It cant be just me....... can it?

Just look at your forum name!!

Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with having a bit of pride in your work and if you enjoy doing it you will do a nicer job. You know it's there and you know you did a job to be proud of, regardless of if anyone else will see it.

Know the feeling only too well - but what you've made is looking good and that's always preferable to rushing it and bodging it.

The modern engines I build can't be seen once all the external ancillaries/plastics etc are bolted on and yet I still make sure the surfaces I paint are as good as it can be. Doubt anybody ever notices but it'd do my head in sending them out looking like a eBay silver paint recon engine special.

thats just good craftsmanship. be proud of what you have done, as someone may see it in 20 years time and thank you for it.

nothing worse than pulling a panel or something off to find it horrendously bodged underneath. I'm sure we have all encountered that more often than something being done well

One of Cardiff's historic buildings is the Pierhead building, some years ago the original clock was taken out and replaced. The original was restored and placed in a glass case in the city centre as street ornamentation where it's possible to see the movement. The original manufacturer festooned the movement with cast metal monkeys. No-one was ever going to see these apart from the person who wound the clock!


It also puts me in mind of a Lotus VI I saw at a show, a previous owner had decided the space frame looked a bit flimsy and had welded in a couple of girders to strengthen it up, Colin Chapman had put a huge amount of thought into stripping away every superfluous gramme when he designed the car.

I've always been of the opposite thought. If my car isn't ready for me to get in it and drive it any day of the week, and it's festering away unloved under a tarp somewhere, then that would feel to me like my heart wasn't in it. I've never actually been in that situation before though, so I can only speculate. My history of old vehicles has been guided by my personal philosophy that it's better to exercise a car regularly, and therefore I have personally opted for fixing things as soon as they are a problem, and not worrying too much about a fastidious approach to presentation.

I tend to go a bit crazy if a car is out of action for more than two weeks because of a problem. Beyond that point it ceases to be a car to me, and becomes a sculpture that I am ultimately responsible for.

I'm pushing myself to be a bit more flexible with my current car though, because it's much less of a banger than my previous cars, and it presents me with an opportunity to keep it presentable as well as roadworthy.

Well going abroad to study is bound to put a big hole in your plans for fixing a car.

Beyond that I guess it's a question of what brings satisfaction. It sounds like you're working on it and as others have said there's nowt wrong with taking pride in work even when it isn't going to be seen.

I'm trying to think more like that myself... but it's early days for me