Keds these days..

Just the musings of what I am coming to realize is an old fart:

My boss was telling me the other day that his son asked if he should spray WD-40 on his car's brake rotors, because the brakes were squeaking.
And that sort of thing seems to be getting more and more common.   Boys who have no mechanical sense at all...at least he knew enough to ask
first, so I guess that is something.   I have seen a compressor mounted on rubber isolators with rigid plumbing run to it.  Several "mechanical engineers"
and draftsmen looking at it and not seeing a problem there.

Looking back, my model airplanes had a lot to do with how I understand machines.  Cox engines taught me the importance of keeping engines clean,
That all the pieces were there for a reason, not to over torque fasteners, to use the correct tools...that more gas didn't usually mean more power.  I learned to solder by making up glow lighter batteries from D-cells...ended up with a degree in electrical engineering.

I know there are still a few kids learning such things, but I worry that we have lost a sort of critical mass:  It is getting so that nobody can even follow what the one guy who understands this stuff is trying to tell them.  I read popular mechanics articles written in the 50s, and they will say things like "To make the bushing, drill to 3/8", then carefully bore to .410...."   They don't even consider mentioning that you'll be doing this on a lathe...just goes without saying.

I really don't think you can teach someone the mechanical intuition they learn from a childhood of tinkering with junk...

OK, I'm done.