How did you know how to remove a screw?

[Won]

To quote Sugarwood:

How did you know how to remove a screw?
You saw the screw thing and told your mother to go buy you a screwdriver?
How did you know what it was called?

NOT trying to be sarcastic. How do we begin to acquire new knowledge? What motivates us to learn the unknown? Does anyone truly live in a vacuum in this day and age, that you have never seen something that you could buy in a retail shop (boundary conditions for argument sake) unless someone shows it to you?

I can't actually remember when I first saw or turned a screw.

This to me feels a lot like Zeno's paradoxes

[Tidybuoy]

All I know is "righty tighty, lefty loosy"

[gacook]

We worked a lot when I was a kid. Every year we were doing some project on the house, whether it was an addition, a remodel, or something in the yard. I can't say "when" I learned...just feels like I always knew because I've been slinging hammers and other tools for as long as I can remember!

Just wish my dad had taught me more about cars...that skillset I had to pick up on my own (and from YouTube).

[KFC911]

She just told me to get off of her...so I unscrewed....wasn't in a vacuum though....I read some magazines first .

[Won]

Originally Posted by Tidybuoy

All I know is "righty tighty, lefty loosy"

... and then every now and then one comes across a right-handed thread... Cam chain pulley bolt on certain cars, for example.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Won

How did you know how to remove a screw?
You saw the screw thing and told your mother to go buy you a screwdriver?
How did you know what it was called?

NOT trying to be sarcastic. How do we begin to acquire new knowledge? What motivates us to learn the unknown? Does anyone truly live in a vacuum in this day and age, that you have never seen something that you could buy in a retail shop (boundary conditions for argument sake) unless someone shows it to you?

I can't actually remember when I first saw or turned a screw.

This to me feels a lot like Zeno's paradoxes

For a turned screw, I suspect it comes from a father, grandfather, mother, etc... when we are young. If there wasn't a parent, then at some point, you saw someone elses parent, something on TV or a friend do it.

Kids usually have an innate curiousity about everything and watch/observe everything. It starts there.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Won

... and then every now and then one comes across a right-handed thread... Cam chain pulley bolt on certain cars, for example.

Dad taught me about that too, I think it started with bicycle pedals.

[nota]

my dad had a wood boat yard as a hobby in miami in the mid 50's
he had built a mahogany lapstrake 23 ft boats a couple of hundred of them
and a 40 sportfish boat for himself
so I watched and learned

[Won]

Nice. I think it was actually fairly well into my mechanic-ing experience that I came across one. Is there a RH thread on an old 911 outside of the engine?

[HardDrive]

I've been married 23 years. I long ago forgot how to screw.

[fintstone]

I learned "righty tighty, lefty loosey" as an adult. We used a hammer and nails and wood to make things where I grew up. At first, I turned screws both ways to see which way they would turn...and broke a few off.

[vash]

my poor mom.

when i was very young. four or five, i remember taking all my toys apart. they were not screwed together for the most part. i vaguely remember them being held together with a metal tab that slipped thru a slot and was simply folded over. i would unfold that tab and lift everything apart. i did run across the occational screw and my grandad had a coffee can full of old folding knives and crappy screwdrivers. i did what came natural. i think Granddad may have gave me some pointers. much to my mom's chagrin.

i do not remember ever putting a toy back together succesfully.. but i'm sure i had a few successes. at least i hope i had a few successes.

[GH85Carrera]

I think for me it is like asking how did I learn to speak. Of course it was from my family, and I am sure I saw dad use a screw driver. He would always get mad when we left his screwdrivers and other tools in the back yard. I used to eat dinner with his dad, and he said my dad would dig into the tool box, take all the tools out, and leve them in the back yard to rust. Dad laughed when he heard my brother complaining that his kids took the tools out to the back yard to rust.

I did see dad fixing things around the house, but I do not remember him working on cars.

I thinks a screw driver or a hammer is so simple of a concept, it is almost innate.

One of my treasured objects is the tool box that I got from grandpa. The same tool box dad got tools from. It is built with hand made nails, so suspect it belonged to my great grandfather, and maybe his father.

[peppy]

My dad taught me most of the skills I use. Sometimes it involved a a smack on the back of the head followed by "you're turning it the wrong way"
Mostly he taught me to not be intimidated by what may seam complex. Break them down in sections and make it make sense.

[fastfredracing]

I am sure I saw my Dad, or one of my uncles working on something at some point, and it must have etched something into my being .
My mom said my first real word was scoo butter ( screwdriver ) followed by fixat. I think I was born with it . No one really knows where it came from. My dad was not really a hands on guy.
My grand pa was a cabinet maker, and I would always play in his shop on Sundays when we would go for dinner . He passed when I was really young, and he never had a chance to teach me anything .
I would spend whole days down there, going through all the tools, and turning on the various machines in wonder trying to figure out how they worked. Pretty lucky to have all my fingers intact still .
I took everything apart , always, sometimes, I even put them back together .

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by Won

Nice. I think it was actually fairly well into my mechanic-ing experience that I came across one. Is there a RH thread on an old 911 outside of the engine?

No FHE but possibly centerlocks on wheels (just like the bicycle pedal issue)?

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by Won

... and then every now and then one comes across a right-handed thread... Cam chain pulley bolt on certain cars, for example.

Toilet flush handle

Some Chrysler lug nuts. (passenger side)

Race car center locks. (passenger side)

[DanielDudley]

When I was three years old, I broke all the teeth out of a hard plastic comb. I thought it looked like saw teeth, so I took it over to a window sill to try it out. Much to my parents chagrin, it worked quite well.

I think most boys learn by watching. I would go through drawers and find tools, and just start using them. My mom tells a story about me finding a gouge and a small hammer in a drawer and carving a bowl out of a board. I was pretty young, around the same time I made the saw.

I have no idea what possessed me to do those things, but I have always been hands on. My grandfather would bring me clocks and radios and such to take apart, and I would absolutely do so. I didn't have a lot of toys as a kid, but I did have access to a garage full of tools.

[RANDY P]

I pulled apart the family TV set before I was 5. I used to hook battery chargers to old paint cans just to see what would happen (dead short),

I tinkered, got shocked, burned and broke things.

PS- I believe it was just instinctive. I just picked up tools and started prying on stuff.

[SCadaddle]

First time to use a screw driver?

Now that I think about it, probably, for "production work", it was the Christmas morning that I graduated from Lincoln Logs to an Erector set. Dad was a Civil Consulting P.E. specializing in steel bridges. I'm sure he would have opted for hot rivets in the Erector set as a history lesson, but then again a small welder would have been his preference!