What's a lost skill that no one seems to remember how to do anymore?

SeniorBen said:
How does your husband feel about drawing on CAD systems?

I used to design machinery in the late '80s and into the early '90s. When I first started, we worked on drafting tables, and that was great until a major change was needed. Then it's either get out the electric eraser or redraw. Changes are far easier to make on a CAD system.

Working on a CAD system is hard on the eyes and tiring. It's a lot more enjoyable to draw by hand... almost like creating a work of art.
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he doesnt draw on CAD .....He took early retirement in 94, and still doesnt entertain computers , internet
both our sons are CAD .....
 
wcwbf said:
sewing... hand sewing and machine work. i really don't like hand sewing and avoid it at all costs. will opt out of shank buttons so i can attach them with sewing machine. my grandmother taught me the basics on her little Singer. my sister has it. it only sews forward and back, no zig zag or decorative stitches. thinking if it's not 100 years old, must be close to. she had it overhauled... that fabric covered cord replaced and a belt or 2 tucked away.

for a while i did decent amount of garments. now fabric is so expensive and pattern prices are insane.
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ive never been able to sew....its boring and time consuming lol
it took me 4yrs to make a needlework case at school...in the end the teacher barred me from the class
at one stage we had 35 shirts a week, if not more, being changed and washed , if any buttons were missing , they would go in the rag bag ....no sewing on buttons ...
 
When I was growing up, most adult men had been in the armed services. That meant they could do things like pitch a tent, light a fire, shoot a .22, and other useful skills. At least skills that seemed useful to a 9 year old boy.
 
Mike said:
JimBob, 2 people have answered your question already, but
just in case you want to do some, to waterproof your home,
here is a video, 2 minutes long.

Mike.
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Thanks Mike. One of my guiding principles in life is to never do anything I can pay someone else to do better.
 
There are just to many things and itā€™s sad because if there were a world wide catastrophe we might have to relearn them.
 
No one seems to build balsa wooden model airplanes that you can actually fly after you build them. You build them from scratch using a flat set of instructions as a pattern to layout the parts of the airplane. I still build and fly them for fun...
 
Timewise 60+ said:
No one seems to build balsa wooden model airplanes that you can actually fly after you build them. You build them from scratch using a flat set of instructions as a pattern to layout the parts of the airplane. I still build and fly them for fun...
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Iā€™ve built plenty of those. Now I use CAD/CAM to create carbon fiber parts for my drones...
 
Gary O' said:

What's a lost skill that no one seems to remember how to do anymore?​


Chop wood

Not a 'lost' skill
Just nobody seems to do it anymore
They prefer the hydraulic splitters

Here's what 14 cord of hand split wood looks like

View attachment 255984


Keep a fire
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Don't you have to keep all that wood covered to keep the moisture from it?

Half of mine gets rained on and I've got the other half under the house eves.
 
dobielvr said:
Don't you have to keep all that wood covered to keep the moisture from it?
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Oh yeah.
In summer months we'd air it out to speed up the cure.
But, winter.....heh, we tarped it all down.

The first of the six years we lived at our mountain cabin, we learned quick.
Built ricks to keep it off the ground
and tarped
rickes 2.jpg

Thing is, a snow load, measuring in feet, on a tarp does not a fun day make

Tarps are rather stubborn when it comes to getting the ice/snow off just to get to the wood

There's a wood pile under there

wood pile in winter.jpg

wood pile.jpg2.jpg

Also, had to cut ice steps down to the wood

cutting a path to the wood pile.jpg

Heh, the saying 'firewood warms you twice' was a bit of a misnomer
It 'warmed' us about six times
 
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