Back in the days when I was learning this trade in Mexico, the maestro in the shop would teach me how to hand-fabricate parts to broken locks. Knowing that I would someday be practicing my trade in the States, I would arrogantly say that I didn’t need to know how to do these things. “In my country, we would throw it out and buy a new one!”

So yesterday I felt a twinge of shame when a customer brought me a baggie full of loose metal pieces that were once the lock to his antique curio. What was I going to do — throw out his lock and tell him to go to Ethan Allen for a new china cabinet? I had to fix it, and thanks to the maestro I knew exactly how to reassemble the lock and replicate the lost springs with pieces of special scrap metal I’d been holding onto. When I was done, the lock was as good as new. The job left me feeling happily nostalgic and I had to write a note of thanks to the maestro.