why an electrician

[Mule]

Welcome to the zoo, Steve! :smile: Okay, my turn.

When we moved into the house I grew up in, I was about four. My mom told me she found me in the utility room one day, looking at the wires in the unfinished ceiling. They were home runs for the most part, of course, but "I just wondered where they went."

Some time later, I helped my dad connect a UHF tuner to the color TV, and install an antenna rotator. I really don't remember not being interested in electronics, but did a lot of reading in the school library. I started building crystal radios when I was six.

One of my favorite toys was an electricity learning kit my parents bought for me. I actually had to assemble the little bulb sockets and switches, using nuts and bolts and fiber washers and sleeves. Then, I could connect various circuits and make them work.

I even had kits that taught you how to build electric motors, where you stacked the rotor laminations onto the shaft, wound the three rotor poles, assembled and wired the commutator, place the magnets and pole pieces in the frame, and put it all together.

I also read older books about electrical wiring, showing in great detail, for example, how to wire an existing house, from running K&T to fishing BX, etc. They showed various fusing and switching methods, generating, and even neighborhood distribution.

I wired telephones in every room in the house, wired a couple of rooms for sound, added headphone jacks and input and output jacks in stereo phonos and stuff, wired our toolshed for power when I was about 12, did a service change for my uncle when I was 16.

I've built plenty of audio and other gear over the years, from kits that included all the parts and components, and soldered them onto the printed-circuit board, to making stuff from scratch, including etching my own PC boards. I also do home-theater and other LV wiring.

I guess the distinction between electricity and electronics isn't that great for me. Power has a signal, and signals transfer power. I've known more theory than just about every electrician I've ever worked under or with, but I had to learn the mechanics of the work; the hardware.

Why an electrician? I guess because I understand it, I love the challenges, and it's just fun to be a tool-slinger.

Now there's a guy that's got it in his soul !!!!

 

[electricguy]

I even had kits that taught you how to build electric motors, where you stacked the rotor laminations onto the shaft, wound the three rotor poles, assembled and wired the commutator, place the magnets and pole pieces in the frame, and put it all together

I am jealous I had to use nails with turns old wire i salvalved from old radio transformers to make my motor kit

a cats whisker and a piece of quatz and wasnt sure if i used the cardboard tube that my dads bottle of whisky came in for the form for the tunning coil.

 

[LarryFine]

a cats whisker and a piece of quatz and wasnt sure if i used the cardboard tube that my dads bottle of whisky came in for the form for the tunning coil.

The first crystal radio I made from a book about radios didn't actually use a crystal at all. It was about how POW's made radios from what they had available.

The detector was made with a blue-type double-edge razor blade, with a pencil lead attached to a bent safety pin, instead of the cat's whisker on the crystal.

The coil was 100 just turns of wire on a paper-towel tube. There was no tuning condenser (variable cap), so selection was very limited. (as was volume :wink

 

[LarryFine]

Now there's a guy that's got it in his soul !!!!

I guess so.

 

[Ernest Schwarz]

little boy turns on dryer.......

little boy turns on dryer.......

when i was a little shave (5 OR 6),, Mr Brown, an electrician put in a sears kenmore electric dryer for my parents.......he installed a 30 amp disconnect across the basement over the workbench telling my folks that the little shaver would not be able to turn it on if they turned off the "dryer Switch"........well before he had gotten his bill written.......the dryer was running!!.......it was so easy.....just get up on the work bench, push up that little handle, climb down, walk across to dryer and turn on the knob............he told mom i had a job when i was 16..........i have always enjoyed wiring and controls.......i am semi-retired and now do some custom lighting controls for churches..........i have always been in either the electrical or electronics fields.......i worked for and got my master tag.........

 

[ironman3452]

when i was 6 years old, older bro was into working in electrical maintenance field, went to work with him one day and he showed me what he need to do to run new wires in a building for lighting, and i am still repairing and installing, to this day. have to thank him for giving me the time to learn from him.

 

[bigjohn67]

My Story

My Story

My dad said
2 things in life

People need to eat...... grocery business
People need electricity......

Grocery business sucks so here I am..... 26 yrs later

 

[hardworkingstiff]

Now there's a guy that's got it in his soul !!!!

Yea, brings a tear to my eye.

 

[roger3829]

I know this thread was started a while ago and I held off posting.

My grandfather is the one responsible for making me an electrician. He had started his own business at the end of WWII

I started working with him when I was about 12 and he was about 60.

I attended a vocational high school to be an electrician. I worked with him during the summers and after school. Unfortunatly for me he decided to sell his customer base and retire in 1979, before I was able to graduate from high school. With his influence I attended a 2 year college and got my Associates degree in electrical engineering.

During the first 3 years of his retirement (clause in sale of customers) he really didn't do too much side work, but when ever he did, I worked with him. After that time was up he went back to doing more and more side work to stay busy. I worked in the full time electronics field for 6 years before getting back into the electrical field full time as an estimator. All the while I was working the side jobs with him. In 1989 when he was 76 and I was 27 we decided to reopen the business and go at it full time. We did so until 1996 when I decided to teach electrical full time in a Technical high school. We continued to work together on and off over the next few years.

Finally in 2004 he had to put down his tools as he could no longer see well enough to work or drive.

In November he decided that he wanted to have a heart valve replaced as he was having a hard time getting around. It was an experimental procedure and risky, especially since he was now 95 years old. Unfortunatly the procedure did not go well. Emergency open heart surgery was necessary to save him. Complications arose. He fought for 88 days, and finally gave up on January 23.

He was a great man, a great electrician, and a great grandfather.

He will be truly missed.

 

[macmikeman]

I was employed to more or less hit 6 penny nails in strait lines into plywood sheets that were part of a roof, in the Florida heat, for very little pay during the summer months school break in Florida. I leaned over the edge one day when the electricians arrived to go work inside where it was cool enough to qualify for only plain inhuman, and applied to work for them instead. Got hired. That led to electrical vocational schooling. From where I came from, and for what little I had going for me then, I feel very lucky and grateful.