BBC car build

[PeterH]

BBC's coverage of the Mini factory was quite impressive. Can I have a robot please.

[Mjit]

Impressive factory, terrible show though!

[Unkel Kunkel]

I thought it was excellent programme  and really  enjoyed it.

It would have been improved by just  letting people talk and tell us about  about their jobs.They are enthusiastic about their work and enthusiasts, in my experience,  are always good to listen to.

Unfortunately, programme producers seem convinced  such subjects as manufacturing  are a bit   boring and  we all have  very short attention spans.  They assume  our appetite  is easily satiated  and  and our taste so quickly  jaded  that   they must  constantly flit  from one presenter to another whose banal  interviewing technique must  be spiced with regular sprinklings of:

" fantastic", Amazing", "incredible", "Awesome", "unbelievable"  "Wow" (add "!"  to taste)Turning channel to Dr Roberts on Celtic art  she tells us she is  is "blown away " it by it.....

[JohnD]

The programme makers obviously thought that viewers' attention span was less than the 68 seconds that each line job must take. The amateur and badly rehearsed attempts by the presenters to fit parts were patronising (These guys do it for a living - I can do it without even practising first) and did nothing to tell us anything more about car building. The only item that was entertaining was the "dance of the robots" and even there May was maximally irritating, standing inside the safety barrier and saying "they can't get me while I stand here".

No, James, nor me neither. I've enjoyed your previous progs - giant models etc. but this one was a giant bore.

John

[Steve C]

Blimey John, you are up early!

 

I absolutely agree with the comments in this thread about attention spans, dumbing down and idiot presenters, and James May was wasted on this dross. Why do the luvvies who make these things assume we are all as facile and idiotic as they are?

 

Forgive me while I take a short stroll down memory lane.I became a petrol head at age eight, when I was in bed with flu, and a cousin donated his copy of the "Eagle Book of Motor Sport" to me. In it I read about veteran and vintage cars, special building, American hot-rodding, 500cc racing, and great champions of the past like Nuvolari, Seaman and Moss. That book introduced me to the Otto cycle through schematics, and showed technical details in wonderful cutaway drawings. I was hooked, and have been ever since. I also played with Meccano, and read their magazine and Eagle comics with proper technical content aimed at young people which did not treat young boys as imbeciles. I learned about tools working alongside my father, who was a fine woodworker, and how they were to be cleaned, oiled and put away after use. I went on to build my own go karts and bikes from scrap scavenged from railway embankments and elsewhere. Later, I learned basic mechanics servicing my Father's VW Beetle with him, and from a wonderful neighbour who restored vintage motorcycles as a hobby, and took me with him to local rallies where I learned about Traction engines, steam lorries and fascinating machinery of every variety. On TV we may not have had much of it, but we had programmes like Blue Peter, Tom Tom and Tomorrow's World which covered engineering subjects in a serious, factual way without some dingbat presenter shrieking "awesome" every few minutes and assuming we were daft.

 

Have we progressed? I don't think so. We have raised a generation of selfish beings who have never known real hardship or want, and have never had access to so much technology which most of them use for utterly pointless activities while being incapable of wiring a plug or fitting a light bulb. Saints preserve us!

 

There, I feel better now...

 

Regards

 

Steve C

[PeterH]

At school we did 'proper' metal-work. I made a working steam engine (OK only an oscillating one with no valves). Then us fella's all ran old motorbikes and bangers, that needed fixing - and usually could be fixed at home - no fancy throw away electronics.

 

Not to mention Meccano.

 

That's why there is a skill shortage today

[Pete Lewis]

Here here , I made a centre punch at school metalwork and its still working fine 55year later

I made meccano gadjets with keyway sliding gear boxes , worms drives diferentials, driving cranes that pulled chairs up the stairs , then karts from old pram wheels races down the road which we always won by miles, no sit up and rope steering but laydown and steer direct with a good leg for scooting , this was fast compared to the run and push brigade, the best brake was found when I run over my new school mac with the back wheel ....another rollocking, so we designed one from old carpet which lasted longer

we made a helicopter from old motorcycle engine and 5ft lino coverd rotors copied from model plane wings

did it work heck No the rotor wing flew off into next doors greenhouse, the fuel caught fire and burnt the lawn but was good old fashoined dangerous Fun and great leaning curve

riding down hilsides on a bike made from throw outs ... gears and disc brakes ...not a chance

Thats what feet were for, just tell mum the soles ripped off.

 

thank heavens my childhood never revolved around the obsession of an phone screen

 

dread to think what I would have missed out of,

[Casper]

Thats what feet were for, just tell mum the soles ripped off.

 

 

 

Tuff brand shoes had a replacement guarantee for 1 year.  I never had a pair that weren't replaced !

 

C.

[dougbgt6]

I never did well at metal work. Our teacher, Mr Snowball (yes really!) took against me and I spent years filling a name tag. It was never flat enough for him and eventually too narrow, so start again. I think years of school boys laughing at his name had turned him into a psychopath. Early on he told me off for smiling in class ("Something amusing you boy?!!")  and that was where I must have crossed the line. 

[NeilF]

We built a 2 seat canoe in woodwork and covered it in canvas. Once built, for our 2 hour games period we then took it on Langstone harbour and canoed over to Hayling Island. Fighting the 2 mph tide across the harbour entrance was really hard work.

 

Health and Safety never came into it, but it did keep us fit.

 

Those were the days,

 

NeilF

[mishmosh]

loved the panel gap checks.  Obviously wasnt a stage in triumphs process.

[Pete Lewis]

just watch the start of this as recorded it earlier,  why do they all get in the way , push all the wrong buttons and cant use a wrench !!!!

 

          too much rubbish banter   

 

try youtube   for other details of manufacturing vehicles here,s how renault make trucks , I worked here on warranty for a year  in my last year of work with them 

           

 

Pete

[Colin Lindsay]

 

 

That's why there is a skill shortage today

Only in this country. Have a look at Syria or Afghanistan and see what weapons they can make out of odds and ends, or how they weld those huge machine guns onto the backs of pickup trucks.