30 Days to a Better Man Day 23: Learn a Manual Skill

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Barbour on June 22, 2009 at 10:42pm

(Cross-posted to blog entry page)

I'm a big city office drone, so my exposure to more practical manual skills is somewhat limited. However, there are some things I can do, and the following is a great resource that I plan to use for developing the manual skill of knot tying.

http://www.animatedknots.com/

Remember, you can't spell "manual" without MAN. I'm surprised you didn't work that in the post somewhere, Brett!

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Permalink Reply by Dad of Divas on June 23, 2009 at 5:41am

To be honest here this one is going to be a bit harder for me than other tasks. I have never been a very skilled individual who works with my hands, besides in gardening and landscaping. This being said, I am always willing to try something new.

I think for me, I would like to learn more about working on my car, or at least knowing what is happening more with my car and how I can mitigate some of these issues with home maintenance.

So for today, I think I will work to try and find some online and library based resources on this topic and see where it leads.

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Permalink Reply by Tim Buck on June 23, 2009 at 8:11am

I am happy to say that I can do at least half of the recommended skill list. I am going to learn to tile, my Dad is coming down to visit and help tile our half-bathroom. I may have him show me how to change the brakes on my car too. As for building things with wood (a tree house, a deck) they are easier than you would think. You just need to perform the right steps in order, but the steps are easy to do (tip for swinging a hammer: use your whole forearm, bending at the elbow...not at the wrist, and keep your thumb off the handle-hold it like a baseball bat)

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Permalink Reply by Chris Partida on June 23, 2009 at 4:57pm

Tim, take no offense...

If you have a younger son, is his name also Tim? Maybe Tim Buck II? Because that would be awesome, just sayin', the opportunity is there.

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Permalink Reply by The Plainsman on June 23, 2009 at 9:50am

One of the main reasons that prompted me to look deeper into my own manhood was this very fact. I Often dealt with problems in my own home by ignoring them or waiting until I had the money to hire someone to fix them. Then I got to thinking about my father and grandfather and how prolific they were with seemingly being able to fix all things around the home and in the garage. This is when I began my quest to being more self-sufficient and handy around the house.
I have been enjoying it so far. I do the basic maintenance on the cars, been working at improving some aesthetic items around the house and just recently took up working more with my hands in an old-fashioned manner. I.E. hand woodworking. In fact, this past weekend I did a full lawn mower maintenance, hand sharpening my lawn mower blade and changing its oil. Simple tasks, mind you, but it felt good at the end of the day. Also, my more mechanically inclined neighbors stopped by to marvel at this as they "never thought of doing this with their own mowers..." :D

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Permalink Reply by Craig Lloyd on June 23, 2009 at 9:51am

I'm pretty handy and used to trying new things. I wired a new light socket when I broke the rheostat off the old one, just found out how to take apart a tumble-dryer to change the belt, and built a sturdy frame to hang my bike gear with a rack to set the helmet and gloves. This was all in the past few months, so I'll tick today off for learning new skills.

I've serviced my car and bike before also. It's good fun (when you have the right tools)!

Ah - just remembered I have a button to sew back on - think I will be learning something new after all!

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Permalink Reply by Paul on June 23, 2009 at 9:57am

I was an Eagle scout, so I have some practice doing oudoor handyman things like knot tying, fire building, and such.

But I felt pretty incompetent after starting to read Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island." If you are looking for inspiration to learn how to work with your hands, give it a read. Verne describes in scientific detail how his characters, after being marooned on an island, 1) find their latitude and longitude within 5 degrees, 2) hunt for food, 3) create substances such as iron, nitroglycerin, pottery, etc from the land, etc. It's a fascinating read and made me realize how much we've lost in the digital era.

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Permalink Reply by Ross Moore on June 23, 2009 at 10:12am

With all my manual-skill deficiencies, it was hard to pick just one. I chose to learn about small engines. I've got resources on hold from the library. Baby steps to small engine repair...

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Permalink Reply by Will on June 23, 2009 at 11:01am

Hey, you can do this and something about the clutter stretch by building basement shelves, like I did; see the blog entry I just made about it!

http://community.artofmanliness.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-built-stu...

As for my manual skill -- I'm going to count that, and building a garden gate. If I take on another home project I'll never get any other work done!

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Permalink Reply by Øystein on June 23, 2009 at 4:13pm

This triggered some fond childhood memories. Building three houses with my friends. My brother teaching me to solder. My father teaching me to lay tiles, chop wood and fell threes (with an axe. (that's pretty manual, though chainsaws are kinda manly)

Now I can't figure out what skill to learn, I don't have a car (for much interest) nor is there anything to fix around here...any (more) suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Partida on June 23, 2009 at 4:55pm

I felt pretty good about already knowing how to do the following:
How to tune your bike
How to fell a tree
How to make a bookshelf
How to install a ceiling fan
How to build a tree house
How to replace your car’s brakes
How to split wood
How to build a campfire
How to clean a gun

Now to think of something I don't know, and would like to continually use...

I originally thought about the "How to change your car’s oil", but I don't see myself doing that every 3000 miles, I'd rather learn something that I can do whenever I need to (and that could save me some $, instead of costing me more in time & parts).

I am going to take a step into learning how to sculpt. I've always had an interest in sculptures, small designer toys and action figures. I've purchased tools and clays, but never anything more than that. I am going to start by finding some tutorials online, then maybe try to enroll into a class.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel J. Ellers on June 23, 2009 at 5:03pm

Cool. I taught myself how to change the oil a little while ago. It doesn't sound like much to those manly men out there but to me, I couldn't have been more proud. Next, I want to learn to build my own bookcase. Currently, I have a tiny four shelf nightmare and my library continues to grow.

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