I have to say it gives me some pleasure.
My neighbour brought me, this morning, the catch off their caravan door, the one that holds the two halves of the "stable" type door closed.
It had suffered a break in the shaft that turned the whole ****, and all types of glue had failed, from solvent, Araldite, Superglue and even plastic steel.

An hour later and I've repaired it, good as new.**

Does anyone else out there bother, or do most people chuck it and start again?

And before anyone says, they had already searched e-bay and caravan dealers with no success.


** For those that are interested, I substituted a screw three times the length of the old one, which passed THROUGH the bit it originally screwed INTO on a running thread, and screwed INTO the solid part that can't break off. New threads were first reamed with a drill bit held in my hand, and finally, threads were formed by HEATING the screw before driving it in and allowing it to cool, since the plastic was too "hard but chewy" to cut threads just by screwing in as normal.

 

Yes I tend to repair stuff rather than replace it - a) as I'm a tight so and so b) all men should be able to fix things

Richard

 

Well done Alcazar, good bit of ingenuity there.

Yes I always have done where possible, both to save cash and for personal satisfaction.

Les

 

Everytime i fix things, i only make it worse or break other things in the process of fixing the original broken thing.

In life i'm full of good intentions but low on skill!

 

Nothing feels better then repairing something and actually improving it to boot

 

Have you fixed your PC yet? or are you going to replace it with a new one

 

I just fixed the RROD problem on my Xbox 360, very happy that it cost £3.95 as opposed to the £90 that Microsoft wanted.

 

Mine? No, the stupid thing needs all new motherboard etc etc, and is going to cost me £130 for a computer that will STILL only have an 80GB hard drive and 500MB RAM.

I'll look for a half decent one. Trouble is, I only want the tower, and the cheapy places want to do a bundle.

 

If i can fix stuff i will usually try too, not ust about the money more a sense of a job well done - as long as it does not disintergrate a week or so later that is

 

I kinda met you at the right time in all fairness Jeff. With becoming an apprentice where fixing and stripping things down will be my future profession, you gimme a head start. I'll be honest, in the last year or so I have sharply increased my "try fix it first before replacing" mentality and also increased my toolage too. So the money saved on fixing things or replacing component and not whole assemblies has been wasted on new spanners and other tools

 

My brother can build you one and at a very good price too if it's just the tower you want.

Get in touch if you're interested, he's done all sorts of crap to mine to make it run better (5+ years old - the pc not my brother)

 

My missus drives a French car so I am always fixing things

 

If you ever need a job, give me a shout. Living in an old house, I could keep you going for about 6 months. Stuff is always breaking here. The flaming garage door refused to work this morning. I was not amused at having to wind up the flaming thing

 

So that's how you please, Nat

 

So does Jeff's missus...

LOL

dunx

 

..... Rock & Roll

 

I'd take up that offer if i were you..

 

I'm a toolmaker by trade, so repairing stuff is in my blood

some people can't even wire a plug ! (men included !!) lol

 

LOL, You're going to work for CORUS, man, the kings of, "Don't bother, chuck it and put a new one in!"

And then, six months later: "Profit? WHAT profit?"

Unless they have very much changed their ways

 

Yes, I love it as well, with a bit of thought a lot of things can be reapired, if it cant I pull the old one apart to yield all manner of good bits.

Learnt it from my dad, things werent as easy to come by then so things got looked after and he used to get stuff from work to keep things going.

Things like the **** on my blowtorch, only a tenner to replace but the **** was slipping, drilled a 2 mm hole and put a split pin through, perfect now.

Its funny how most of my neighbours are useless, zero practical skills, its why people get fleeced by trades for easy jobs, why cars are so expensive to maintain for a lot of people.

The internet makes life a lot easier as well, as do decent tools, I always mock my brother in law for his pristine shiny, unusued top of the range socket set and the fact he couldnt find where the air filter lived on Vauxhall Astra, the world is full of them, can operate an Iphone and a Mini but not a drill or a Mig Welder, puffs !

I get some inspiration from froums like Retro Rides and Driftworks, some of the stuff people do, self taught puts a lot of mechanics to shame.

 

Buy the bits and plug it all together yourself, I have been doing that for years. I was surprised how easy it was to do. Mechanically its all standard, just have to make sure you get the bits that will work together.

Les

 

I just grab one from the pile of spares at work about to go to the disposal company, just getting the eldest one for his bedroom.

 

I would rather repair something than buy a new one but sadly I'm just not that good with my hands and more often render the item beyond repair.

 

Its very very rare I throw something away. For example I had an angle grinder out of the works skip last week. £2.69 on some new brushes and a bit of soldering and roberts your mothers brother

 

You do complicate matters.

Les

 

I do admit to feeling good about saving something.... I have acquired a lovely chiming clock, and now need to acquire the skills to reduce and re-build it, but working....

Started with bikes as a kid, moved onto an Imp, got lazy for a while. Then threw a turbo at my bug-eye with all the trimmings, but I shy away from clutch/transmission work as I'm too old and knack'd for bench pressing a six speed on the drive in the snow.....

PC's are easy enough they've made it so much easier now you don't have to solder the chips onto the pcb's....

LOL

dunx

 

Oh very different now, trust me.
PM I sent you, gonna reply?

 

Duncan, I repaired a clock made in 1888 for the wife's school a couple of years ago. When I got it to bits it had a really weird cable driven movement, turned out to be a
"fusee" movement.
I got a book on clock repairs from the public library, and away I went. I've just completed another repair since the numpty at school who winds it, overwound it and snapped the fusee cable. THAT repair was a laugh a minute, let me tell you

 

My motto: If its broke, can't do no harm in trying to fix it"

I broke the blender by using it to crush large chunks of rock salt (bad idea). Looks like the bolt that holds the plastic blade drive onto the motor has sheared off. Alraldite is curing as I speak.

If that fails, I'll remove the motor armature, stick it in the pillar drill, drill out the sheared bolt, tap a new thread and stick in a new bolt Might be tricky if it needs to be a reverse thread...nothing some superglue on the threads won't sort


I can bore you all with plenty more fix-o-holic anecdotes, but I'm off to the pub to bore my mates instead

 

Im contemplating joining my yacht mast (ali) thats now in two ( fell onto a building) with a chunk of spruce hollowed out cos i cant find a section that would sleeve internally , and rolled *must* be quite a lot weaker than an extruded piece ...



What du reckon ?