The Toaster Project Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch |
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| Author:
| Thwaites, Thomas |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61689-119-0 |
| Publication Date: | Mar 2012 |
| Publisher: | Princeton Architectural Press
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| Book Format: | Ebook |
| List Price: | USD $9.98 |
Book Description:
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"Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made a toaster." So beginsnbsp;The Toaster Project, the author's nine-month-long journey from his local appliance store to remote mines in the UK to his mother's backyard, where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise, and that plastic is almost impossible to make from...
More Description"Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made a toaster." So beginsnbsp;The Toaster Project, the author's nine-month-long journey from his local appliance store to remote mines in the UK to his mother's backyard, where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise, and that plastic is almost impossible to make from scratch. In the end, Thwaites's homemade toaster--a haunting and strangely beautiful object--cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store and involved close to two thousand miles of travel to some of Britain's remotest locations.nbsp;The Toaster Projectnbsp;may seem foolish, even insane. Yet, Thwaites's quixotic tale, told with self-deprecating wit, helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture, and in so doing reveals much about the organization of the modern world.