Nobody had any money so they would all fix there stuff in there driveways so they could go to work.I was the kid who would ride up on his bicycle he built from dumpster diving at the local bike shop and watch. Hold this or hand me that and i was in awe,at 12 they never would shew me away or tell me to get.If they only knew the lessons i learned,Everything from good work ethics to know when someone shows a interest give that person a chance. It was enough to get me going.
I learned by having a crappy paying job as a teacher and driving crappy cars that needed to be fixed all the time. The wife and kids got the new stuff. I thought i was in high cotton when I got a "new" truck that was only 13 years old (the newest I've personally ever owned). Beyond that, I've also loved old stuff and you gotta work on it to have it run right.
The Jalopy Journal
