Engineers

Yes! WD40 and gaffa tape. How come so many of us have engineer husbands? Is it because they are sometimes rather unsociable so we need to get on here?

If I want something fixed, and DBH is dragging his heels, all I have to do is suggest that we get someone in to do it. I only wish I had realised that earlier on in our marriage. On the few occasions when we have had to get someone in, he has practically taken things apart again to either check it or criticise it.

We have a few generations of engineers in our family - my Dad - (electrical) DS- automotive design - DSiL electronic mainly to do with railways, eldest DGS doing a PhD in materials engineering (steel production) and OH to do with paper manufacture. So many things are common whatever speciality. Most of my friends are married to some form of engineer too.
In our house we (me) are not allowed to replace anything till has been well inspected and declared dead but I have to say many many things have been given a new lease of life - sometimes when I wish otherwise!
I also find that some sort of meter is apparently necessary to decide whether or not items are completely dead or just resting and needing a recharge of some sort - so with that, duct tape, WD 40, spray tins of expanding foam and tubes of grip fill or silicone all things seem possible.
We have a huge workshop full of tools, bits such as screws, nails and washers and the things that could be useful one day. I have nightmares about me being left on my own and needing it to all be sorted out and much disposed of.

So good to read all the engineer comments! I have to avoid discussion on statistics as quoted on the news. They almost never pass muster according to OH.

Bez I am on my own with a cellar full of it all. My offspring regard it as a convenience store for finding the right electrical box, plug or socket, flex, screw, nail, screwdriver, chisel, wood, MDF, paint, brush, sandpaper, spirit level, sander, pillar drill, oscilloscope, drill bit. You name it, one or other has been on the phone to ask, "Did Dad have a . . . . ?" followed by, "I don't have room to store it here, but can I borrow it and bring it back . . .?"

Elegran I feel for you - but we are at the moment in rural France so no hope of them even borrowing anything! Would it work if you announced you were having a clearance person coming in? Some people make a business of selling tools at car boot sales etc - they may then come and relieve you of some of it on a permanent basis! X x

My late father was an engineer of the steam age. He had traction engines and agricultural equipment and fixed everything himself. DH spent more than 30years as a marine engineer in the RN and then spent 15 years as a technical author for the water treatment and sewerage industry. (Described by my sister as 'writing dirty books'.). He has done lots of work on the house and cars over the years. Cars are now not designed for much home maintenance, but he still does a lot of work on the house and is currently battling the damp.

I recognise the scenario. We agree a project, I suggest we get someone to do it. DH re-acts with horror says any work man will not do it properly, it will cost the earth. He will do it. He starts the job, does eventually get it done, swearing and cursing and muttering as he goes that if it had been left to him he would have got a builder in. He was only doing it because I insisted because I said it would be cheaper.

It's amazing how we get the blame for everything, isn't it. I keep on saying that one day I will record everything DBH says to me, I can't believe sometimes how he could forget what he has said so soon.

My late DH was an electrical engineer who went sideways into computing. The old git next door is a structural engineer. Ds is a computing/ electrical engineer and so is sil.
I'm a Luddite.
Don't know any engineer joke books but I do know the engineers hymm and the engineers song.
Never without a dRommel, gaffer tape, screws and glue and of course GARY THE GARDNER

Dremel

My Dad has a shed full of soldering irons, screws, old valves etc. in drawers. All these he used to fix engines. He also has various car parts ( all obsolete now I imagine). The smell still lingers though, and reminds me of the happy hours I spent outside our house, handing him things while he was busy fixing someone's car. He has three daughters and I, being the eldest, was the token boy. Happy days!

DS just about knows one end of a screwdriver from the other. DD, having trained as an actor, is now doing an Open University degree in Physics and Engineering and considers that no task is beyond her from laying her own drive to making her own patchwork quilts and curtains..

Do we share a dd?

Can I just mention that if you live in Cornwall Baler Twine can be substituted for Gaffer Tape? In fact Baler Twine can be used in place of almost anything - and usually is!

My SiL is an awful mixture of aircraft engineer and American military. He can't even get GS1 out of the house in the morning without endless lists and synchronising of watches! DH definitely believes the rest of the world is brain dead and is never happy with anything that anyone else has done.

LOVE baler twine! Fixer of hedges, keeper of field gates at both sides, makeshift animal lead/halter, wonderful stuff. I actually fixed a car's timing belt once with some. It got me home! I couldn't believe it worked but it did. I couldn't do it now - I only knew how to do it back then because DBH used to tinker with our cars and I used to watch sometimes.

It didn't fix the broken shelf in my fridge; only Gaffer tape can do that. Although when I use it I tend to attach myself to whatever I'm trying to fix . I'm just about to use some gaffer tape to fix a broken sink in a dolls house.

Galen, possibly . Does yours want to be a forensic engineer? (It comes from watching too much ^Aircrash Investigation^)

I once took my tights off to fix my exhaust after it dropped off and I once had a very old Saab, whose battery connections were a bit dodgy . If it stopped I would dash round to the front, throw open the bonnet, tighten the battery connection, shut the bonnet get back into the car and drive away. I did this several times at traffic lights and the like. I was away before any of the man ambling to my rescue could reach me.

My dad was a mechanical engineer who could turn his hands to most things.
I recognise the types described on here so well.

My OH saves things which he "will mend one day"
Well I threw the old dead vacuum cleaner out of the garage after 5 yrs and he hasn't seemed to notice it's gone yet.

The last thing he repaired was the lid of the council wheelie bin using very thick foil and hot glue. That was a few days before it was collected by the council to be repaired and a new one provided.
As Jingle said, My OHs repairs look like "a spare part from an old submarine or german tank".

Janerowena "DBH is an engineer, mathematician and musician." Mine has those skills but is quite a good way up the Asperger's spectrum.

He has problems getting started on anything if asked.
A few years ago he bought a load of paint and paper to start decorating but as I guessed would happen never got on with it. I had decorated every room in the house about twice by then.

I had a good line in repairing the broken tubes on my dads hearing aids by using the plastic covers pulled off wiring cable. They worked quite well although they were black and not transparent.

I think I have inherited skills at visualising how to do stuff like that.

I’ve only just discovered this thread. I’m an engineer, and I recognise myself in the caricatures here, but I can also recognise you in the other engineers I worked with.

They all thought I was an obsessive, wasting time b*ggering about, and I thought they used to blunder headlong into every elephant pit that came their way for lack of foresight. Each time they would brush themselves down, put it down to bad luck instead of lack of foresight, and then blunder straight into the next one.

I used to be accused of being negative, but that’s an engineer’s job. Imagine you’re flying in a plane, would you rather it was designed by someone who asks what if the wings develop metal fatigue, and then does something constructive to prevent it, or a positive thinker who says “Oh, don’t worry about it, we’ll deal with that when it happens”?

People who will busy themselves trying to fix a problem before they have any real idea what the problem is exasperate me too, that just seems plain irrational.

?

I wish to throw a spanner in the works by saying that engineering, physics, maths are mainly attractive to men and boys.
Everytime I hear someone say, "We must get more girls into these subjects", I yell at the radio, "WHY? Leave these dull boring subjects to those who like them." Of course a woman can be an engineer if she wants to but most women don't and find people more interesting than machines.
Out of my 4 children and 6 grandchildren, only one has been fascinated by how things work and that's the only boy among them all.

That's it, all out on strike, a woman has just picked up a spanner.

Pompa - here's the Peggy Seeger song for you

mysongbook.de/msb/songs/i/imgonnab.html

Yes, but....... In our family it is DD who is fascinated by physics and engineering and is currently studying for a degree in those subjects. DS has no interest in those subjects whatsoever, either practically or academically. He is a humanities man through and through and is a lecturer in history and archaeology.

These subjects are not dull and boring. I am not, academically, a physics or engineering person but I find these subjects fascinating. I spent most of my career working in industry and found learning about the technical processes and engineering used in the industries I worked in a constant source of fascination and interest. I am still, through voluntary work I do, involved with studying and understanding the technology and economics of the energy industry and loving every minute.