Ask any engineer how he discovered his passion and about 99% of the answers will have something to do with taking things apart to see how they worked. In order to learn how to make things work, we disassemble things — the vacuum cleaner, a radio, or dad’s lawnmower engine. It’s reverse engineering, but it’s crucial to both building the engineering passion and to understand what’s been done before.
Ask Canadian photographer Todd McLellan where he discovered his passion for his latest work and you’ll get the same answer. Now, he had a somewhat more artistic end in mind. One that involved showing all the bits and pieces in artistic manners. Something engineers probably never thought of doing. But it’s interesting to see that the desire to take things apart can cross brain hemispheres.
You can see more of McLellan’s work here.
[Image Credit: Todd McLellan]
When I was in college, I completely took apart my alto saxophone in order to clean the key mechanisms. After disassembly, I had basically a brass tube along with a pile of keys, rods, and tiny screws. I did have a moment of panic wondering whether, like king's horses and men in Humpty Dumpty, I'd be able to put the thing back together. I had nightmare visions of having to put up with gales of laughter at the music shop when I showed up with a big bag of sax bits. Fortunately, there was only one way to properly reassemble the horn so after a couple of tense hours, I had a complete instrument in my hands again. The biggest problem was my fingers getting repeatedly punctured by all the nasty, needle-like key springs. Even better, everything worked and the mechanism was smoother after the cleaning.
A little over twenty years ago I purchased a 1959 Ford Skyliner that someone else had disassembled about twenty years before that. It's still in pieces.
I'm experiencing mixed feelings at receiving positive points for that comment, but I suppose it's better than receiving negative points for it.
-1 for flinching.
Fair enough, though it's not so much flinching as it is melancholy at the ongoing status of the restoration.
Canadian and Irish… Does it go without saying that this article was
Pantsless Bastard'sFearless Leader'smandatesuggestion?Not at all. It's just a shameless attempt to
kiss assingratiate myself to him so I can get a promotion.My earliest memory of disassembling things was taking apart my older sisters' bicycles. All three of them.
Yea, got in trouble for that, but the outcome was that from then on, I was allowed to do anything I wanted with my own bike. So I learned a great deal about the importance of grease, ball-bearings, lock washers, etc.
Disassembly is the reverse of assembly.
/sometimes I get this feeling like I want to write a Chiltons manual.
I really should have gone into demolition. This is about as careful as I get taking stuff apart:
<img src="http://frachelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/office-space-printer-scene.png" />
<img src="http://nerdreactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/short-circuit-original_jpg_627x325_crop_upscale_q85.jpg" width="500">
No Disassemble!
<img src="http://www.flixya.com/files-photo/I/n/t/Interesting2460660.jpg" width="500"> my two favorites <img src="http://sw-em.com/SU_HS6_explode.gif" width="500">
Oh god, not exploding diagrams… They're every Toaster's kryptonite!
<img src="http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w298/TheCarBlogger/hyundai-genesis-love-complicated.jpg" width=500>
By the looks of things, love is not as complicated as Golf.
If they left the engine and trans together/assembled, what else did they leave assembled?
I like how they disassembled the engine, but left the tires on the rims.