Healing Hands

I think I may have missed my calling. It is increasingly apparent that I have healing hands. Sometimes just one touch is enough, for other patients major surgery may be required to deal with the damage, but the result is always a new lease of life and thisI find deeply satisfying.

And who are my patients, you may wonder. People? Animals? Plants, perhaps? Nope…

Come unto me ye worn and neglected, ye dysfunctional and erratic, ye rusty and seized. Come unto me technology and machinery and inanimate objects of all kinds and I will heal thee, cleanse thee and give thee new life.

Yes, I have a talent for fixing things. I’ve lost count of the objects that have been handed to me with the words “I can’t get it to work”. I lay on my healing hands (and I don’t mean I give it a good thump, though that has been known to work) and suddenly the item works as was intended. This is an extreme situation and usually more button pressing and sometimes open cavity surgery may be required, but often minimal handling work just fine and the object is restored to it’s owner, no longer destined for the bin and spared being throw across the room in frustration.

This is simple stuff though and I class it as mere tinkering. What I really enjoy is restoration. Taking something that has been essentially written off as worthless and restoring it to functional condition, where it may not look good as new, but it will be useful again. Totally stripping something down and putting back together again in a way you just can’t do with living things and oh, it’s so much more satisfying.

Interestingly, this usually involves an awful lot of cleaning, from which I derive a peculiarpleasure that is totally lacking when it comes to cleaning for its own sake. I can happily sit for hours dismantling and cleaning machinery, getting covered in rust, oil and WD40 (the blood and guts of machinery), whereas spending half an hour cleaning the oven is something that usually requires the assistance of wild horses (unless, of course, the oven has ceased to function and needs fixing).

My latest project is restoring an industrial sewing machine that has spent the last two years of its life outdoors. This particular beast was given to me (free) on the assumption that I’d probably have to take it to the dump. It was covered in rust, dirt and cobwebs, but the motor showed signs of life even if it didn’t actually turn over, so I decided to see what I could do with it.

Fortunately there was enough residual oil in the machine head itself to have preserved that at least. I cleaned off all the filth, got the motor running (though I suspect it is graveyard to generations of spiders and other beasties and will need taking apart for proper cleaning). I’ve replaced most of the missing parts on the machine head and am now tackling the worst of the rust on the stand, which is currently in bits, with a view to respraying it. I wouldn’t have bothered with this last bit except that it was so badly rusted that the pedal mechanism was sticking – not an ideal situation when you have a machine that sews at about 100mph.

So I spent yesterday out in the sun working on the stand (it’s in such bad nick that it’s not coming indoors until it is decent), dismantling (WD40 and brute force to release rusted bolts), tinkering (investigating the spider graveyard) and cleaning metalwork (using abrasive attachments on the power drill). My hands were bloody with rust and WD40, I was covered in rust dust and I hadn’t had so much fun with my clothes on in ages. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take any “before” pictures, but I had cleaned it beyond recognition before I emerged from the enchantment that is restoration.

Today I have some other work to do, but I’m itching to get back to the restoration and hasten the day when this piece of junk is rehabilitated and gainfully employed again.