During the heat wave I was desperately missing my favorite fan. It's an old Emerson Electric model from the 1950's or 60's, not sure which. A lot of nostalgia in that old fan. As a young boy growing up in Minnesota I would spend summer days with my grandparents. My grandpa Art saw no need for air conditioning and this same old fan was the one constantly circulating the air in their small living room. When we cleared out his house I convinced my mom to let me keep the fan. It has been my favorite household fan ever since. This year when my wife went to plug it in, the fan didn't turn on. Being a maintenance minded kind of guy, I decided to tear into the old fan and see what was going on.
This thing is a real beauty of American design. From the way the whole thing is put together you can tell that it was designed by some guys in a shop. Every step of the disassembly was completely transparent, requiring exactly one flat bit screwdriver and one wrench. Even getting into the coils that powered the electric motor you could see the simple elegance of function. Each of the coils was hand wrapped, hand tied with nylon, and kept propped back in place with wooden pegs. Three wires lead from the button to the coils. One constant feed, one that would power two coils, and another that pumped juice through all four coils for high speed. The motor directly powers the shaft for the fan. It has a worm screw on the back which feeds to a simple gear reducer, turning a flywheel for the oscillation armature. And all of this is metal. There is just enough wire cage to protect your butt should you bump into the fan. Don't go sticking your fingers in there or you might pull back a bloody stump hacked off by four solid metal fan blades.
Everything looked fine when I tested it, so I took the coils into work. One of the electricians at work gladly tested the coils for me, showing me what to look for. He marveled at the beauty and craftsmanship of the coils, telling me stories of when he used to work in small appliance repair. He lamented that if there was something wrong with the coil, a replacement motor would almost certainly come from Taiwan. The coils tested good. My test on the button had been positive. Really there was nothing else to do. All signs said the thing had no fault.
So today I put the whole thing back together. It works! There must have been a loose connection somewhere. Since neither speed setting was working it must have been the constant feed connection. It all looked fine as I tore it apart, but you never can tell. Still, it was a fun experience.
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2 comments:
Great story Jake. The good ol' made in America stuff lasts forever. On a similar note I decided Kelly & the kids needed to appreciate campimg in a tent. So we got all the gear, new because my ex got all of my old stuff in the divorce. One of the items I replaced was my trusty Coleman propane camp stove. When I opened it the familiar green color was gone, replaced by black, and it was a little less boxy, a rounded "modern" shape. It all worked fine. Then I noticed the sticker:Made in Taiwan. The parent company is still in Kansas, but the jobs aren't. I got 20 years use out of my last one, I hope the Taiwanese who got the American jobs are good craftsman...
Don't you just hate that? If they were paid a comparable wage and enjoyed a similar standard of living and made an equivalently quality product I'd have no problem with it. But none of those things tend to be true.
Contrary to the stereotype of the fat and lazy American worker, Americans are still the highest quality workers around. Now if we could just do something about the fat and lazy American consumers...
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