ArizonaDave
Well-Known Member
A Resurrection sounds so much better than death......
Death of a Tech 1
- Thread starter Bex
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A Resurrection sounds so much better than death......
Bex
Well-Known Member
The bad man has not looked at my machine yet. Boo hoo!!!!! But hopes to have it 'resurrected' by this coming Friday. In the meantime, I have tried the above technique. How long did it take me to get over my aversion to flaked tobacco?? Not long. I found that doing the above 'freehand' requires a bit of a technique - 'shaving' at an angle works fairly well. The lemon Virginia I get is sticky enough where the little discs will stay together after they're cut. But the Burley and red Virginia really don't. You also need - obviously - a pretty sharp knife, and a lot of patience for this. I have neither. I could get nowhere near .8mm, by the way. I can see the attraction of smoking a pipe, frankly - there is not all this mumbo jumbo. In any event, hopefully I will just have one more week to - well - suffer with a combo of wide shredded and flaked tobacco, before my beloved Teck 1 returns home, clean, sharpened, repaired, etc.
As an interesting aside, when I use the Teck 1, I am not too particular about removing stems. The blades cut through them, and they are processed along with the leaf. Just like the big tobacco companies!! Of course, with the 'cigar' technique, you can't do this as the stems - even some of the small ones - get in the way. Just out of curiosity, I did a bit of an experiment when I 'shredded' my weekly dose today - Normally I shred 3 ounces for the week. I weighed the stems that I was discarding.....just about one ounce of them. AFAIK, this is bad business...throwing 1/3 of your purchase (or harvest) away. I am considering taking the stems and chopping them up in the coffee grinder and adding them to the tobacco.....
Bex
Well-Known Member
Actually, the guy is really nice - I've done business with him before, and for some reason he seems to 'be curious' about an old woman who pop rivets her car, tries to learn to weld, and has this strange tobacco machine. Due to this, I wouldn't want to injure him with any of my cooking or baking - but I will bring him something (bought, to be safe). Then, when he charges me a ridiculous amount of money to have fixed this machine, I can take my baked goods home and eat them myself.....
leverhead
Well-Known Member
Actually, the guy is really nice - I've done business with him before, and for some reason he seems to 'be curious' about an old woman who pop rivets her car, tries to learn to weld, and has this strange tobacco machine. Due to this, I wouldn't want to injure him with any of my cooking or baking - but I will bring him something (bought, to be safe). Then, when he charges me a ridiculous amount of money to have fixed this machine, I can take my baked goods home and eat them myself.....
Not to be sexist, but most women don't get things like that done by getting their hands dirty. Give the guy a break, let him commit the crime (price) before you convict him of it.
Stems are like banana peels, I prefer to peel a banana before I eat it. Mixing the tobaccos in the cigar helps get over the stickiness problem. Try single edge razor blades, they're very sharp and make it easier to cut a finer shred.
Bob's tobacco slicing knife: a 6" Kuhn-Rikon kulu.
I hold it, not by the handle, but by the opposite riser, and rock it like a chaveta.
Bob
I hold it, not by the handle, but by the opposite riser, and rock it like a chaveta.
Bob
Bex
Well-Known Member
Hmmm....interesting knife! I looked this up on the internet - I suppose it might be a good idea to have one of these as a back up. And I also imagine that mixing the tobacco in the cigar to be shredded is a great idea.....I hadn't thought of that, as I tend to do one type of tobacco at a time, weigh it, process it, and then go on to the next type. I'm hoping that I have my Teck 1 back by Friday, so that I will no longer have to experiment with this. Being somewhat 'cheap', and having smoked stems for 40+ years via commercial cigarettes, I was really hesitant about tossing the stems during my last process, but I did. It certainly made for far easier processing, rolling and smoking....
By the way, my statement about the 'ridiculously expensive repair' and eating my baked goods myself (to my own personal detriment) was a bit of a joke. At one time in my life, there might have been the possibility of getting this job done - and probably some others that I have - 'without getting my hands dirty', but sadly (or otherwise), those days are long, long gone...I'm over 60 - the guy would probably run away in terror....!!
(Actually, possibly not.....)
By the way, my statement about the 'ridiculously expensive repair' and eating my baked goods myself (to my own personal detriment) was a bit of a joke. At one time in my life, there might have been the possibility of getting this job done - and probably some others that I have - 'without getting my hands dirty', but sadly (or otherwise), those days are long, long gone...I'm over 60 - the guy would probably run away in terror....!!
(Actually, possibly not.....)
leverhead
Well-Known Member
All I was really saying was that you've set yourself into a minority group by working on your car, trying to weld and taking an old machine apart to get it fixed. To me that's an honorable attitude for anybody to have.
Now I'll snicker a little bit... The rest of the discussion at least belongs in a different thread. : )
Now I'll snicker a little bit... The rest of the discussion at least belongs in a different thread. : )
Bex
Well-Known Member
Well, after a few weeks delay, my Teck 1 has been expertly repaired by 'Donegal Precision Engineering'. The guy made a new brass wheel for the machine, as well as sharpening up the blades for me. Hopefully these pics will come out - I didn't want to take the machine apart again:
Eck, I can only upload one photo, for some reason....???? The guy said that the reason for my difficulty was that the wooden wheel was somewhat loose, so that it was moving back and forth, and had pressed in the brass 'rings' of the little gear. I hadn't been able to do any adjusting - or even take the machine apart, until it became unusable and forced me to be more determined. Anyway, I'm back in business. When the guy told me the cost of the repair, I was glad I didn't bring any beer or baked items. He charged me $65 for making the gear and sharpening the blades. I was happy enough to pay it, although it was more than half the cost of the whole machine. I must say that, for the past couple of weeks, I've been using a small coffee grinder. While having to remove stems, etc., made the process, well, certainly a bit more wasteful, I had become fairly good at getting a nice size flake that gave a good smoke and where the cherry was constantly falling out of the cigarette. However, the Teck 1 lives again....
Eck, I can only upload one photo, for some reason....???? The guy said that the reason for my difficulty was that the wooden wheel was somewhat loose, so that it was moving back and forth, and had pressed in the brass 'rings' of the little gear. I hadn't been able to do any adjusting - or even take the machine apart, until it became unusable and forced me to be more determined. Anyway, I'm back in business. When the guy told me the cost of the repair, I was glad I didn't bring any beer or baked items. He charged me $65 for making the gear and sharpening the blades. I was happy enough to pay it, although it was more than half the cost of the whole machine. I must say that, for the past couple of weeks, I've been using a small coffee grinder. While having to remove stems, etc., made the process, well, certainly a bit more wasteful, I had become fairly good at getting a nice size flake that gave a good smoke and where the cherry was constantly falling out of the cigarette. However, the Teck 1 lives again....
Bex
Well-Known Member
The second pic:
Great news. It looks like your Teck 1 will be good for another 80 years. The $65 fee seems surprisingly low for custom machine work.
Bob
Bob
DGBAMA
Well-Known Member
looks like nice work for a fair price. Good to hear the repair worked out.
Bex
Well-Known Member
Yes, he did a great job and the machine works a treat. I actually had brought 2x as much cash with me, and was surprised that the repair was so reasonable....
Bex
Well-Known Member
Well, well, well.....so THAT'S how a Teck 1 is supposed to work!! Sunday is tobacco 'processing' day, so it was really the first day that I truly put my renovated Teck 1 into action. Geesh - what a world of difference. The shred is lovely, the blades are as sharp as can be....I had always wondered at the photos I saw on the internet about the Teck 1 shred - I was never able to get anything quite as nice. But today I did - I am overjoyed...the shred looks practically commercial.
COLIN
Well-Known Member
This is one hour of deribing I keep none of this I burn it.
Do you think your machinist would be willing to work on an old, well-worn forum administrator?
Bob
Bob
bonehead
Well-Known Member
no one does anything for 65$ anymore. you got a great deal. the hourly rate is more than that and it probably took more than an hour. if i was you i would go back and thank him again and tell him how good it works and how pleased you are. a little praise goes a long way if you ever need assistance on anything ever again. you are lucky to find someone that takes pride in their work and seems to care.
Bex
Well-Known Member
No, but I would....
Colin, while I understand the rationale behind getting rid of all the ribs, etc., the fact that it is at least 50% of what you grow/buy kind of breaks my heart. The Teck 1 actually processes the ribs quite well - I only throw away the very largest part of the stems, and sometimes not even that. Even before the machine was repaired, I was 'processing' the ribs, and would occasionally be inconvenienced by a bit of a stick here and there, but not often. I'm way too cheap to dump all of that.
In the meantime, today was the very first nice day we've had here. I've brought my compost in to warm up overnight, and will be planting my seeds within the next day or two. I am still pretty much confined to planting in my polytunnel - hopefully my curing will be a bit easier this year. Will start my 'grow blog' when the little darlings start to sprout....
Bex
Well-Known Member
Very true. I did plan to go back this week, and gush over the guy.....he's been very nice to me in the past, as well - I don't weld, and have been pop riveting panels on to my old jeep. This guy gives me sheets of aluminum for free, that I use for my panel patches. Frankly, they build all sorts of rather large, industrial things - it was a shot in the dark that the owner of Donegal Precision Engineering would take the time to make a bespoke worm for my Teck 1. Pretty cool.....
leverhead
Well-Known Member
Very nice ending Bex, I'd say he took good care of you. You're happy and he probably had a little fun.
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