Slapdashery
Slapdashery can be thought of as a form of advanced upcycling. Slapdashery is the art and craft of utilizing piece of scrap machine parts to create new machinery, especially with regards to steamtech or dieseltech components.
Career
Qualifications
A prospective slapdasher must exhibit a particular combination of mechanical knowledge, inventiveness, and artistic talent. Slapdashery is about making something new out of something old; simply refurbishing an existing machine or melting down the raw materials to be recast into a common piece of machinery does not count as slapdashery in the strictest sense of the term.
Many slapdashers ascend from the ranks of hazardous-condition salvage reclamation techs, were access to scrap components from exotic technological lineates promotes greater creativity in their assembly. Others come from the systems intrusion specialist community, as gear-grinding requires much of the same attention to detail and creativity with regards to disassembling and reassembling tricky mechanisms.
Payment & Reimbursement
Most slapdashers undertake the profession out of desire to accomplish a personal creative goal. Particularly interesting or useful products of the slapdasher's arts might eventually find a resale market, with aesthetically pleasing peices possibly even becoming art installations at museums. Occasionally, a slapdasher successfully discovers an altogether new mechanism, new way of doing things, or a new workaround for a previously existing flaw in pre-exisiting mechanisms; when this occurs, the lucky slapdasher responsible for this deed can expect to recieve offers from major equiment manufactures (i.e. Medial Works Equipment Co. or Data Engines Limited) for employment or patent licensing.
DEL Brand Logo by BCGR_Wurth
Perception
Demographics
Most slapdashers are human and Rostran, as these species have the most extensive histories with the techonologies required and the best access to materials required to engage in effective slapdashery. Though this does not mean that verdial and even ovinex cannot practice slapdashery in their own ways.
Operations
Materials
Slapdashers can definitionally be distinguised from regular craftsmanship by the fact that they use already manufactured materials and componets which were once part of other machines.
Workplace
Slapdashers often work alone or with small groups of like-minded friends. Whenever slapdashers meet one another for the first time, once introductions are out of they way, they often trade stories of their previous crafts and the odd bits of deep lore required to utilize unfamiliar components in future projects.
Dangers & Hazards
Because slapdashers are often working with materials and components from technological lineages not of their own culture, there is always a risk that these parts could be used in unintentionally dangerous ways. For example, if a slapdasher is working with a cylinder that they have not recognized as a pressurized canister, they might accidentally rupture it and expose themselves to whatever toxic nastiness lies within. To avoid these pitfalls, smart slapdashers carefully plan out their designs (with a degree of leeway for creative sparks, of course) and make efforts to identify the properties of every piece they work with beforehand.
Because slapdashery usually requires the use of a machine shop, many long-time slapdashers eventually lose digits or limbs to the powered tools they work with.
League Dieseltech Armory by BCGR_Wurth
Type
Artisan
Other Associated professions
Related Technologies
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