Teeth
My father was one of the best (worst?) for bush engineering with his countless projects. Ever since I can remember we had this BSA engine (M20 I think) in the back of the shed that he had turned into a stationary engine. It had no other purpose in life than to be brought out into daylight every couple of years, started up & left to vibrate its way around the floor for 15 minutes then put to the back of the shed again.
It hasn't been running now for a couple of decades, I really must start it up & tell my son it's a family tradition.
"Finesse" & "state of the art" were not words I ever heard in the same sentence with my father.
One day his false teeth broke, the plate had broken in half, and he had a quote of a couple hundred dollars to replace them (this was decades ago). "Bugger that he said, "I can bloody make my own for much cheaper than those thieving scoundrels.
Dad seemed to have this stubborn side that would have him spend days and countless resources to make something that could have been bought in K-Mart for 3 bucks
A few days later I came home to find a Holden bell housing that I was saving for no particular reason, had been left out the front of the shed. A sledge hammer was sitting next to it and it had a piece smashed out of it.
What the hell happened to that I thought as I looked it over.
I then looked in the workshop, here was Dad waving the oxy torch over a small steel pot on a long handle, he finished of a can of Diet-Ale then crushed it & put that in the pot too. What are you doing I asked nervously, "mahing my mew feef" he said, while speaking without teeth.
I walked slowly backwards
Seemed he had glued his old plate back together to use to make a sand mold, He then melted enough alloy to pour into the mold. He had to pour them a few times till he had a good cast with no porosity cavities (all puns intended)
Once the cast was right he then sanded them with wet & dry & got them chromed.
We used to call him "Jaws" after the guy in the Bond films, although I don't know if anyone actually called him that to his face!!
He did eventually pay for a proper set of falsies as the alloy ones were a bit on the heavy side, but he had proved his point, you didn't have to go to Uni for years to be an Orthodontist.
We buried dad a few years ago now but I still have his teeth sitting on the mantle piece.
