repairing things

how would you rerepair an acoustic guitar where the bridge is starting to peel away from the body of the guitar? is there a correct glue to use, does it need to be properly peeled off and glued all together?

Luthiers tend to use animal glues, IIRC. There are repair kits available online, that have a purpose-made clamp. Do check underneath to see if there are loose fittings - it might not be simply a glue issue.

THought I'd messed up my sewing machine for a while a coupl eof days ago. Wound up taking part so fi t apart that I hadn't done before.
Wound up with the handwheel getting really stiff which had me wthinking I'd damaged something nastily.
Had another go at it the next day and got it back working and it seems to be working pretty smoothly.
& now I know there is a section under the bobbin case/needleplate area that I have access to and had a lot of lint in and bent pins and things and gear wheels and things taht had a load of gunk on them.

Probably needs a service, probably has done fora while . Could do with learning how to do that .
Especially if thisicurrent situation drags out.
Have wanted to for a while anyway.

BUt now hjave 2 new pairs of trousers. & I think I need to learn to actually draft rather than just customise clones.
SDhould be doing real bespoke jeans in like one go instead of several fittngs.

& now I know there is a section under the bobbin case/needleplate area that I have access to and had a lot of lint in and bent pins and things and gear wheels and things taht had a load of gunk on them.

yes! that section! removing the gunk from that area is often the problem w/r/t sewing machine problems.

re: plax's slippers -- my thought would be to pad/patch from the inside with sturdy materials privileged over aesthetic, and then join that to the exterior to make that look nice -- could maybe do a double layer to reinforce?

Thinking about doing my first oil change -- OOH, my honda is approaching the needs service mark, OTOH I'm barely driving it so it could be a while before it actually gets there

guess that's not technically a "repair" though

i made my dad teach me when i was like 19. i like doing things myself but he tried to convince me it wasn't worth it and he was right. you have to have a place to take the oil to, also, don't you?

I used to change the oil myself, but then I bought a new car (my current VW Golf) that requires expensive synthetic oil in a weight so rare that Pep Boys didn't stock it until recently. Since buying my own oil + filter cost almost as much as paying someone else to do it, it became pointless DIYing this. I've done only the most basic of maintenance on this car myself - rotating the tires, changing the wipers, adding fluids, changing light bulbs.

I’ve never learned what the oil does, or why you need to change it.

When you have a big long shaft-like thing repeatedly sliding in & out of a receptacle sleeve, you need proper lubrication to prevent discomfort and damage.

Why does the gasoline explode but not the oil

Why they hide the bodies under my garage

Tombot explain cars to me

just put oil in your gas tank too it's fine and cool

it's all made of carbon, it's the same

I mean, right?? Why not put fullerenes in the tank

That's how I changed the oil in my first car. Enough of it would leak through the dry-rotted gaskets (from sitting in my grampa's garage too long), burning out the tail pipe. I just had to dump a quart of it in every month or so.

But yeah, I don't change the oil in my cars anymore myself either.

But I did fix these nice vertical blinds we have the other day! One of the little plastic rider/worm screw assemblies got jammed. I pulled it all apart and fixed it. Feels nice.

Mostly I appreciate that my previous house owner was a completely crazy fixer, making a giant welded cast-iron i-beam workbench I still use. He was also a dangerously incompetent electrician, but the house is still standing,

That's how you changed the oil in old "foreign" cars with two-stroke engines - just pour a small amount of oil in with the gasoline/petrol. Some small engines that power lawn mowers or chainsaws still work like that.

stevolende, dm me yr email and i will send you the best trouser draft I have ever found online. alternatively you can find it on the cutterandtailor.com forum which i highly recommend checking out regardless

sarahell, that sounds much smarter than my plan. and now that you mention it i could probably do something with a fairly large patch....

I replaced the igniter in our old clothes dryer when someone wanted $300 to fix it. My wife told me it was such a turn on, lol.

I am good at electrics but wish I could do plumbing. I don’t know if it counts as repairs but I am pretty pleased with myself for putting a sensor and timer on the hall light so it comes on when we come through the front door.

Embarrassed that I had to get a guy out to fix the dishwasher and it turned out to be a blocked waste pipe.

Not a sparky, but I’ve been doing electrical stuff for years at work ( I even had a guy working for me for a bit that sat on the committee that writes the wiring rules for Australia). I get electricity and I can stay safe with electricity, with plumbing and water I just don’t have the same intuition. I really want to put an outdoor tap on the deck on the water line that feeds the boiler, but I don’t even know where to start.

dishwashers are a lost cause often. I had a dishwasher that broke my heart repeatedly. i had to replace the same seal on it over and over again.

the rollers on the drawers had corroded, meaning the drawers no longer lined up properly and thus new seals got busted after only maybe a month of use. I eventually got rid of it. my current dishwasher is great!

"I even had a guy working for me for a bit that sat on the committee that writes the wiring rules for Australia"

as an ex-sparkie I've met plenty of these reg-worm types who can accurately quote amendment 1 section 274 blah blah.. but they are basically incapable of doing the most basic electrical installation work! You are right about plumbing though, it's much harder than it looks.

I was hearing a few stories about people's attempts at attaching bidet hoses on podcasts a couple of weeks ago. People thinking they would be able to do it withouit hassle and then finding the attachments didn't seal properly or something similar.

Would be a good skill to have though. Plumbing like. Always useful.

there is no amount of pro-tips/online guides that is a substitute for the skills you attain doing the same shit every day.

I've worked at a few companies that had a mechanical side as well as electric but never talked seriously with plumbers. It took me years to realise you turn both the taps off where the silver flexi pipe connects the boiler with the water main when you need to add water because of low pressure fault. I'd just turn the secondary tap off where it connects to the boiler so it was slowly adding extra pressure to the boiler! I'm a fucking idiot though.

I remember having a big existential crisis about calling a plumber to seat a toilet - I’d done it once or twice but always fucked up the wax ring in the process and I didn’t want to worry about it leaking. But it’s such a straightforward thing that I felt like a sucker hiring someone to do it for me.

The plumber was a youngish guy and we talked for a while and it was cool - he told that he’d installed hundreds of toilets and me paying $100 for the peace of mind was totally worth it, and that he had no idea how to do my job and had no shame about that. It made me much more comfortable deciding what I was comfortable with and what I wanted to entrust to experts.

I'm shit around the house but primed and painted the box around the gas meter and laid some matting (all in the porch) and goddamn I feel good. Also bought myself a laplander saw with no real idea what I'm going to do with it.

My old man was a gas fitter and plumber, the father-in-law was all manner of shit: made ship's lanterns, fitted out gas tanks, carpet fitter. I'm generally in awe of tradesmen.

Currently fixing not being pissed.

Also listening to Outfit by the Drive By Truckers and weeping about being shit with a paintbrush.

if you ever wanted to bang some extra sockets in a stud wall with fast fix boxes your laplander saw is your friend. When I was in the game we called them "pad saws" but there is a lot of different names for that particular tool.

Yes! Also great for fiddly jobs in the garden (like dealing with rhododendron in tight spaces, I've found). The thing is so pretty and compact.

i need to re-affix one of the metal struts to my little library stepladder (with just one i think i am asking too much of it when it clamber into it)

a professional carpenter and refurbisher who i know a little -- but have somewhat fallen out with via unrelated ambient internet beef -- said i should drill out the hole the old screw was in, completely fill it with broken-off matchsticks and superglue them, then allow to dry. this would hold any new screws fine.

however the old screws are lost and he replacements i have seem too long for the drilled-out hole as is. i've tried screwing them further into the unscrewed original wood at the bottom of the hole, but it just seems too hard to be screwed into, even using an electric drill and phillips head bit, or even just to drill further into this wood :(

might fuck around tomorrow and drill out all the match sticks and glue, then try and drill out more of the old hard wood with a larger bit, then refill with matches and superglue -- then (eventually) screw into this

I wonder if I can replace the screen glass on my 2010 MacBook Pro ... judging from YouTube videos, it's a pain in the ass to do, but the replacement glass is pretty cheap

I would attempt many fewer DIY repairs if not for YouTube

i know, there is no way i ever would have started disassembling my laptop for repairs if it wasn't for youtube

fyi i have been watching The Repair Shop on iPlayer and crying at the stories

xp my job includes repairing laptops and I'd be stuck without Youtube teardowns.

i've just spent about an hour with bf repairing brazilian figurines that have been in pieces for over a decade. Now I'm going to figure out why my bread won't rise!

I broke the pressure cooker last night; I left the inner lid off and it overheated. After some poking around I assumed the thermal fuse had gone (as it should) bought a multimeter to confirm and a replacement fuse. Now it works again. I was pretty pissed at myself for breaking it in the first place but I’m pleased I could fix it.

Ico Letting salt and sugar get too close to the yeast before it starts working can prevent it fully rising. I remember having to put it in a different part of the bread machine when setting up a loaf.

I remember the giddy feeling of walking through my house and checking off the things I had made serious, appliance-saving repairs to: dryer (replaced frayed internal wire), washing machine (replaced faulty control board, and stator motor for the spin), fridge (replaced thermal sensors and fans in the freezer), stove (replaced jets, thermal cutoffs, elements, etc.), stereo amplifier (power supply and signal caps), plasma TV (main power board), plus pretty much every computer in the house ...

Turns out I wasn't giving my bread enough time to rise

It's all looking beautiful now

to revisit the saga of my little library stepladder i am having to busk recharging the battery of my black and decker with the only mains lead i can find in the flat that fits (i have no idea if it's the correct one)

i guess the worst that can happen is that i have to buy a new battery which is probably good sense anyway, i've had the drill like 15-odd years minimum without ever recharging it afaicr

(did it once have a lead? i'm guessing yes. is this its actual real lead: i think no, the conversion factor is not what the internet tells me i need tho who tf kno if this matters that much)

Dryer in new house sounded like an artillery barrage. I’ve never attempted an appliance repair before but decided fuck it. From what I saw online it was pretty clearly the roller, so I ordered a new set as well as a tool I had never been aware of before — snap ring pliers. About $45. Watched YouTube videos. Disassembling the drier wasn’t all that hard but the bolts for the roller axles were rusted on and it took a lot of different approaches before I found a way to break them off (I basically attached pliers to a socket wrench so I could get more torque). Getting the belt back on was also confusing (the pattern of my pulley and motor shaft didn’t match the videos and getting the “zig zag” was tricky). Putting it back together was also harder than taking it apart. But after 3-4 hours and having filth permanently tattooed into my skin, we have a normal, not too loud dryer and I probably saved us a few hundred bucks. And it was kind of fun.

I feel ready to take on a lot of handyman stuff now, much of which I think will be easier than the dryer.

The fuse has gone on the microwave, the 5000v fuse.

Search on Google and it links to a video that looks easy enough but it links halfway through the video and skips the bit about discharging the capacitor containing said lethal voltages.

Anyway, I have new fuses and it's been unplugged for 3 weeks and they reckon it discharges itself within a week so...

to remove all doubt you can get one of those twin probe capacitor discharge units for about £20, but you could probably get a new microwave for the same price these days!

I replaced a wall socket the other week, shit was easy

that's what he said

You know how hard it is to do a rimshot with one hand?

Ok. Don't answer that.

Anyone have a brand/model rec for a leaf blower? Looking to clear my folks' one-story gutters and front walk. Using at a reasonable hour, naturally. Leaning towards a battery model, as their house may/may not have the exterior outlets to support a corded model.

I've got this battery one. It's been good - lightweight, relatively quiet plenty of power. https://www.amazon.com/EWORK-Cordless-Blower-Battery-Charger/dp/B0CQNBNRDK

if it were up to me, I would buy an 8-foot stepladder, a rake, and a plastic gutter cleaner, and do it all by hand. it would probably take less than an hour.

I do this every year on our 2-story house, just have somebody there to spot you on the laddetr

"ladder"

probably any of the big modular battery tool brands has an acceptable leaf blower, mine is ryobi but that's just because i'm tied up in their 18v battery pack. it' fine for small areas. i'd note that they do tend to gradually lose oomph as the battery drains, and mine doesn't have the power to go like truly nuclear so if there are leaves jammed up in the gutters it may struggle a bit. my gutters are 2 stories up so i have not personally attempted that.

the 40v battery ones would certainly have more juice but with added weight and $$$.

^^ definitely worth considering other tools you might be able to use from the same basic battery pack if you start with a blower

it's a great way to later justify buying a reciprocating saw because they're fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqKYiMNvvUg

ryobi is a solid choice

Thanks, all!

Saw an interesting video that strengthened my understanding of why fixing things is important: Because it moves away from consumption and buying things which only centers/profits capital, and moves power back to labor, where a thing gains value because a person applied their skill and time and work to it.

That makes me happy to have that made more concrete in my brain.

was gifted a cannon scanner about 10 years ago. this afternoon it's stopped working with a grinding noise and the light bar looking visibly askew. youTube video as required to get into the bloody thing (was held together with tabs and double sided tape, no screws) and a breakdown pdf to show how to redirect the little string back around the correct cogs. is now back working as well as it did before (which is about 25% tbh - took about 2 hours to scan 24 page dvd booklet that i could've read in 10 minutes)

well done!

that scan time sounds murderous though. check your settings, are you scanning that DVD booklet at really high DPI? really high bitrate you don't need? descreen on?

i'll also say: scanners have gotten faster. i had been relying on various libraries' Epson 10000XL flatbeds, which are pretty trusty workhorses. but they're twenty years old and actually... pretty slow. their current model for a big honking flatbed like that, the 13000XL, is $3,700, but i got the smaller V600 for a tenth of that, and it's been such a change in my workflow for scans to just go zip-zip-zip and be done. high-res and descreen still slow it down, but it's still wayyy faster than the old units.

it's an old scanner that the other person didn't want. i have another which i think is more reliable but it predates usb and the new laptop (and the previous one) doesn't have the necessary parallel port.

am scanning about an a5 size at 300dpi, 1350x1900px or so. the idea was to ocr the output and turn it into an epub but there are pictures so i might just leave it as a cbz.

oh wow - that should be taking you like, a few seconds per page ime. i definitely don't want to be the "chuck it and buy a new one" guy on the repair thread, but this doesn't sound like a pleasant experience!

id leave it as a cba

outdoor toilet doesn't have electricity but there's a little battery light in there. only it doesn't work. i had a look and the battery compartment only had one battery in it but was large enough for two... easy fix...

bought new batteries, went to replace them and saw that it has *two* battery compartments, but the bottom one only takes one battery, the top one has two... but the existing batteries were very sweaty so it was probably that. replaced them all, nothing.

took it apart this afternoon and there's a switch in there but it has a dry joint, only works in certain positions. tried wedging stuff under it too improve the connection but couldn't get it to work reliably.

ended up ripping the wires from the switch and just feeding them out the front of the box - touch them together for light. kludge.

annoyingly i saw about a dozen replacements in town yesterday from like £3 but thought it was just a battery problem. it'll wait.

interesting, i'm coming here to post about a toilet as well

last night as i was deep cleaning my bathroom, i tried turning off the water supply to the toilet, and the valve started spraying water everywhere. great, i'm on my hands and knees scrubbing the toilet with my latex gloves on and now i need to run to turn off the water and figure this out.

so i turned off the water and removed the valve, which was compression fit, and decided i needed to run to the store to get a new valve and a new supply line while i'm at it. luckily it's only 8pm or so at this point. thing is i hate compression fittings, and the brass or whatever it is ring from the old one did not want to come off the copper pipe. so i decided to cut the pipe and sweat on a new threaded fitting so i could use that instead. so i got that piece, and i got a valve that i could thread on. sweat on the fitting, then onto the valve. first try there's a minuscule bead of water coming through the plumber's tape. so i took it off and tried to wrap the tape as tight as i could, and added more, and eventually that worked and was all good.

but! then the toilet would not stop running. pretty frustrating, it's pretty late and i have skipped dinner to deal with this. but i google it and somebody on a reddit thread says you need to flush the fill valve, which is basically the pump inside the tank that takes water from the supply line and controls how much water goes into your toilet tank. i guess debris can get in there when you do this kind of work, and it needs to be cleared out for the fill valve to work properly. so i watched a video on that, and did that, and it seems to be ok! phew.

a couple years ago i definitely wouldn't have been able to do this, either mentally or physically. i feel grateful i had the right tools on hand and could get it done for under $30 and out of the way b4 xmas

(NB i might be using some of these terms wrong but this is the best i can do)

that sounds rad. good work!

btw, apparently there is a product called the 'sharkbite' which makes it so you don't need to do old school plumber work anymore. i have not tried one as i've not come across a broken valve... yet. i did replace one of the pieces of pipe under my sink that had corroded apparently from dishwasher runoff (which is caustic and may make your copper pipes eventually corrode).

jesus that sounds like serious work

id have slunk away in disgrace after the merest hint it wasnt a switch/click fix

one bit of advice i can pass along -- when connecting pipes with a slip joint nut, hand tighten the FUCK out of it and then maybe wrench it just a touch. if you wrench that shit all the way the gasket gets pierced and you get leaks. ask me how i know

ha, yes. the same is true of supply line hoses, which also come with gaskets fitted inside that can be damaged by cranking too hard (i too learned this the hard way)

i have not used a sharkbite, but they definitely open up a lot of options for people who aren't comfortable working on copper pipes with a torch and solder

washer stopped working last night.
my partner is off work today and taking a look at it. might be the lid switch (which can be relatively easy to fix). if not we're gonna have to call someone i'm afraid and i think we'd be looking at $200-300 total. boo.

I have three really good stereo amplifiers that have crapped out over the years and I really want to work on them but I keep hearing that amplifiers can hold a charge and kill you so I'm scared. It's also probably advanced for my skills, but it's going to kill me to take them to e-waste and nobody near me works on them.

Be careful around capacitors

nobody near me works on them

sadly becoming more & more common, even in urban areas

Caps, as Lee says, are the danger. But they don't hold a charge _forever_ - they leak over time and if you haven't powered from mains in an age, you'll probably be ok. Check with a multimeter and actively discharge any that you're worried about - eg clip a resistor across its leads. Pretty sure it will be ok (if you die, I am sorry cow_art)

I want an old Land Cruiser to rebuild from the ground. Also the time, space, tools and ability to do so.

I have a stereo amp that’s finicky and I keep putting off on taking in. Glad I now know to not try and accidentally kill myself.

The part of my bike light that clips to the holder broke, so now I’m trying to figure out how to improvise a new way of holding it.