BBC2 TV. "Saved and Remade!"

[slidertogrid]

Wow ! If you watch some of the "upcycle" programmes through your fingers cringing, this one is best watched from behind the sofa! The victims, sorry clients take their beloved items in and the "team" destroy them, sorry remake them into something useful... Recent items wrecked include a much cherished clock cut up with a gas torch and made into a weather vane, a cherished c@r cut up and made into a "Leaf sculpture" a cherished guitar sawn in half to be a shelf, a deceased father's much loved drum kit chopped up and today a inherited Gramophone is butchered and made into a hideous wall unit!
I can't watch! If these things are cherished heirlooms as is suggested why do they destroy them!
I just can't wait for someone in my family to say "Oh yes Rich loved that Invicta TV he owned it since he was 11 ... Now, lets make it into a nice fish tank in his memory... ! My wraith would make the Amityville horror look 'mildly annoyed'

[Cruisin Marine]

Now I recall why I decided to stop watching mainstream TV decades ago.

[SiriusHardware]

I suggest you also avoid 'Restoration Workshop' ('Yesterday') as well.

The snippet I saw had the presenter / perpetrator looking around what was clearly an aeronautical scrapyard and not having seen the programme before I watched on, curious to know which aircraft he was looking for bits to complete the restoration of.

He left with a van load of strangely miscellaneous aircraft bits including a couple of radar head units, and it eventually transpired that he was planning to make them into some sort of novelty room lighting features. That's when I shuddered and switched away.

God only knows how many rare old radios, TVs, test instruments and other electrical items are being 'repurposed' by people inspired by this nonsense.

[dave walsh]

I thought I'd take a look at the Radiogram that was turned into a wall unit but I couldn't find the episode. Some I-player sites don't seem, to offer all previous episodes just a few that they have made available. Many are often [apparently] not all there or in date order and sometimes have no dates. On another program site recently, I had to count backwards from the one I knew had just been transmitted [no date shown] to locate another episode. Further back dates did appear but it's not so helpful. Is it BBC "cutbacks" ? They still have the money for some gash projects. Quite a few years ago they seemed to have started reducing the archive listings [especially on Radio 3 eg Jazz programs]. Is it all part of the process of telling us what we should view or listen to between programs or via insidious devices like Alexa

I recall that Greg Dyke was saying he intended opening the Beeb Archives up to all BBC License Players, before the Board of Governors out-manoeuvred him.... by actually accepting his principled resignation.

Dave W

[slidertogrid]

The Gramophone to wall unit episode was on today so it may not be available just yet. it was a lovely console type Gramophone with internal horn (that was ripped out) Then a load of modern wood was tacked on to the empty case. So it ended up a dark wood gramophone cabinet with a modern pine plank etc fixed to it ! Horrendous and a bit shocking!

[paulsherwin]

You do have to bear in mind that we're not the target audience for 'upcycling' programmes of this type.

[slidertogrid]

I realise and accept that but the fact is that they are destroying so called cherished items - in the case of the Gramophone an antique item. What I struggle with is the owner is "delighted" with the result! I just can't understand why the owner would rather have the item in this state rather than keep the item as original and have it properly restored? The gramophone could have been fixed, re polished and made into a nice piece of furniture. I know we are not allowed to talk about cars on here but watch that episode and see if you can understand the thinking behind what happened! (But please don't comment
about it on this thread or it may be closed)
I have my (now passed) Father's gold watch he was presented with by Baker Perkins for 25 years service. I have a clock owned by my Grandad and a barometer owned by my other 'Grandpop' that was presented as a retirement gift from Brotherhoods engineering. I cherish these items as they are. If I made them into 'something else' they wouldn't be the item I remember or the item the person owned and cherished....

[Electronpusher0]

Are these items really cherished or indeed of any value outside of our niche interest (the gramaphone excepted)? I suspect the whole thing is scripted including the delighted reaction.
I can understand repurposing an item that would otherwise languish unloved and eventually be scrapped it it gains a new lease of life.

Peter

[locknut]

These programmes all seem a bit fakey to me.

I did once buy a butchered console gramophone cabinet, into which a Lenco GL70 chassis and a nice stereo Tandberg reel to reel had been fitted, both of which were immediately liberated. There was also a vacant space, I guess for a receiver/amplifier which had been removed already.

[CambridgeWorks]

I think the programme makers think most people of today really want to see this type of thing done.
Following or exploring a trend like the up-cycling ones.
I am sure they would laugh at some of the excellent restorations done within this group. At a cost of materials alone, without the many hours of effort put in. They would probably think, "why bother".

I know, If I had a treasured item, like say a watch, I would be getting it repaired to preserve for future generations. Not destroying it.
Rob

[Terry_VK5TM]

We had one of those programs turn up on tv out here a little while ago, didn't last 5 minutes in this house.

It was not what they were doing, but rather the pretentious presenters that was enough to cause the scramble for the off switch.

Where an object is well past it's best, but can be repurposed into something useful, I have no problem with that, but to butcher something supposedly cherished is not on.

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

You do have to bear in mind that we're not the target audience for 'upcycling' programmes of this type.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re the target audience for very little on TV these days.

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by locknut

These programmes all seem a bit fakey to me.

TV is an entertainment medium. What they are doing to the stuff on the programme is a vehicle and merely incidental.

Anything that might be mildly educational has to have an injection of drama amongst the general dumbing down otherwise the masses will switch off in droves.

[slidertogrid]

Originally Posted by robinshack

I am sure they would laugh at some of the excellent restorations done within this group. At a cost of materials alone, without the many hours of effort put in. They would probably think, "why bother".
Rob

Yes I think you have hit the nail on the head there. Thinking about it, a couple of times when I have bought vintage TVs from ebay the seller has been surprised when they asked me what I was going to do with it and I replied "get it going... " One was a KB deep scene that I had been looking for for years, the builders that found it were going to remove "the guts" (with an angle grinder!)
but decided to sell it as is in the end and let the new owner do that! The second was my HMV Thorn 2000, again builders found it and were going to skip it until one checked on ebay. They couldn't believe the price it made and were astounded when I said I was going to restore it and use it. When I explained it was the worlds first fully Transistorised colour TV and there was an example in the Science Museum you could see their interest draining away as their faces glazed over.... I'm sure they had a right laugh at the "geek" later in the pub!

[The Philpott]

Seems like the BBC is lowering the bar to try and vie with competitors- the opposite of what the nation needs.

There's also a blend of the upcycle/steampunk/industrial look philosophies which comes up with rather impractical items like wall lights attached to bench vices, standard lamps where a viola or similar is vertically impaled half way up the lamp stand, etc. The more unique it looks, the higher the price. It's almost as if industry, history and culture are treated as a joke.

Dave

[dave walsh]

Thanks for the Gram info [at p5*] Slider 2G. "Sounds" [pun intended] horrendous. It's all a world away from the Repair Shop approach I suppose, apart, from a common use of practical skills perhaps? I saw a battered fifties "utility" sideboard that had been rescued from a skip in the sixties re-purposed as a games unit which didn't bode well but in fact the colour scheme, contrasting with one section of the frontage sanded down to the original light wood colour and clever fold out sections, to retain various items, seemed to work well.

Saveable items are not always being vandalised and there's often a good outcome but I do agree that using an old TV as a cabinet or sticking a light bulb on to a Test Meter is cringworthy. The worst was the craze for "Shabby Shiek" furniture created by covering it with thick white paint. I think that was popular because you didn't need to develop very much skill to convince yourself you'd joined the club.

The popularity of these sort of programs is probably because there are as many "armchair" restorers watching as there are gardeners One positive is that I don't think the "Geek" insult carries so much weight these days Slider to G post 14* [The critics know they can't do what the other person can, hence the attitude! Slider TG [post 14*]. The ability of so called "Nerds" to do amazing things, practically and also in the computer world, is now highlighted especially in contemporary society where many people can do very little for themselves it seems! It's one of the many themes in The Big Bang Theory [More 4] for example, in which the 'outsiders' win out against the "Jocks".

Dave W

[The General]

Oooo, thanks for the warning, Slider. Normally I'd give a programme like this a go based on it's title but I don't think I'll bother now.
I'm not against upcycling & I like steampunk as an art style if it's done well but the base item has to be unrepairable/unusable/have missing parts for the action to be justified otherwise it's just vandalism.
Last year I saw a 1940s American volt-ohm meter in very nice condition in a Leicestershire antiques shop, But! Some malcontent had drilled a hole in it & put a wretched bulbholder on top and a stupid price to match. Mrs General had to escort me out the shop & made me take my medication.
Mark.

[The Philpott]

Agreed, 'Geek' carries little weight now and is almost redundant, perhaps because everything is running on rather non-intuitive software & firmware and Geekdom is almost a prerequisite for survival. You either have to be one or know one.

When i had made a wooden plant stand out of scrap wood and finished filling holes and sanding back, a passer-by whispered to her daughter "Ooh look- shabby chic!"
I painted it in a hurry.
Dave

[dave walsh]

It reminds me of the classic BBC Doc [from 1965] that projected 25 years ahead when they speculated it would be a glossy sci-fi future with just a few engineers [in boiler suits and greasy caps] able to charge a premium for their technical services. That is the situation, in a way but we chiefly rely on digital technocrats rather than Fred Dibnahs [great chap] in the 21st Century. I very much like the easy retrieval of information that we now have but not the technical and social control aspects!

I can't recall the title of that b+w fim [probably 16mm] but it was last shown, along with the great Movie Annie Hall, on Millenium night [2000] when Tony Blair failed to set the Thames on fire and the great and the good had to queue in the cold! Thank goodness for those two programs which livened things up no end, post midnight, after an extremely dull New Year "celebration!".

Dave W

[Cathovisor]

Originally Posted by The General

Last year I saw a 1940s American volt-ohm meter in very nice condition in a Leicestershire antiques shop, But! Some malcontent had drilled a hole in it & put a wretched bulbholder on top and a stupid price to match. Mrs General had to escort me out the shop & made me take my medication.
Mark.

I've seen that done to AVO 7s that are upside-down, to give them a smiley 'face'. Okay, if you've got one with a wrecked movement I suppose it's okay - does anyone rebuild/repair moving coil meters these days?