Fellow Shadow Watchers John Carmichael raised the issue of passing on the skills needed for dial making in 'resistant materials' and gave me cause to reflect on how I do what I do.
Forty five years ago I received an extremely thorough training for my job within a tradition that began with William Morris and the British 'Arts & Crafts Movement' of Victorian times. As a teacher I began my career engendering enthusiasm in schoolboys (no girls in those days - they were learning Domestic Science) for the application of skill in the working of wood and metal. In wood it was usually some aspect of furniture making but I could never resist more exciting things and I recall one intense midnight session with pupils and parents viewing the moon through our newly-completed astronomical telescope. (made and figured the 6" mirror - boast, boast!!) It had an octagonal wooden tube supported on zinc alloy castings and drive mechanism melted from scrap car door handles in an iron saucepan on a gas ring contributed by a pupil's grandmother. In metalwork it was was a struggle to progress from 'tools-to-make-tools-to-make-tools etc.' but eventually 'Technology' was born in which the 'brightest and best', studying Maths/Physics/Chemistry at 'A' Level, sought real application for their scientific knowledge in live project work. It was making printed circuits for the necessary electronic content which interested me in photo-etching at that stage. Over the following twenty years training teachers to do likewise I witnessed a mass exodus from skills teaching in schools and then in the University department where I contibuted some teaching - which was once staffed by highly skilled craftsmen at both lecturer and technician level. Today it is struggling to find any kind of trained practitioner so that it now employs last year's students as this year's teachers and has reached the point where a member of staff in charge of workshops freely admits he has no experience of the equipment for which he is responsible. There's no safety problem however because machines now stand idle while students pursue solutions in cardboard and car body filler! Skills 'babies' were 'thrown out with the bathwater' of a new 'all-design-and-no-craft- dogmatism' in schools. Nowadays boys and girls 'design' (for me 'the highest activity of the cultivated mind') things which are rarely makeable, from a knowledge/experience base of little or nothing on how things go together. This skills vacuum is evident at many levels and has probably only been concealed by the fact that CNC machines are now doing much that craftsmen did hitherto. In areas where output is miniscule, such as sundial making, computers are not yet a viable option so it falls upon we 'skills dinosaurs' to keep a flickering flame alive. But how to do it? Motivation is the primary factor as the road is neither short nor easy. There is, however, one worldwide community of similar 'skills dinosaurs' which can help in the remaining years before their own feared extinction comes about. I refer of course to 'model engineers' who are typically retired craftsmen, with the odd consultant surgeon etc. thrown in, who now have the freedom to make things for their own pleasure. They have generated a market for small-scale machine tools and necessary hobby magazines which support it. e.g. 'Model Engineers' Workshop' (UK but available in US). As a group they are approachable and always willing to pass on what they know through local clubs etc. Take care however or you may find yourself building steam engines rather than sundials as their enthusias! m is infectious. There is a Model Engineer email 'mailing list' but it is so busy I couldn't afford the time to read all the postings. It crossed my mind that a series of short videos actually showing the different stages and processes involved in metal dial making (and stone too John C.) might have a rôle to play but that will have to wait until I retire for the third time. Would such a package even recover the cost of production I wonder? I'd be interested to have some responses. If this all sounds rather negative I think there is due cause. The answer lies with those who are motivated to pick up the flickering torch, re-kindle it and pass it on to keep precious skills alive. How I would love to spend a week in the workshops of Yeates & Son, Instrument Makers of Dublin back in the 1800s to see how they did it! I can only guess! Tony Moss. P.S. There was one positive thing that came out of the exodus by schools from 'the dark satanic mills' of engineering, blacksmithing and the like. I purchased several of my own machine tools from their unwanted workshops for less than the price of a new hat for my wife for the whole lot! Almost-new shaping machines were being sent to the rubbish tip. "Anvils? - blacksmith's tools? Just bring a truck and help yourself! - they're free!" I could have wept!
