DIY by Choice

My Father-In-Law owns a tiny tabletop forge. The first time I saw it I had no idea what it was. It looks like a cross between a bench vise and one of those Bunson burners we used back in high school chemistry. He keeps his mini-forge and a stack of slender lead ingots in one of the many workshacks that has erupted over the years on his rambling 200 acres in Northern Minnesota. In his forge Billy casts small lead replacement parts for his Model T.
Back when Billy restored this particular 1919 Ford, you had two options for getting your hands on “spares” (as our British friends call them): find them at swap meets or make them yourself. So he learned to make his own car and tractor parts by casting them or by grinding down other parts or by milling them from raw stock on his metal lathe.
These days you can find hundreds, even thousands, of sites on the Web where an enthusiast can buy any imaginable part or accessory for any imaginable vehicle. Billy knows about these miracles of modern technology. He logs onto his computer once in a while and visits some of them, and he always marvels at the things he sees. They make him chuckle and shake his head. And yet, at 84, he still trundles out to his workshack in the middle of winter and gets busy meticulously crafting parts with his grinders and his MIG welder and his vertical milling machine. It’s not about saving money, it’s just what he does. In the 1940s and 50s and 60s he was a DIYer by necessity. Today, he is a DIYer by choice.
Most of us are DIYers by choice. Occasionally, it makes me a little uncomfortable to admit it. It makes the whole idea of crafting things with your own hands sound a little affected: Especially when you start throwing around terms like “satisfaction” and “accomplishment” and “aglow” and “old school.” We wax poetic about the fulfillment that can only be sculpted with dirty, self-actualized hands. We write entire books (I just finished reading one) that are little but a paean to the unique pleasure of doing things yourself. Reading them, you’d think that we—our generation, that is—have just now, in this most recent decade, invented this crazy new concept of DIY and so now we must crow about it at great volume and with wild-eyed, evangelical zeal. Look what we did! I sometimes imagine that Billy and his like-minded cronies must find us all a bit silly, we handyman-come-latelies.
But they’re smarter than that. They might pass judgment on garlic or punk rock or Euro-style purses for men. But they aren’t going to think less of us because we embark on our DIY projects armed with $250 Lithium-ion drill/drivers and NIOSH-approved respirators instead of home-made lead forges. They get that we are only newer members in the club they’ve been in for their entire lives.
So even if you are brand new to the pursuits of the DIYer, set aside any self-consciousness you might harbor and acknowledge that it’s okay to take pride in your choice to do it yourself. You really are becoming part of a proud tradition and you really will feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Plus, you’ll save money, learn new things, live in a nicer place and you’ll never have to spend all day waiting around for a repairman. DIY by choice is a fine choice indeed.