Appliance Buying Rant

[C-Bag]

LOL, I'm right? Drink.
What I experienced at my last job was "design by committee". Building armored vehicles. In one building they were designing the cab's armor; another group off-site designed the doors. Nothing lined up. Nothing fit. The guys in assembly had been told to meet a deadline. Through a major effort (or threats) they got the "engineers" down on the shop floor. I thought there was going to be a fist fight. The purchasing department even got in on it. They had ordered metric bolts, the "committee" had specified U.S threads. The "committee" accused the assemblers of cross-threading the fasteners on what few holes looked like they lined up. Within a month they stuck the fork in and blew the contract.
Solution?
They closed the Cincinnati site and moved their operation to Texas. Layed off everyone...except the "committees". They took them to Texas with them.
American manufacturing drove me to retire after that.

This is so like my experience, in that nothing could get done. And the bottom line was we were forced to do garbage work. Trying to make sows ears into silk purses and being blamed when it took too long or didn’t work. The majority of the guys I worked with had the attitude “they don’t pay me enough to care” or just too stupid to care. For me being set up to fail is soul crushing. They didn’t pay enough for that to have anything but embarrassment for selling my labor so cheap. But when I got to work directly with certain engineers and we solved problems (one that had been ongoing for 16yrs) it was deeply satisfying. Put up with the insanity for 5yrs till when they cut our benefits and out of 230 outraged whiners I was the only one who walked. Punched out at lunch and took my tools never to darken their doorway again. It felt like that poster that was big in the 60’s and 70’s of the mouse giving the eagle the bird as it bears down on him. Luckily it worked out and I’m way better off.

It really galls me when I hear this that there is a labor shortage and people are just lazy like on the major networks and on supposed pro worker shows and podcasts by stars. Even though he might have played a guy who did that job, he has no clue what it’s like to have to work that job because you have a family, bills, mortgage etc and have to stay there. Getting ground up by all the different aspects of life. But I’ve been out of punching a clock for over 20yrs now so what do I know?

 

[C-Bag]

As penance for dragging this thread down a side hole I’d like to post a pic of my favorite appliance, my late 40’s early 50’s O’Keefe and Merritt stove. I am but the second owner of this and would never even known it existed except this was my MIL’s dream oven. She was a lifelong professional cook, not chef. Her SIL had one like it (way worse shape) and gave it to MIL. The thing weighs a LOT. She got to use it the last 5yrs of her life and after she passed since I did all the cooking I used it. I came to love that stove until one day my BIL came and took it while I was gone. Since it was his mothers I guess I couldn’t say anything. But 2 days later this stove came up on CL down in the Fig Garden district of Fresno. It had been in the house since new and when the young couple who bought the house the guys wife wanted a new stove. I had called like 15min after he posted it and he said the phone started ringing off the hook after he committed to me buying it sight unseen. It was in need of a cleaning etc but everything, even the original salt and shakers are there. $275, such a deal. Works like a charm and somebody had even put all new pilot lights etc in it before I bought it.

 

[westerner]

My Grandmother had a stove/oven for 30 some odd years. Nothing fancy, but when it finally died she picked out it's replacement.
She cussed that sorry thing for the rest of her life......

 

[C-Bag]

My Grandmother had a stove/oven for 30 some odd years. Nothing fancy, but when it finally died she picked out it's replacement.
She cussed that sorry thing for the rest of her life......

My MIL started cooking when she was 8yrs old for her fathers railroad crew in Arkansas. So her super power was to make exactly enough food for everyone with whatever she had, wherever she was. She took over an old soda fountain before WWII and was a real short order cook. She reminded me of the best old mechanics I worked with. Deceptively fast because there was no wasted motion. She used to do the after school meals for their church. She always had two questions, how many kids, how many parents? She’d make something different every week and everybody was full and there was usualy just a tiny bit leftover. Oh and everything was ready to be served at the same time. And as always she had to be the only one in the kitchen,period.

I spent the summer there before aircraft school working for my FIL fabricating packing house equipment. After I’d get cleaned up in the evening she‘d ask if I was hungry and I’d go in and take a look at the fridge and the cupboards. I’d tell her what I saw and it would always seem to be a mishmash with no desernable way to make a meal and I’d say ill go to the store. She’d always say, don’t bother, I’ll have it done in 35min. I was always floored, it seemed like magic.

Her little kitchen was a true galley kitchen and a quarter of the size of most home kitchens. Fridge across from the stove, sink next to the fridge, a chopping block/small prep table next to the stove and that was really it. My kitchen is probably another 3or4’ longer but basically the same. For all those years she had a totally clapped out electric Kenmore that she hated because it was electric. But she never cussed it, just adjusted to its quirks. But man was she happy when I wrangled that O&M stove in and plumbed it up. I just wish she would have spoken up. I never knew she waited all those years for her SIL to give that stove. Crazy thing my BIL couldn’t fit that stove in his little hillbilly house and last I saw it was sitting outside.

 

[twhite]

I see you haven’t been to laundromat in a while. You could make payments on a new washer and dryer for what it costs now. Of course if you could find new ones.

This whole boondoggle that is appliances now is beyond disgusting. You cannot find a “manual” one and cannot find one that doesn’t all kinds of electronic useless addon junk. And a useless stainless exterior. You can’t even get white appliances and if you find them they are more! And just as rare is finding a real tech. We almost had to replace our fridge and was lucky to find a guy who knew exactly what was wrong and even had the part on his truck. I am dreading if we ever have replace anything because getting screwed through ignorance is bad enough but knowing up front is the worst! Why can’t they make stuff like my ‘40’s O’Keefe & Merritt stove anymore? Probably cost a fortune.

I here you. Here is mine. With a real toaster and coffee maker.

Cutting oil is my blood.

 

[C-Bag]

Both on a OKeefe and Merritt stove!

 

[FOMOGO]

I have that exact same toaster. Works like a charm. Mike

 

[twhite]

I have that exact same toaster. Works like a charm. Mike

That toaster was a wedding gift to my parents in 1959. Still works perfectly.


Cutting oil is my blood.

 

[Provincial]

My wife is a member of a sewing club in the tiny town about 15 miles from our home. She grew up in that community, and has ties to many people there. The members make "care" packages for servicemen, and make lots of quilts to donate to the needy in rural areas. They have a club house on a site that the club purchased in the 1920's. It is a nice, two-story stick building with metal roofing and siding, and a drywalled interior. Very well-lit and insulated, with a heat pump for HVAC. It has a nice kitchen area that they use a lot. Once a month they have a pot luck lunch and everyone in the community is welcome to drop in and eat.

The kitchen has two built-in ovens stacked one over the other. The larger one is on the bottom. It dates from about the year 2000, and for most of its life the digital LED display has been so dim that it is practically unreadable. The women would turn out the lights in the kitchen area in an attempt to see the display to set the temperature and other controls. It was going to cost about $2,000.00 to replace this oven, so my wife asked me if it could be repaired.

I researched it, and found that the displays were no longer available, but there were several places advertising on Ebay offering repair services. The cost varied quite a bit, but $160 to $180 was a range charged by the ones with the best feedback. Turn around was one to two weeks.

We have an appliance repair outfit in a nearby town that does great work. After turning off the breaker and tagging it out, I dismantled the oven and removed the display. We were not certain that all the buttons on the surrounding panel worked, but since the oven would turn on and off, and the temperature could be set, we felt it was worth trying to fix the display. The repair outfit could not test the buttons, since they had no wiring schematic. They had a vendor that they used for repair of displays, and for $180.00 we figured they would be reputable.

Two weeks later, I was able to reassemble the oven and the women could use it the next day for the pot luck! Everything worked like new. The display had a burned spot on the inside of the glass face, probably from a light bulb overheating before it burned out. It is noticeable only if you get real close, and isn't in an area where you are reading the numbers.

I was dimly aware that liquid crystal displays often are backlit to make them bright enough to read. This experience proved that. It seems that the weak point in these displays is the incandescent lamps for the backlight. I understand that some repair services are upgrading the backlight bulbs to LED's, which would make a lot of sense, since they don't put out much heat compared to the old lamps.

The message here is don't give up on a good appliance just because the display is bad and you can't get a new one. Look for a part number on the old part, or use the internet using the model number and serial number of the appliance to find the part number, then search for someone that repairs that part.

I have since found a place that will replace the backlights on the control display of my Kobelco SK400 (100,000 pound) excavator, and will be sending it off for repair.

 

[Al 1]

Sounds like a tit in the wringer scenario. Al.