Reply With QuoteI need to get back into using a sextant. And I bet I know what Matthew (Mr Curta) will answer.
It’s a while since I’ve started a thread so I thought I’d try for a “nice” discussion. For my part I love old fashioned technology and products.
Of course the whole raison d’etre of this forum is those now anachronistic analogue time keeping devices we strap to our wrists.
Apart from them, what else?
I’ll start the following with two favourites of mine:- loose leaf tea, and flake tobacco.
I need to get back into using a sextant. And I bet I know what Matthew (Mr Curta) will answer.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I use quite a lot of manual tools, some of which are old fashioned in design, some of which are just plain old.
Most commonly, planes, and I have quite a few, many of which I rescued from the tip and refurbished myself. I've been making hardwood walking staffs recently, which I taper like a traditional snooker cue manufacturer would, using relatively long (Number 6 or 7) planes.
I also use a lot of chisels, and hand saws (mostly Japanese pull saws). I even use a froe sometimes.
Woodworking does use quite a few machines, but certain tasks cannot be mechanised in a small workshop that isn't turning out hundreds of multiples, so good traditional tools and a steady hand get used a lot.
I use fountain pens and notebooks.
Things that seem to be rarely used nowadays.
Cheers,
Neil.
Wet shaving. Have the kit, brush, DE razor and bowl.
Coffee. Not an aficionado but have a home espresso machine, grinder etc. Unsure if old fashioned but this set replaced my two previous pod machines.
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Last edited by GMC41; 8th April 2023 at 14:17.
Kirby Vacuum cleaner. Nothing comes close even when new. Nothing comes remotely close after five years, let alone fifty. As they say, 'Here we go. Kirby G4. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to collect every speck of dust in the room, accept no substitutes'. It's my second Kirby. My first, possibly older than I am, is still going strong, collecting sawdust, sand, random dross and mice that are not quick enough, in the garage.
I also use a steel coffee press for tea, preferably Yunnan, preferably from the Algerian Coffee Shop off Soho. And yes, another that uses a safety razor, a Feather.
I always hand write in Pencil. B. It lasts without fading and is easy to correct.
Last edited by M4tt; 8th April 2023 at 16:23.
This is my mopho, it is 21YO -
I am a dinosaur. RAWR!
Not daily but during the motorcycle season I use paper maps at least weekly. Google maps et al are plain useless when planning a bike ride. When you zoom close enough to see the nice curvy country roads you’re too close to get the big picture anymore. Also google doesn’t have a clue whether the road is gravel or tarmac.
Reading this thread has made me feel like an old relic but I see no reason to modernise.
I drink loose leaf tea, I use a fountain pen (Parker 51) all of the time, I have recently grown a beard but my shaving kit is DE and a chubby badger hair shaving brush, a Bex Bissell hand push cleaner for the hand knotted rugs, I play a lot of music on a Garrard 401 Turntable, I shoot with a 12 bore hammer shotgun dating from around 1910, until recently I rode quite a bit on a 1960 BSA motorcycle but I sold it as I suddenly did not feel safe on it.
We have a Grandfather clock in the hallway which is still very accurate so why get ride of it, we have a few victorian oil lamps scattered around to use in the event of power cuts.
We bought our dining room furniture in 1972 (G Plan) and still use it. It went way out of fashion but is now back in vogue and is a Millenial favourite, our radio alarm clock is an Amstrad from 1976/7 and it was white when we bought it but is now a sort of yellow. It works perfectly.
I still use my late father's garden hoe and I can remember him buying it in some iron mongers shop in the late 1950s. I also still use my father's tyre pressure gauge that he bought in the late 1950s for his first car which was a Ford Anglia.
My Grandfather's white Arkansas oilstone is still in regular use, must be well over 100 years old.
Battery still last forever? I loved my work phone, seemed an unlimited battery on it!Originally Posted by earlofsodbury
This is my mopho, it is 21YO -
I am a dinosaur. RAWR!
Alas my foray into a non-smart phone failed massively; battery lasted forever as I never picked it up / used it as it did nothing lol.
Were you correct?I need to get back into using a sextant. And I bet I know what Matthew (Mr Curta) will answer.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
A Gillette Superspeed, flare tip, safety razor. From the mid ‘50s I think. Using it is definitely a skill to be learned and the first time I tried Japanese Feather blades I shredded my face. I’m fine with them now and wouldn’t use anything else. I probably spend Ł20 a year on blades and soap rather than Ł20 a month
Last edited by snedboy; 8th April 2023 at 21:16.
Tools: I use old ones quite a lot...
This has lit many an oxy acetylene torch and other burners, 1954
Still my preferred choice for metering, late 50's?
Old handles are so often just more hand-friendly
Still sharpening with this today.
Internal & external calipers.
There are times nothing else will beat a bit and brace.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
It's still on its original battery and it still lasts two weeks between charges.
Unlike most people I only use phones for - you know - phone calls. For some reason (dry skin? vampirism? I dunno...) touch screens refuse to acknowledge I exist, and so are incredibly frustrating to use, hence I've never progressed to smart phones.
DE razor, bowl and Duke 3 brush, Russian and German rangefinder film cameras, my carving knife is Edwardian and one cook’s knife is Victorian. Dining table belonged to my grandfather, and cutlery to my great grandfather. Fountain pens, my grandfather’s propelling pencil and notebooks - all work well for me. Gaggia Classic V1 expresso with a hand grinder. Loose leaf tea…
Old stuff was made to be repaired - modern less so. When our Kenwood Major started smoking, a couple of cheap components fixed it - no microprocessors inside. Quad 33 and 303 have been rebuilt and Linn Kans are still going strong.
Our boiler survived from the ‘50s until five years ago. It wasn’t very efficient but most things could be fixed. What killed it was the addition of bio oil. The new formulation rots natural rubber seals - that’s true of e10 petrol too - and finding replacement oil pump seals for a 70 year old boiler proved challenging.
At least the Aga still works!
I’m not even going to start on tools!
Last edited by Toodlepip; 8th April 2023 at 21:24.
Quite a few engineering tools that belonged to my dad, 1950s, 1960s and some he brought back from the war (WW2).
Also our central heating boiler a Potterton Kingfisher CF50 which I think is from the 80s.
Lol. NoWere you correct?
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Like a few others, I only ever use fountain pens, I shave with a traditional brush and shaving soap (but not DE razors - find that a bit of a scary prospect), and my central heating boiler dates to the 1980s I think (a Potterton Flamingo).
Not sure whether cufflinks count, but none of my formal shirts has button cuffs.
Land line with a wired (not cordless) phone.
Fountain pen with bottled ink from Diamine in Liverpool
A Bakels dough scraper that’s older than me
Sent from my iPad using TZ-UK mobile app
I think the only old fashioned thing I use every day is my 1958 Prestcold fridge.
Surprised nobody has mentioned mechanical watches yet!
Edit- ah apart from the very first post - d'oh!
Shanks's Pony, in the age of electric bikes and scooters increasingly taking over the pavements. Arseholes, the lot of them.
Proper waiter’s friend corkscrew…
I’ve just found my old Nokia 8210 - which I think I’ll have to revive.
z
Absolutely! Never understood why so many people regard walking as a chore when it’s one of Life’s pleasures.
I'm 34, old enough to have grown up in a pre-hyperconnected era, but also young enough that it formed during my childhood and I learned how to leverage it very well.
I love occassionally going all-analog. Camping/hiking trip, pre-planned route, paper OS maps, compass. The disconnect feels cathartic in a world where, on a typical day, anyone around the globe at my workplace can reach me when they need.
I do love writing "analog", aka paper and pen. Helps with the racing thoughts and is a form of decompression at the end of the day that writing on a keyboard just doesn't scratch the same.
I often use a hand drill for making pilot holes for the cordless.
Humour! How many of us use old fashioned humour?
Last edited by Jimmcb; 9th April 2023 at 14:05.
I’ve about half a dozen of these! Better than thumb nail which invariably got punctured or rammed between the skin by the staple.
Jim
I have a metal ruler which I bought from Jarrolds years back. Still use it to measure every watch I sell, and also to remove glued-in batteries from post-2012 MacBooks.
The only "old" technology I have is a pair of active loudspeakers. "Not old" I hear you say?
Well, loudspeaker drivers are STILL exactly the same technology as they were in 1925 when invented as the 'Dynamic Loudspeaker' by Edward Kellogg. Whilst the dB response per input watt, the materials and the audible frequency range has definitely improved, it's still a magnet, coil, stator (basket) and a diaphragm moving according to electrical current.
Despite many other attempts at alternative technology (the electrostatic panel for example), there's been nothing to touch a well designed and engineered dynamic driver ever, and likely won't be as that technology does precisely what's required and very well.
True. The woke have killed banter.
We were watching Nighty Night last evening and both laughing at the vile hilarity of it.
Does anyone hang out the washing anymore? I'm looking at ours on the line and hoping it won't rain.
Even though I remember, and used the old kit and methods, I do like new technology. However, generally I would say it sucks for unreliability, longevity, and damned frustration when using it!
I'm still using ChatGPT1 when ChatGPT4 is out. Bloody luddite.
Pedant's note: Rice-Kellog's design was for a field-coil (electromagnetic) loudspeaker, wheras modern conical loudspeaker drivers are almost all permanent-magnet designs. I think there's one or two small manufacturers of field-coil drivers still going - almost certainly Japanese and insanely expensive - because they are ultimately capable of better linearity, but are obviously much more expensive and complicated.
The horn-loaded technology that R-K's design replaced is also still in existence, and also still highly-valued for its dynamic and scale properties, if very much not for its domestic practicality!
Have you tried Bard?
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...ighlight=Baird
"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing"
Aldous Huxley
Like others have mentioned, I have quite a few fountain pens and use them extensively. Also, map and compass for hillwalking. Edit: Is a map and compass old fashioned? We're advised to carry them and know how to use them in case the technology fails.
Usually ask for a jar in the pub. We have quite a few vinyl records between us. Finally, always shave with a straight razor. Didn't try one until I was about 50, but wouldn't want to go back to anything else now.
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Last edited by Cornholio; 10th April 2023 at 09:24.
My wife frequently makes a side salad to accompany the main meal of the day and uses two serving spoons to mix it around. Said spoons are silver and hallmarked 1827.
I'm still using Rogers LS3/5a's (albeit with upgraded Falcon Gold crossovers) although I have the modern version KEF LS50, the Rogers are better.
I have never owned a car so get a lot of this pleasure…
If it ever dies - there is a modern 6210 which is also just a feature phone.This is my mopho, it is 21YO -
I am a dinosaur. RAWR!
Same situation with me. I’m covering at least ten miles a day, more at the weekends.I have never owned a car so get a lot of this pleasure…
Fountain pens and notebooks for me.
Dave E
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day
Heartening stuff! Any notion if the batteries are still as good?
I was given this Custom briefcase by my girlfriend in November 1972 to use at my new job. I used it daily until I retired from that post after 41 years in August 2013.
I still use it occasionally today.
It certainly lasted longer than the girlfriend.
scooter
I have often been referred to as old fashioned so I'll nominate myself.
My fathers fingers never work to unlock his phone, and remains a family joke still.
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