So, everything I said about the Cash Register Restoration also applies here. I've always been fascinated with the mechanics, I'm in awe of any person's ability to understand all the parts and seeing it fixed is very pleasing.
Based on this video, I tried to find a youtube video that explained how slot machines work so I could solve the mystery, once and for all. It was surprisingly difficult and I didn't come up with anything definitive. When you search the subject, a million results of videos come up trying to teach you how to WIN at slot machines. It's just loads of Jimmy "The Scott" Jordan wannabes as far as the eye can see.
But even though I didn't find a great video explaining the mechanism of slot machines, if you're interested, you can watch the best video I was able to find here.
I wish there was a Build Your Own Slot Machine Kit. Lockpicking kits are popular, legos are popular, you should be able to send away for a box full of metal parts and step-by-step instructions for the amateur person with too much time and no hobbies to build their own metal slot machine.
Continuing the trend of restoration videos, this I found fascinating. I've always loved the aesthetics of the old mechanical cash registers.
I'm amazed by the work here. I don't understand how someone can know every single gear, spring, part - remember it, what it does and where it goes. Will we reach a point eventually where this kind of knowledge dies out forever?
After I watched one restoration video, my stream was flooded with a million more suggestions just like it. This alone is not surprising. But what I noticed was that of the myriad other suggestions, no two were from the same channel. That was a shock.
And you can tell that someone, somewhere, at some point in the past cracked the code because they're all following the same formula. Firstly, no talking. At no point in the video should you hear a human voice. If something needs to be communicated, it must be by text or gesture. Secondly, no humans (other than hands and arms). Secondly, no music, even for montages. The only sounds we hear are, first and foremost, the sound of the parts and tools and then secondly, occasionally, the ambient environment.
The effect is obvious. This is ASMR, this is the tranquility of Bob Ross meets the power tools of Norm Abram, this is oddly satisfying. This is that genre of videos that I don't know the name of which are pleasurable because they go from disorder to order. If you know the term for that, let me know.
One of the ways you can divide children (or people) is between those who are more interested in people and those who are more interested in things. Those who are more interested in people become nurses, teachers, social workers, etc. The people interested in things become engineers, inventors, mechanics. It's clear these videos appeal to the thing people in the extreme.
The most magical part of these videos is the sandblasting. You take the cruddiest, most decayed rusted metal and you think it's only fit for the trash and then you wave the sandblaster over it and it's like new - exactly like a magic wand. It's oddly satisfying, it's hypnotic. The second best part is the compliment to the sandblasting - powder coating (painting) the new, bright, shiny color.
The genre goes is a few directions. Most I've seen are old toys like the video above but there are also plastic toys from the 80s and 90s, electronics restorations (playstation, nintendo, etc) antique restorations (sowing machines, harvesters, cash registers), general machines (parking meters, intercoms, slot machines) and, of course, car restorations.
