Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion What we did before the interweb.

Sorry to bring this up but had a lot of phone calls this week, asking how to do? In a time of endless information, we forget how we restored things before we could simply ask opinions online. Most of us, who have done this a bunch, had to learn by trial and error. Thinking outside the box was the normal method. GI ingenuity was our best friend. It proved to be a very good way to gain experience. I have never forgotten the difficult restorations and how to achieve the best results. It just seems to me that if you have to ask, then request pictures, you loose something in the challenge. Kind of like putting a model plane together by reading all the instructions and looking at the pictures. I like this site but get annoyed with the once in a life time.....tell me all your secrets restorer. Just so you know.....the rest of the story. Paul www.severngaspumps.com

Update....after hearing about Dick Bennett, I apologize for my outburst. Seems trivial, at best? Please disregard. Paul www.severngaspumps.com

I don't feel there's any need to apologize for your post Paul. I can imagine DB's comments if he were able to have responded to this thread! Oddly enough, this was the subject of DB and my last conversation Wednesday evening. From what I gathered about Dick over the years, he sounded like a very ingenious man who loved the challenges of figuring things out himself, and the pride that brings to your work. I believe he felt everyone has the ability to do the same, they just don't try anymore in the age of instant gratification and information.
Darin

Well said.

I started collecting gas & oil in the early 80's as a young 20-something. There was a local Ford dealer that had about 20 restored visibles in the showroom so I knew I had to have a gas pump. I found a 39 in the paper for about 50 bucks.

I wanted to restore it, but how? The Ford dealer/collector told me of a guy a few miles away the could help me. I contacted him and spent some time there learning about pumps and what was available for my restoration. Not much, just globes and decals from a guy named Larry Cripe. No ad glasses, tags, rubber, etc.

He suggested I go to swaps such as Pomona, Rose Bowl and Long Beach to find some stuff. I did and met DB at Pomona. He and I were quite different but hit it off right away. My collection had grown from shopping at antique stores, ads in Hemmings, my local newspaper and of course the swap meets. Dick was a big help in that and a lot of fun. He and I went to many collector's houses and swap meets and I learned quite a bit just from sitting back and listening for hours on end.

When Dick was in the hospital from a broken hip back then I brought him my Super Service Station mags from the 30's and 40's and we spent hours in his hospital room going through them and learning about stations back then.

Eventually Time Passages came around with quite a bit more pieces for restorations and then Webers and then the internet.

My point with this is before the interweb we got our information through "relationships" with other collectors. They were guys with families and stuff that happened to collect. We talked and drank as a big group till 1 in the morning at Pomona about what kind of conduit a Fry pump had or how rare a Texaco yellow diesel sign was and how awesome Ginny's lemon cake was. Everybody's bagging on the new guys because they come here for instant answers that we had to learn through trial and error and hours of conversation. I feel sorry for them because they have that option for instant answers without building the relationships. They're missing out on the best part of the hobby.

I can really relate to Mark's remarks. In the late 80s I bought my first pump, I think it was a Tokheim 300. It did not come with an instruction manual, and I actually felt I was probably the first person to ever restore a gas pump. No internet, no one to call, what do you do, real easy, take it apart, restore it and put it back together. I didn't even have the thought of taking pictures, I just put the assembly/reassembly part in my head. Never had any problem.

I know this is not true about all the new people coming along, (because I know there are many out there that tackle things the way I did), but when we see a post where some are asking questions that seem so simple we begin to believe is this so hard you need an instruction manual?

I saw a sign in Jimmy Johns that went something like this: Experience is something you get when the thing you tried didn't work out. In other words, go ahead and turn that wrench, if it works, you did right, if something breaks, now you know not to do that again.

What's the old joke, Doctor, it hurts to do this, Doctor says, don't do that.

In conclusion, always have a bigger wrench.

Jack Sim