Reading Assignment:
Read Chapters 3 & 4 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Summary of Last Lab:
Mun: Worked over the place. Helped provide tools and equipment to facilitate process. For most of the fixes, like finding the right sizes of wrenches and fasteners, rather than asking for guidance, it’s something that can be resolved independently. You can’t know it all, but you can develop a feel before the end of it.
Francesco: Don’t overuse the vice grip; you want to maintain the bolts.
Devon: Worked on the kickstarter for the 2013 bike. Had to recoil a mechanism inside the kickstarter to prevent it from falling back. It failed the first time. The second time went much more quickly and worked out. Gasket may have been an issue (too thick).
Caitlin: Also worked on old bike. The number of bolts that go into the bike was remarkable
Mark: Worked on the frame and noticed the need for organized parts inventory.
Professor Littman: ^That’s what exploded diagrams are good for.
Samone: What you think might be an issue is often another
Sydney: With glen on the 2013 bike. Found the old ford engine to be helpful for understanding the construction and function.
Mikhael: Worked on the old bike with Glen. Pieces came together more neatly after the first try.
Max: Worked on the current bike. Reinforced the fact that if you’re not organized, you lose bolts or isolate them. And then the wrench disappears if things don’t go back exactly where they need to be.
Kate: Helping with the organization. Realized how many “moving parts” there are.
Jamie: Organized the ziplock bags. By the end, almost the entire bike passed through his hands before being put away.
Jay: Scribing last class.
Phil: Also on the timing cover of the old bike.
Leslie: Worked on the frame as well. Worked with Jay to learn more about the engine and understand how the ones on the table functioned.
Colby: Worked on dismantling and photography. Surprised at how long it will take to reconstruct the bike.
Mary Kate: Worked on breaking down the bike. Looked through the serial numbers of frame and engine. Learned that if the two numbers match within the same series the bike becomes more valuable.
Professor Littman: The barrel is the cylinder with the fins. The bottom end of the bike is a single piece. The later bikes ’63 blue one, for example, have a split case so it comes apart and has bearings inside. Ours has a sleeve bearing so you can take the flywheel without taking the engine out of the frame. The shapes of the barrels of different bikes matters. The earlier ones were circular and the laters ones square. Square has more surface area to draw away heat.
Max: Taking things off of the frame. Noticed that even when taking the bike apart there’s still an order of operations. Started with the clutch on the handlebars and realized he couldn’t take it off until he took off the oil can. And that couldn’t come off until even more came off.
Professor Littman: The clutch lever, when pulled in, pivots. When you squeeze, it moves a certain distance. We need to measure the distance of the cable travel when the clutch is fully pulled. There’s a lever at the handle and another in the bottom end.
Professor Littman: He pulled out the motor and put it on the motor stand. He was trying to remove the distributor and having trouble. Applied some yield (penetrating oil) and was eventually able to loosen it up and get out the distributor which holds the points.
Teams:
Electrical (Professor Littman): Jay, Mun & Kate
Clutch & Transmission (John Rev): Mark, Samone, Mikhael & Devon
Top End (John Rev) Max B & Colby
Bottom End (John Rev): Sydney, Leslie & Mary K
Forks, Frames & Wheels (Glen): Caitlin, Francesco, Max, Jamie & Phil
Book Discussion: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work
Chapter 1 (in lieu of introduction): A Brief Case for the Useful Arts
Max S: The meaning of the chapter is contained in the title. There were two leading themes in the chapter: (a) We have to see the labor world as a valuable trade (not craft) and (b) we should be more in touch with the mechanical world, even if not involved in the workforce. You should know how the parts of your home work. You should know how to fix things if they break. Now that everything’s technological, you become detached from it.
Mary Kate: The author preaches too much.
Mun: There’s a growing gap between blue- and white-collar cultures. There’s an idea that white-collar workers can’t fix, and that blue-collar workers are mindless laborers. It may well be preaching, but there’s more to it than people think.
Mark: For some, a doctorate in philosophy and heading to a think tank may be the right approach. For others, it may be a motorcycle shop.
Jamie: It’s interesting how the author feels the hands-on labor to be conducive to the mind postulating on the theoretical, intuitively understanding compression and other phenomena. It’s workers and builders who invented some of the new technologies, like the steam engine (Page 22).
Professor Littman: What’s the takeaway message?
Caitlin: There was satisfaction for the author in electrical work that dwells behind walls, yet the author didn’t extend that notion to the think tank work.
Francesco: It all comes down to the author’s notion that trades have a social currency rather than a monetary direct return. Trade workers see the people for whom they did work and derive satisfaction from the work and the impact, rather than the remuneration.
Kate: He felt that his work and people sporting his shop validated his work.
Professor Littman: Alan Blinder guest stars. Talks about offshoring work. Radiologist v internist.
Mary Kate: People thought their jobs were safe but proved to be expendable and easily exported. A motorcycle mechanic, however, is material.
Professor Littman: You can’t hammer a nail over the internet…. yet.
Caitlin: Big distinction to be made between workers and thinkers.
Professor Littman: The author grew up on a commune. Leans left of left.
Mary Kate: In the footnotes, it explains that he didn’t go to school after age 15 because the commune lifestyle was transient and occupied with work.
Phil: The author fails to address the assembly line jobs. The author must be targeted towards the people making the choice of what they want to do with their lives.
Sydney: Today people are trained in problem solving but not problem finding
Professor Littman: ^Underlined and noted. It’s a crucial skill.
Jamie: The author discusses how appliances may well have only one small part broken. Today, people might just replace the motor if a screw is broken.
Phil: With a weed-whacker, it costs more to fix than replace
Professor Littman: Fixed his own paper shredder. It was a $100 product and it was fulfilling to mend, but wasn’t worth the labor cost. In addition, the comparison in Chapter 1 with the surgeon is strong (Page 25). The surgeon is at once technical and deliberative. Any manual skill that’s diagnostic, including motorcycle repair, depends on problem finding and solving. A washing machine (Page 16) is something we need, but we need to think about what it needs.
Max S: Coming back from the bike shop, the author’s wife would smell him and identify the solvents and materials on him (Page 24). These resulted from physical interactions but became a part of his more abstract identity. Carburetor Solvent. Brake Oil. Both important. Our brakes are dry so we need not clean with chemicals as much, but, at times, the chemicals on hydraulic brakes prove potent.
Introduction: (albeit anachronistically)
Sydney: There’s the rise of knowledge workers. The author doesn’t feel these workers tangibly do anything. He quit the think tank because he felt he wasn’t actually providing a service. People are becoming more dependent and less self-sufficient in turn. He wanted people to be more knowledgable about the material world, but they were actually losing that knowledge because of technology.
Mun: There’s a lost dimension in today’s consumer society. Here, we’re inclined to think of the Paul Tillig’s “on the lost dimension” in the 60’s discusses the horizontal plane of how we can continue to consume. there also should be a vertical plane considering what we’re consuming and its implications. When we don’t see what we (missed end of sentence).
Mark: People becoming more self-reliant and learning how to fix things themselves. At the same time, there would then be no need for specific tradesmen. We can’t have everyone being self-reliant, if we’re realistic.
Max S: The author plans to talk a lot about being in touch with the material world, and that there’s more of an opening than ever for blue-collar jobs. On Page 5 he explains that even though he’s discussing the intangible value of knowing how to work with machines, he specifies that he instead is concerned with the marketability of such skills.
Professor Littman: Back (forward) to Chapter 1. The origin of the word ‘philosophy’ stems from the Greeks. It was a carpenter’s skill. Wisdom, knowing, is a practical skill. A carpenter understands different woods, and there’s a wisdom that accompanies this understanding. The Zen book asks: what is best? We want to be perfectionists in building this motorcycle. We want the hardware in right. We want everything to hum along. Persig would argue that philosophy is a process of seeking out quality and asking what is best.
Caitlin: Page 5/6 “I want to avoid the the kind of mysticism that gets attached to “craftsmanship” while doing justice to the very real satisfactions it offers.”
(Cold Chisel discussion. From Wikipedia: A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, struck with a mallet, or mechanical power. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or of wood with a sharp edge in it.”)
M.G.S.
