Too soon, Junior.
Damn.
We like to think ourselves superior because we built what we perceive others simply bought.
Here’s how—one part—of a turbocharger is made.
I might know one person who could make his own billet compressor wheel all by himself—but even he would need to buy materials to do it right. Consider how much effort goes into delivering the absolute precision required to get a couple ounces of metal spinning at 100,000+ revolutions per minute so that it can pressurize the entire intake track and combustion chambers of a modern engine.
Everything is bought.
We should respect hustle, craftsmanship, and grit. We should get back to work.
PS: The rabbit hole goes deeper. Who makes the machinery used to make them in this video?
3 Comments
What came first, the gear the machine to make the gears that is driven by gears??
My first thought was the gears inside the machines aren’t exposed to the same kinds of stresses as the compressor wheel. But then again, compressor wheels aren’t cutting metal into ultra precise shapes, either. Damn. It’s like The Matrix dividing by zero or something. My brain hurts now. 😛
[…] all the cool old cars being crushed in the face of all the new car appliances being sold each year. Built-not-bought gets tricky when there are no more shelf or used parts—when you have to build your own […]