One man\u2019s trash really is another man\u2019s treasure. <\/p>\n
Darrick Lo\u2019s neighbors throw out everything from broken strollers to coffee grinders to chairs. He\u2019s the guy who digs through their trash<\/a> and fixes it all himself. <\/p>\n Growing up in New Jersey, Lo liked to watch his mother sew on her Singer Stylist 534, circa 1975.<\/p>\n One day, it stopped working.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt needed its hook and feed gears replaced because the original parts were made of materials that degrade over time,\u201d Lo told The Post. Once he found the service manual, he repaired it.<\/p>\n Lo went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University in mechanical and biomedical engineering. Now, finding joy in the forensic work <\/a>of figuring out what\u2019s wrong and correcting it, he solicits broken toys, gadgets and appliances from his Manhattan neighbors \u2014 things that would otherwise be thrown away \u2014 so he can repair them <\/a>and teach himself as he goes.<\/p>\n A Manhattan engineer has turned dumpster-diving into an art form \u2014 and he\u2019s saving the city\u2019s broken junk one Craigslist find at a time. Olga Ginzburg for the NY Post<\/p>\n Lo is pictured at his home office with his red tool organizer kit. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n Most items come from Craigslist or his local Facebook Buy Nothing group. He admits to taking things off the street on recycling night.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a repair service, he said, because he doesn\u2019t want the pressure or logistics of fixing things on a timeline.<\/p>\n \u201cI view these items as machines that follow the basic laws of physics,\u201d said Lo, whose day job is at a medical-device company. \u201cThe core engineering principle that was instilled in me is to break down complex systems into their simplest forms. Failure can be caused by one specific thing, but it is usually a multitude of things and is not very obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n As a high-schooler, Lo had a part-time job at an electronics store. After college, he took his motorcycle apart and reassembled it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have done house calls for friends to repair washers, dryers, refrigerators, ovens, water heaters and furnaces,\u201d he told The Post.<\/p>\n The UPPAbaby Vista V2 stroller that Lo fixed and uses is pictured. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n Lo recently found himself with two broken UPPAbaby strollers. They were \u201cstructurally compromised,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have complex features and brake mechanics. The body construction is aluminum but it is also susceptible to fatigue and it is difficult to reweld.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike steel, which can withstand minor repetitive strains, \u201caluminum weakens with every bump and curb it encounters, until it eventually breaks,\u201d Lo said. Rewelding destroys the metal\u2019s strength, making it prone to breaking again. He researched the two strollers and found that despite being two model years apart, they shared many of the same components.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI decided to take them both apart \u2014 to essentially cannibalize the two strollers \u2014 and combine them into one fully working unit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lo has reverence for product design and the work that goes into making user-friendly items. He calls headphones \u201ca modern miracle,\u201d available for a reasonable price after enormous amounts of time and money spent in development.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat is the framework I cherish about every product that comes into my hands,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is an acknowledgment of the hands that have touched it before me.\u201d<\/p>\n A Harman Kardon Soundsticks III speaker fixed by Lo. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n On Craigslist, he spent $20 on a coffee grinder advertised in \u201cquestionable condition.\u201d The motor, caked with coffee grounds, had stalled.<\/p>\n \u201cThe seller was very honest,\u201d Lo said. \u201cThey said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if it works.\u2019\u201d He didn\u2019t know either, but figured he could make it work.<\/p>\n If a grinder isn\u2019t regularly cleaned, fine coffee dust combines with the bean\u2019s natural oils to create a kind of glue inside the machine. \u201cThis mixture hardens into a solid brick that physically locks the paddle wheel and burrs, causing the motor to jam,\u201d Lo said. All it needed was a good cleaning.<\/p>\n The grinder, which now lives on his kitchen counter, inspired him to become more of a coffee connoisseur. He later found a broken espresso machine for $35, also on Craigslist. Such machines intrigue him for their fluid mechanics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFundamentally, an espresso machine can be boiled down to three basic systems \u2014 a water heater, a high-powered pump to push that water with intense force, and an overpressure valve to keep that force under control and regulate the hydraulic pressure to the espresso puck,\u201d he said. \u201cAn espresso machine is a modern marvel.\u201d<\/p>\n His machine\u2019s problem was solved with a new overpressure valve.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd now I drink too much coffee,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of my family and friends would call me a home barista at this point. I am kind of a perfectionist.\u201d<\/p>\n Nina the cat sits on a restored chair with new caning. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n Lo gives away the items he doesn\u2019t keep \u2014 to his Buy Nothing group, a nearby thrift store or friends. He once fixed an old chair with a broken seat that concealed an array of perimeter holes, revealing that the chair originally had a hand-woven cane seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI purchased raw materials, taught myself the meticulous art of weaving and successfully restored the piece to its authentic design,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lo, who has three toolboxes, laments today\u2019s throwaway consumer culture. He prefers high-quality items that can be repaired if broken. Still, not everything can be fixed.<\/p>\n Cellphones once opened with a screwdriver, and parts such as the camera, microphone or battery could be replaced, he said. Now they\u2019re tightly sealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor most modern cellphones, you need a heat gun to melt the adhesive so you can take the glass off and access the internals,\u201d Lo said. \u201cA lot of people are comfortable throwing their old phones out.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s also simply more convenient to toss old things than to get them repaired. There are so few repair shops left that people don\u2019t even know where to take a broken item, said waste expert Anna Sacks, known as the Trash Walker, who scours the city\u2019s trash for reusable items herself. People might have to wait for a part to arrive. Or it might cost as much to repair the item as to replace it.<\/p>\n Repairing something is doubly valuable, Sacks said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou are preventing things from going to landfills, but you are also preventing the need to buy a new one,\u201d Sacks told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lo works on a 1990s Kenmore 385 sewing machine with jammed gears alongside his cat. Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post<\/p>\n Lo\u2019s own sewing machine is a Singer Fashion Mate 258, circa 1974 \u2014 a model that does decorative stitches \u2014 that had been missing several parts. A sewing machine is complex, and a lot can go wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the gears are made from polymers, but they oxidize and crack over time,\u201d Lo said. That was the problem his mother\u2019s machine had. \u201cThere is a whole segment of science called tribology \u2014 the science of friction.\u201d<\/p>\n Lo uses his Fashion Mate for fabric repairs and projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery intricate stitch, feed cadence and needle swing is choreographed through gear trains, rotating cams and interlocking linkages,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese sewing machines do require electricity, but everything else is mechanical. These systems rely entirely on the laws of physics and metallurgy. There are no circuit boards or microprocessors, and that is exciting to me. It\u2019s magical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One man\u2019s trash really is another man\u2019s treasure. Darrick Lo\u2019s neighbors throw out everything from broken strollers to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[120578,280,68,36027,8079,95400,75,84,83,68411,14492,9,24,63,1491,3006,120579,47366],"class_list":["post-319839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-craigslist","tag-engineering","tag-exclusive","tag-fixer-upper","tag-gadgets","tag-good-neighbor","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-mechanics","tag-neighbors","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-treasure","tag-waste-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}