Sustainable skills
This is the primary chain adjuster off this month’s Project BSA S27. So what? Well, making just the nut entails taking a piece of round bar, turning a reduced diameter in the middle, drilling through the centre and tapping the hole to 5/16 x 26 CEI thread, counterboring one end so the threads don’t go the full length and parting it off before indexing in a milling machine to make the hexagon and finally nickel-plating it. That’s at least six machining operations plus plating – and it’s hidden away out of sight under the gearbox on a BSA – a bike pitched as transport for the working man!
Without doubt, prior to 1930, motorcycles – even from mass producers like Birmingham Small Arms – were made more to a standard than a price. Admittedly, only because labour and materials were cheap – but the economic depression introduced cost-cutting after 1930 that created a steady decline in actual quality that continues to this day. Oh sure, technology’s gimmicks make new stuff seem better – but they also ensure most people ‘upgrade’ well before the old one falls to bits...
We live in a time when people are awakening to the dangers of abusing our environment, and while I could be targeted for riding a smoky old BSA instead of a ‘clean’ battery car, I’m pleased to find that young people recognise that reusing and repairing things is kinder to the world than manufacturing them anew – however ‘clean’ the new product; I mean, electricity may be clean but batteries? Lithium and cobalt don’t grow in orchards... Let’s hope young people learn to repair things so that the nation’s economy is based on skills again, instead of pushing other people’s money around and selling unsustainable imported goods. That’s my Christmas wish, anyway. Hope you all have a great new year!