[emeritus]

When I was about 9 or 10, I caused a catastrophic gear failure when I disconnected the "flying balls" speed regulator of what had been my late grand-dad's old wind up gramophone to see if it would go faster. The result was a puff of smoke and lots of small bits of flying brass as the steel worm gear destroyed the teeth of the matching brass pinion in about a second from the energy of a fully-wound spring!