Is DIY/Hobby woodworking a dying pastime?

[Paul Chapman]

Of course what really led to DIY, and just about everything else, taking off in the late 1960s/1970s was that, as President of the Board of Trade, Ted Heath ended retail price maintenance in the late 1960s. That enabled shops to sell goods for whatever price they wanted and led to the "pile 'em high sell 'em cheap" environment we shop in today. Before then manufacturers set the price of goods and shops weren't able to discount the prices. In fact, some shops wouldn't sell certain goods to you if you weren't in the trade. Seems odd now, but that's how things were. People saw the effect first in food retailing, with the setting up of supermarkets like Victor Value, Prideaux and Tesco but it soon spread to other sectors like DIY :wink:

Paul

 

[Paul Chapman]

Ah Barry Bucknall the man who indroduced me to the delights of covering everything and anything in hardboard :lol: The forerunner to Norm

Remember the Victorian house that the BBC bought for the series? Barry went through it ripping out fireplaces and, as you say, covering all the doors in hardboard.

There was an interesting televised interview with him when he was quite old in which he said that half the time he didn't have a clue what he was doing :shock: And his wife added that he was basically a lazy *** who never did anything at home :lol:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

I believe though, that BB has just died (not Big Brother, tho' I live in hope :wink: ) aged 91. One of his main accomplishments was the design of the Mirror dingey in the early sixties. I had to build one of these things things for my first Headteacher, during school hours, and somehow teach my normal timetable, when I first started teaching in '79 - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

I had to build one of these things for my first Headteacher, during school hours, and somehow teach my normal timetable, when I first started teaching in '79

No pressure then, Rob :roll:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Paul - wouldn't have minded, except that no child in the school was ever going to use it, it was for one of the Heads Rotarian mates...he just sidled up to me one day and informed me that he had a little job for me and would I mind awfully if I just etc etc...you catch the drift. Needless to say I was a little bit teed off, but what do you say when you've just been teaching for about 6 weeks - couldn't very well tell him to sling his hook, would now tho' :lol: - Rob

 

[Scrit]

DIY has taken off very recently with the advent of TV programs and the appearance of huge stores such as B&Q. It is a very recent explosion.

Clearly some people have always carried out their own repairs etc., just not on the scale of the past 10? 20? years

Well, Tony, maybe I'm alone in remembering things such as the Hobbies Annual (really a thinly disguised catalogue wrapped around a few articles) or the Simbles catalogue complete with Picador plummer blocks and saw kits, but DIY woodwork is quite an old thing. I'm also old enough to remember Barry Bucknall - moderniser (some would way destroyer) of many a fine old frame and panel doors - on the TV as early as 1961. Barry, sadly, passed away in 2003 and will be remembered for one or two masterpieces like the Mirror dinghy (designed in conjunction with Jack Holt in 1963). I think I'd agree that the scale of DIY these days is different to what it was in, say, the 1950s - that was a period in which very few people would have dreamed of building their own houses - but I feel in many ways the "DIY Superstores" have in reality only taken the place of the small ironmongers and tool sellers which every town had at one time (and in doing so has reduced quality and choice as well as prices). I recall my father in the 1950s making rugs, furniture and also building several garages and sheds whilst my mother made a lot of her own clothes and ours (I didn't have a factory produced jumper till I was in my teens), did embroidery and produced almost all the soft furnishings we seemed to have in the house. That sort of "craftiness" was brought about by the relative scarcity and expense of many things in early post war Britain, but the same was true of the between the wars period when for many families make it or mend it were often the only real choices, especially for the working classes.

Oh, and the 1903 DIY book - would that be Hasluck? You can still get facsimiles of that today

Scrit

 

[Paul Chapman]

I recall my father in the 1950s..........building several garages

When I was a kid we had an air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden (my Mum used to run down there during the air raids when she was carrying me and my twin brother). Half of it was below ground. I remember my Dad in the 1950s knocking off the top half, filling in part of the rest with concrete and building a garage over it so that we had a garage with a pit. Quite posh for the 1950s when not many had a car 8)

Paul

 

[Russell]

Woodwork shows are in decline I talk to a lot of exhibitors and relate to some of their points. Shows cost a lot of money and time. After all the exhibition organisers want to make money too. Over the years the profit margins on machinery and tools have been forced down by increased competition and by end user expectation. An example would be the Record CL3 lathe pre 1995 was £739.00 when manufacture stopped at Sheffield they were £510.00.

The competition has been caused by the clone culture of the Chinese manufacture copy and label as SIP, Perform, Fox etc etc. Cheaper throw away tools have become the norm for a lot of people. Those that expect quality will pay for it, but most buyers are price led.

What has been happening at shows is that sales paid for the stands and were seen as advertising and promotion. In recent years the price cutting culture and competition for what are essentially and often the same machine with a different paint job has reduced margins to such a level that shows are often loss generating events for some exhibitors. In a tough retail climate you look at where your loosing money and change your strategy. That is why there are less exhibitors at the shows they are reaching a point where there are too many and they cost too much.

In my view the shows should be an exhibition of skills, machinery and tools and where you can see some fantastic and inspiring work. They have however become regarded by many as a method of buying tools cheaply and are nothing more than a glorified shop. The shows should be somewhere you can see the machine and then go and cut a deal with you local dealer, far more healthy for the industry in my view

 

[CHJ]

...snip...In my view the shows should be an exhibition of skills, machinery and tools and where you can see some fantastic and inspiring work.

Exactly what i saw at the Model engineering show.

...They have however become regarded by many as a method of buying tools cheaply and are nothing more than a glorified shop. The shows should be somewhere you can see the machine and then go and cut a deal with you local dealer, far more healthy for the industry in my view

I agree, but I still can't see why a precision clone (chinese or otherwise) engineering lathe is at a lower price point than a far less sophisticated wood lathe. Many of the support items are similarly high priced, compare a Trend Airshield mask with an automatictically darkening Welding Mask,
Says he who has just had to pay £14 :shock: for a replacement visor because he gave his stock of acetate sheet away last year. :roll: