Back to Joe's original post: I'm much like him in that when I see something broken, I start working out ways to mend it.

I spent much of my working life as a Rectifier in automotive plants, until they all went East, and in other trades I took over the maintenance of plant.
For the last 17 years until I retired I was a jobbing handyman, and one of my customers was a shop that did clothing alterations. It employed a score of seamstresses, and one of those ladies preferred the jobs that I did because "Boys had the best toys!" She watched my working (NOT watching me, I aver) and often peered into my van to familiarise herself with tools she didn't recognise.
Does that sound like your DIL, Joe?

I hate the modern way of planned obsolescence, where we throw away perfectly good working electronics, and a cellphone is destroyed beyond sensible repair-cost by dropping it on a vinyl floor! I once dropped mine from a roof onto asphalt with only cosmetic damage.