Can I repair my conscience?

 

There was a clock on my wall that I've owned for around 30 years. In that time, I've replaced the quartz mechanism once, and the battery box on this mech as well. Finally, it's given up the ghost again. The parts have been sat around on the computer desk for months, waiting for me to order a new mechanism from Hobbies. 

Trouble was, the Hobbies order never happened. I was intending to add the bits to a larger order, but never got around to it. Eventually, a couple of weeks ago, I just entered "quartz mechanism" into ebay and ordered one. It arrived in a week.

Fitting was a bit fiddly, the original hands had suffered from many years of sunlight and required patching with Plastikard and ABS glue. The holes didn't quite match the new shafts, but some bodgery with the centres of the new hands solved that. I even gain a second hand. 

Half an hour messing around, and the clock is back in place. Hooray!

But, I feel a bit guilty. I can't remember where the parts came from, but it wasn't a proper shop. I just grabbed them some random person online. Someone who probably doesn't have the overheads a shop would. The price alone tells me that...

I've always done my best to support shops, especially model shops. When I see people on forums saying we don't need model shops, because everything can be ordered direct from China, it anoys me. For a start, those people presumably don't mind if their job is exported, and second, it means they never feel the need for consumables like paint and glue. The sort of stuff you want when you want it, not in three weeks time. 

So, the clock works, but I feel guilty.