/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.2800610]

>drive around
>still see a sewing machine repair store and a vacuum cleaner store around
Why did those survive disposable appliances but not TV and other repair stores?

[Anonymous No.2800611]

>>2800610
Sewing machines and vacuum cleaners can be very expensive, thus, cost effective to repair, and since we'll always need clothes and clean spaces, there's a steady demand. Other shit like TV's are basically black boxes now, and you can't get parts without cannibalizing other devices, so there's no point in repairing them.

[Anonymous No.2800615]

>>2800610
Besides the points about value in repairing expensive units that the other anon mentioned, people also use vacuums and sewing machines as important tools to make money with either directly (making/repairing garments and other items with a sewing machine, auto and aircraft and yacht detailing with a vacuum, etc.) ...or in the case of vacuums indirectly to maintain commercial spaces that must be regularly cleaned like restaurants, hotels, medical offices and so on.

Consumer grade TVs and similar home entertainment devices are throwaway now, but there's techs that still repair professional grade AV monitors and other gear that get used as tools to make money.

Same with cheap throwaway printers vs commercial ones that have factory service techs and training.

[Anonymous No.2800620]

>>2800610
A lot of those places are just fronts. No way they could be doing enough business to stay open.

[Anonymous No.2800625]

>>2800611
>so there's no point in repairing them.
I repaired one for my mommy last week. I'm mom's special boy.
Turns out that modern flat panel TVs only have a few parts-- there's usually a power supply board, a "brain" which handles the IO and processing, and the screen itself. Sometimes there is a separate driver for the backlight LEDs.
They're pretty easy to fix, although you're right about the cannibalizing other units part. Ebay and a variety of aftermarket suppliers have cheap parts available for most models.

[Anonymous No.2800633]

>>2800620
Do t know about sewing machines but schools/offices/commercial areas don’t generally use the meme piece of shit Dyson to vacuum. As a former master of the custodial arts, I can tell you a good commercial vacuum isn’t what you buy at Walmart.

[Anonymous No.2800637]

>>2800633
Maybe if they have contracts or something. I mean I know a place that services air compressors and paint sprayers, but they're also an authorized Graco dealer and sell them.

[Anonymous No.2800638]

>>2800633
Commercial sewing machines are often set up in ways that make them difficult to remove for repairs (plus they're heavy and fragile) so a physical location might be "front" in the sense of being a place to get mail and do office stuff but little actual work goes on there aside from smaller jobs from non commercial customers....but they may be plenty busy in the field with repairs and maintenence contracts.

Lots of commercial appliance -type places are like that that do printers, copiers, plotters, restaurant equipment, garage equipment machine and worship equipment, etc.

[Anonymous No.2800641]

>>2800637
>Lots of commercial appliance -type places are like that that do printers, copiers, plotters, restaurant equipment, garage equipment machine and worship equipment, etc.

I used to work in a cabinet shop and our building was connected to a place that resold used commercial food appliances. We got all the free ice we wanted from their ice machine the always kept running, cubed and crushed. It was pretty sweet.

[Anonymous No.2800642]

>>2800610
Cheap front. My grandma will take her Kirby she's had since the 70's there to get it tuned up once a year. Thing is a tank.

[Anonymous No.2800643]

>>2800638
>Lots of commercial appliance -type places are like that that do printers, copiers, plotters, restaurant equipment, garage equipment machine and worship equipment, etc.

I used to work in a cabinet shop and our building was connected to a place that resold used commercial food appliances. We got all the free ice we wanted from their ice machine the always kept running, cubed and crushed. It was pretty sweet.

[Anonymous No.2800647]

Where else am I gonna find a new dust filter for my Hoover MaxExtract PressurePro model 60?

[Anonymous No.2800717]

i used to live in a neighborhood (~5yrs ago) that had an actual cobbler, and he was doing pretty well. granted, he was hitting the trifecta of dry cleaning, tailoring, and cobbling, but he was good and he always had business.

[Anonymous No.2800835]

>>2800610
>TV and other repair stores

TVs and other electronics used to run on vacuum tubes that would burn out occasionally. You'd need to call a TV repairman every few years, and his job was fairly low skill and effort.

After that we had devices that were solid state but analog. This style of electronics needs more maintenance and it's something that can be done by a handyman with a service manual. If you ever open up a VCR or TV from the 70s you'll see dozens of little potentiometers that need to occasionally be re-calibrated as the resistance and capacitance of other components drift.

Modern electronics last a lot longer if they're properly designed. When they break there's nothing you can do short of replacing entire circuit boards. The cost of that and the labor are often more than just buying a new device. It's basically outsourcing the job of a repairman to a Chinese factory worker.

Sewing machines and Vacuums are mechanical devices. Anything with moving parts needs regular maintenance, and that's something a clever mechanically inclined person can do.

[Anonymous No.2800840]

>>2800610
It’s an honest living.

[Anonymous No.2800849]

>>2800835
I used to play music professionally and have a Hammond M-series keyboard with an outboard Leslie amplifier from the 50's, and a Teac 3340 reel-to-reel machine from the 70's. The Hammond and Leslie are super reliable, I put a drop of 30w oil in some oil cups on both of them, and they go. The last time I had all 3 serviced was 96 or 97, by a dude who was in his 80s, God only knows where I am going to find someone now. I mean there's plenty of guys who can probe for failed caps and clean pots and the like, but the inside of the Teac is a complete insane nightmare and I don't know that anyone is going to want to touch it, or if someone does, that I can even trust them to not fuck it up.
At this point I'd just like to use the Teac to transcribe some of my old recordings to digital, and sell it to a collector once I am done. I dig analog, but digital is so much easier anymore

[Anonymous No.2800877]

>>2800642
They're heavy, and some are self propelled (WTF?) but if you can get one cheap they last forever and really do work better than 99% of what's in the WalMart.

[Anonymous No.2800917]

in my neighborhood there is a truck that drives around during the summer months offering knife sharpening. they drive around and ring a bell in the truck and there’s a window on the side not unlike an ice cream truck. anyone else seen one of these?

[Anonymous No.2800920]

>>2800849
> 30w oil
I put some 3-in-one oil in mine and it got all waxy after a decade… did you use like car oil or is there special oil that won’t gum up?

[Anonymous No.2800967]

>>2800835
>This style of electronics needs more maintenance
You're on drugs.
To this day, it's not uncommon to see old Giddings & Lewis PLCs and such cross a repairman's bench. Change the caps, maybe an op-amp or logic gate or two, and it's going to chug away for another 40 years.
The Voyager space probes are solid-state, ffs.
>It's basically outsourcing the job of a repairman to a Chinese factory worker.
That much is true. But just because something's considered disposable, doesn't mean it isn't repairable.
But the repair biz has been a race to the bottom for a long time now. There's still some specialty work to be had in older robots. Fixing drives never goes out of style. Winding motors and transformers was a good niche to hit 10-20 yrs ago, but these days, it's barely more economical than the chinkslop.

[Anonymous No.2800979]

>>2800633
sewing machines need a lot of attention, tuning, cleaning, repair. they're complex af. plus they offer fabric and boomer group activities like quilting.

>>2800610
there are actually places that repair tvs and of course you're ignoring computers which take the place of many previous appliances (e.g. VCR)

[Anonymous No.2800981]

>>2800967
small engine repair too, there was a place around here 10-12 years ago now it's gone. cheaper to just buy the whole carb from amazon than fucking with trying to find the right gasket or a new float, let alone cleaning it.

[Anonymous No.2800983]

>>2800920
NTA but Hammond makes "generator oil" specifically for the tone wheels and also for lubing the moving parts on Leslies...from what I hear from friends who play them a lot of old techs still have some in an old metal can from half a century + years ago and it's still good.

Worst thing they can do in regards to lubrication is to sit too long without ever spinning up.

[Anonymous No.2800985]

>>2800981
Not true
I clean the carb then charge you the price of new plus labor. Its an easy 150 bucks and usually takes 20 minutes. Dont like it fix it yourself

[Anonymous No.2800986]

>>2800610
>Why did those survive disposable appliances but not TV and other repair stores?
sewing machines and vacuum cleaners are easy and quick to repair parts are all over the place.

modern tv's are not designed to be repaired if parts are available people don't want to spend the money. this should be obvious to an person who does diy.

[Anonymous No.2800987]

>>2800979
>sewing machines need a lot of attention, tuning, cleaning, repair. they're complex af.
wrong about every part of this. unless they get abused they usually only need oil.

[Anonymous No.2800989]

>>2800620
this, just money laundering operations

[Anonymous No.2800996]

>>2800985
cleaning the carb should be $60. A new carb is like $23.

[Anonymous No.2801031]

>>2800967
I'm not sure why you're arguing with me when we seem to be in agreement. Solid state means not vacuum tubes. Analog solid state electronics in particular would often need re-calibration by repairmen over their lifetime. As the capacitor in a TV's LC RF tuner drifts it stops picking up channels as cleanly because the frequency it's tuning to is slightly off. Manufacturers knew this, added lots of internal calibration potentiometers, and wrote service manuals. Digital electronics are much more tolerant of component values drifting over time. A serviceman coming to re calibrate things stopped being a thing.

[Anonymous No.2801042]

>>2801031
>I'm not sure why you're arguing with me
No argument here. Just some friendly bantz is all. But I do stand by my original point that solid-state electronics doesn't need more maintenance than, e.g., a vacuum-tube whatever from 1972. The shit can and often does work perfectly for years or even decades without any human intervention.
>would often need re-calibration by repairmen over their lifetime
Yes and no. I'm not saying it never happens, only that it's beyond rare in anything made since the 80s. I see plenty of stuff older than me that still has the inspector's lacquer on the pots.

[Anonymous No.2801052]

>>2800877
I’ve met older women whose Kirby’s outlived their husbands, and they treat them like some guy who still has his ‘67 mustang or whatever. They made an emotional as well as financial investment in it years ago, and by god they will keep it running. Sewing machines need to be tuned and fixed, it’s a really precise machine.

>>2800849
Every major area has its R2R guys who repair them. When the time comes get on audiokarma and ask around. What will suck with the teac is when one of the channels goes, and the transistor or whatever you need to replace is buried balls deep in the middle of the thing. I had a nice teac I just sold for nearly nothing, just to free up space. It had been serviced just a few years ago, but fixing the right channel issue was just too goddamn much work.

[Anonymous No.2801213]

>>2800920
I use just plain old 30w non-detergent motor oil, like what's specified for lawn mowers and small engines. That's what the dude who did the last service told me to use. I've happened across other units that were gunked up but it seemed to be more a case of dust getting into the oil and causing it to solidify.
>>2800983
Is this still available? I haven't had any issues but I'd just as soon use the stuff that they engineered specifically for it
>>2801052
I'll give this a shot, thanks Anon. How much did you get for yours? I see mine (4-track simul-sync) draw pretty good prices online. Got it in the original box from a lady at a garage sale for $100 back in 1995...she said it was used like once, and the condition bore this out. The sound quality is amazing.

[Anonymous No.2801218]

>>2800877
I can understand the loyalty. For me, it's canister Kenmores from the 80's and 90's. I hit the motor with compressed air maybe twice a year to clean them out, and they're unkillable. The only bitch is hoses wear out, and then out comes the duct tape...

[Anonymous No.2801402]

>>2800610
Sewing machines are a really weird industry, most of the stuff above entry level has really limited online documentation, no published MSRPs, and you can only get them from a brick and mortar retailer. Prices are kinda shocking on them too, my cosplayer ex had a fancy one that could do embroidery and all kinds of other automated stuff (could sew buttonholes completely automatically etc.) and when she got it it was a leftover last-gen model AND on a holiday sale and it was still like $5k, and that was 10 years ago so I can only imagine what they go for now.

[Anonymous No.2801409]

>>2800610
because they're all run by boomers who bought the buildings for 3 barrels of hay and have no overhead

[Anonymous No.2801415]

>>2800987
Not true if they actually get used regularly in a commercial setting doing real work, plus just like everything certain brands and specialized machines like multiple needle sergers need more attention and can be finicky...fabric type also factors into how often they need servicing.

Lots of commercial machines do work that would be "abuse" on even the most robust consumer models, and parts that wear have to be kept up to avoid preventable crashes that can take out other parts.

[Anonymous No.2801445]

>>2801402
Read buttonholes as buttholes and got horny thinking about cosplay girls having costumes with a hole for a tail plug.

[Anonymous No.2801453]

>>2800620
>roommates destroy my walmart vac with misuse and skateboards
>walmart warranty is some third party scam system

>go to vac repair shop
>sells me a Panasonic with belt drive and bags
>lets me know why a bunch of the other style vacs suck
It still runs flawless.

[Anonymous No.2801465]

>>2800611
>>2800610
because probably cause sewing machine are either vintage ones, which is basically akin to today's commercial ones, aka maintenance is not free and if maintained runs good forever,and need a tune up every now and then. my guess is cause vacuum are simple machines most of the time and don't need alot of circuits so they survived.

[Anonymous No.2801466]

>>2800981
I work at a local hardware store fixing small engines. Everything from two stroke weed eaters to diesel garden tractors to the occasional 12kw light tower.
90% of the work I do is cleaning carburetors and sharpening blades, and I only charge an hour of labor and parts, which is never more than $100 all told for small engine work. You're full of shit saying that it's cheaper to swap out an amazon carburetor, most of those $10 chinese carbs are absolute junk and you're better off cleaning and/or rebuilding an oem carb. I keep all the rebuild and gasket kits on hand, but they're all available on amazon for a homegamer.

[Anonymous No.2801468]

>>2800610
TVs are cheap nowadays and not worth repairing unless its some OLED 65"+ model. Though TV repairmen still exist since the company I work at hires TV repairmen whenever they need an out of state subcontractor because if you can fix a tv you can fix most electronics.

[Anonymous No.2801476]

>>2801445
I saw a girl at an Anime Expo afterparty last year with no panties and a tail buttplug under a short skirt. Instant diamonds.

[Anonymous No.2801778]

>>2800610
Money laundering

[Anonymous No.2801781]

>>2800620
this, in my country we have pizza/kebab shops on every street corner even though the population density is low

[Anonymous No.2801809]

>>2800620
The one in my town is legit, it's a family business and there's scads of old women with antique sewing machines around here.

[Anonymous No.2802273]

>>2800611
>couple hundreds for a sewing machune
>up to 5 figures for superduper flatscreen
lolno
it's because not everyone knows how (or is willing) to test/repair highly integrated smd circuitry, because the investment isn't for everyone, and consoomers just don't care and are eager even to throw money out the window for muh latest and greatest tech at the first opportunity.
otoh sewing already implies willingness to repair, so anyone that bothers sewing already is predisposed to fix the things, rather than just toss 'em and replace with said latest and greatest.

[Anonymous No.2802286]

>>2800620
you have no idea of the amount of old people who run small businesses just as an occupation, regardless of profitability. then there's those who still do it, because they've been doing it their entire lives.

[Anonymous No.2802298]

In the last four years I've bought both:
a vacuum cleaner from a small business vacuum repair shop & Miele canister vacuum dealer
a sewing machine from a small business sewing machine repair shop & Janome sewing machine dealer

It was my first sewing machine and I only needed it to make some curtains, so I went pretty entry-level (well, as close to the bottom of the line as the salesperson recommended), but for the vacuum since I use it fairly often I went with a nice Miele. It wasn't cheap, but I'm happy with a good quality machine.

[Anonymous No.2802306]

>>2802273
>couple hundreds for a sewing machune
These days that barely gets you a dogshit beginner machine that can't sew anything heavier than poplin worth a damn and will self-destruct in a couple of years because everything is made of plastic and pot metal. You're looking at $500 minimum for any hobbyist machine worth owning and well into the thousands if you want features, especially embroidery stuff.

[Anonymous No.2802308]

>>2802273
It's not hard to spend a few thousand dollars on a higher end sewing machine, and they have moving parts that wind up needing repairs.

[Anonymous No.2802341]

>>2802306
>>2802308
still an order of magnitude less than any new tv set; lower than that is low cost/old stock only poor people buy and likely not advantageous to repair because cost and technically obsolete/no longer compatible (another reason why electronics are less and less repaired; which will happen to sewing machines and anything and everything with electronics, in time, as well, btw).
btw, there was a (french) tv piece on this subject, and they said with a repair cost higher than 30% "new" price, people just don't bother and replace, instead.

[Anonymous No.2802349]

>>2802306
>>2802308
yeah, ok just dud a quick look into prices here and ar this place, the most expensive was an eye popping 10k, but that's a multireel sewing snd embroidery machine, and so are sll the 4 figure ones. but fact is reoairs sre probably mostly worn-out mechanical parts, which would even be easy to fabricate, if not already cheaply available somewhere in china. when it gets to proprietary stuff, such as electronics,, etc. that's where it gets (over)expensive.
btw, picrel is a 10yo miele fridge door handle; it's plastic; it's also a 3 figure replacement part. won't be replacing it anytime soon; not for an original part anyway...

[Anonymous No.2802398]

>>2800610
Money laundering

[Anonymous No.2802482]

>>2802341
>order of magnitude less than any new tv set
you can get a shitty new TV from walmart for less than $100, wtf are you talking about? Very few people are actually buying the flagship $2000+ FUHD screens.

[Anonymous No.2802497]

>>2800717
>my old dry cleaner did shoe repair

[Anonymous No.2802547]

>>2800610
>but not TV and other repair stores?
>most electronic devices cannot be serviced
sonic welds, glued together, SMD parts, one way construction
service cost would exceed brand new device

[Anonymous No.2802625]

>>2802497
Not him but I knew of a dry cleaner who also did alterations and shoe repair. It was in Lafayette, CA and he was in business up until about 10 years ago when he either died or retired.

[Anonymous No.2802658]

People are still using 60 year old sewing machines, but no one is using a 60 year old TV.

[Anonymous No.2802670]

>>2800610
Not many people have the nose for it.

https://youtu.be/iUyu3dU2gAI?si=M2-JItaAoEH0Ye8o

[Anonymous No.2802694]

>>2800610
My mom asked now much I thought her small desktop automatic sewing machine cost (new). I guessed 3.5k
>16k

[Anonymous No.2802838]

>>2801453
One of my favorite YouTube channels is an Irish powertool repair guy. Basically just videos of him dumping a crate of broken powertools on the workbench and going through and fixing them all. Explains everything he's doing, and fills the rest of the silence by bitching (and explaining in depth) about how shit poor the repairability of most modern tools is.

https://www.youtube.com/@deandohertygreaser

[Anonymous No.2802945]

>>2800633
>>2800615
Yeah this is it. Sewing machine repairs might make like 1/20th of their monthly income from domestic consumers repairing grandmas antique sewing machine they found in the attic. The rest of their income comes from making shop calls to tailors, uniform fitters, clothing repair spots etc. that have sewing machines running for 8 hours a day and need regular maintenance and repair.
These kinds of jobs are few and far between however. The most niche commercial repair jobs I've known of were:
-plumber specialized in installing/maintaining tap lines in bars & interfacing them with gas cannisters. There are only a handful of them floating around and it's busy enough work.
-mechanic specialized in repairing industrial food processing machinery. I used to work in a butcher and if our giant mincer, mixer or sausage filler broke production stopped entirely because there was one ONE guy in the country who was qualified to repair those machines. You'd be SOL if you had to wait longer because you'd need to call in a tech from fucking Germany if that guy was busy.

[Anonymous No.2802959]

>>2802694
it's funny how people in >>>/g/dmp throw a tantrum if you suggest their 13 year old pc is less than ideal for music production, a solid upgrade could be had for like $400 if reusing parts from an existing desktop pc, and a pc is useful for many things, while people will spend plenty of money on other things and have first world country living expenses

[Anonymous No.2803005]

>>2802482
you can also find sewing machines in tat pruce range. other than poor people (and even then...), most people actually spend rwal money on expensive tv sets; under 50/55in, they're either old stock or lowcost namebrands, here.
and no one really buys fhd anymore, except example above; 4 or even 8k (even if there's actually no 4k stations here).
>>2802658
this; my sister is still using my grandmother's century old singer.

[Anonymous No.2803007]

>>2802694
at that price, guaranted it's sewing and embroidery, probably multi reel too; still...

[Anonymous No.2803018]

>>2803007
Probably, but even the simplest single needle straight stitch heavy duty commercial machines that can handle extreme thicknesses/weights of fabric, leather, etc. day in and day out begin in the $2-4K range.

https://sailrite.com/Sailrite-Deluxe-Fabricator-Sewing-Machine-Package

https://leathermachineco.com/product/cobra-class-4-p-premium-package/

[Anonymous No.2803165]

>>2803018
can't compare professional/industrial machinery with consumer; they're made for high duty cycle and reliability and lifespan is essential.

[Anonymous No.2803238]

>>2803165
>consumer
Most people who own sewing machines are not simple "hobbyists" but actually use it either as a source of income or to offset costs.

[Anonymous No.2803265]

>>2803238
don't know about elsewhere, but, over here, most shops are small single person corner shops doing small odd jobs for the neighborhood; machines are either "hobbyist", or old pro machines that have seen better days (years/decades).

[Anonymous No.2803647]

Because Sewing machines and Vacuum cleaners are still mostly mechanical devices. TVs and other electronics have virtually no moving parts, and have undergone so much commoditization in the form of unique-per-unit PCBs and such that there's no money in repairing them

[Anonymous No.2803648]

>>2800917
is it run by the town rapist?

[Anonymous No.2803649]

>>2801445
>>2801476
kill each other

[Anonymous No.2803652]

>>2803649
What are you, a Mormon?

[Anonymous No.2803908]

>>2800610
Probably because they used to make shit out of metal and that shit lasts until a motor burns out or a switch fails/
I have a Rainbow vacuum from the early 80's that I will keep for my whole life. Works better than any of the newly made shit. Uses water to collect the dirt so it never needs new bags or other shit.

[Anonymous No.2803984]

>>2803908
Power nozzle is what the girls called me in highschool

[Anonymous No.2804347]

>>2800611
>>2800615
>>2800620
>>2800637
It's the commercial stuff they fix. Anything consumer they don't as there isn't money in it. They are not going to fix the shit you buy from Walmart.

[Anonymous No.2804580]

>>2800610
TVs and appliances became cheap throwaway shit. Why would you pay $2-300 to repair a tv that you spent $6-800 on 4 years ago. Just buy another, they have cooler features now. It’s fucking dumb and wasteful but people do it and it’s putting entire industries out of business. Then there’s stuff like even if you want to repair your washing machine you’ll see the part that failed after 3 years was really a design flaw because they built it as cheaply as possible to just survive the warranty period, is it worth putting the money and effort into repairing an inherently flawed product when sourcing replacement parts is expensive and a nightmare? Sewing machines and vacuums have commercial options as others have said so they’re somewhat exempt from this as commercial buyers won’t put up with this bullshit.
This is also why any tv you buy inherently has ads and pre installed apps. they need to subsidize the price of those things by any means necessary. I bought a $2500 oled tv for my living room and had to block the ad servers with my dns server. I had to root the tv to get rid of alexa bullshit. Fucking ridiculous. It wasn’t as bad as a $300 tv with androidtv loaded up with all kind of bullshit but you can’t escape it no matter how much money you throw at them

[Anonymous No.2804702]

>>2800835
you use to be able to go to stores like radio shack and buy made-in-america parts designed for american-manufactured goods. Even when it was japan being the electronic king, youstill could get made-in-japan parts for it.

but those vendors dont exist anymore. china has absolutely no reason to sell gweilos spare parts and theres no reason at all for the middle men selling you tvs to ever encourage you to even dream of repairing your own stuff because thats money out of their pocket.

[Anonymous No.2804731]

>>2803165
>can't compare professional/industrial machinery with consumer

The post you are responding to didn't do that.

The point is that very expensive sewing machines that start at 10x what consumer ones cost and go up from there are not necessarily expensive because of complex stitching or multiple needles or other esoteric features....they may only do one stitch and be as basic as basic gets.