repairing things

would be so handy to have men's sheds or simial in every area hosting skillshare workshops showing how to fix everyday objects so people have the knowledge. As much as getting beyond proprietary security devices preventing people doing their own repairs on a lot of things.
Could be good to teach basic prgramming and electric repairs too as well as showing what the danger points are.
Possibly some basic gardening/crp growing and garment repair/upcycling.

Nutrition, basic valuing for furture barter. Howw to tell what is actually necessary in a scenario without money?
Having the gift of teh gab basic trading/salesmanship?

learning how to make things ad hoc from existing objects would be handy, what MacGyver does but ona apracticalkk level.
Basic principles of what makes a thing work. relevant snatches of physics and chemistry etc

Also knowing what is essential and what is cosmetic in a process so you know what you actually need. YOu can build up decoration at a later point once you've got what you need.

re: bikes, I ordered a bike online this summer and it was a case study in why I don't usually try to repair things on my own. I knew going in that I would probably have to adjust the brakes and derailleurs. I bought a few tools and studied as many youtube videos as I could find about these basic tasks. I managed to adjust the brakes marginally well, but nowhere near perfect. The derailleurs were just a fucking mess. I spent hours trying to set them up and just couldn't make it happen. Because local shops were so backed up with repairs this summer, I took it to a guy in my neighborhood who had been posting online about fixing bikes. He got the brakes in perfect order, and the derailleurs are shifting well but I've still been getting a ton of chain rub. I called up my local shop and their wait time for repairs is pretty much back to normal, so I'm going to run it up there this week for some extra tweaks.

To my credit, I swapped my stem out without any problems and managed to change the tire alright when I got a flat. But all the cable-adjustment stuff might as well have been a major appliance as far as how useless I was at fixing it.

After sticking to internal hubs for years I now have a regular (externally) geared bike and it doesn't shift smoothly and I'm putting off trying to figure out why. I resent that it doesn't come with a little window and a tension dial.

I love working on bikes (and guitars) and am a much better bike mechanic and guitar tech than I am cyclist or guitar player - I've built a few of both from frames/bodies/parts. It took me a while to get the shifting stuff figured out but there are only a few settings - the upper and lower limits and the cable tension - but if you don't do it that often it can be frustrating to remember.

If you have the room and money a bike repair stand makes it orders of magnitude easier - mine was like $50 and works just fine. And something to cut cables cleanly (I use a dremel with a cutoff wheel) because regular old wire cutters will wreck them. I swore by all the Park Tools repair videos when I was learning.

I have a cable cutter from Park Tools somewhere. I've fixed up a few bikes that ppl gave me bc they didn't work or were in pieces, but it's been a while. In fact, I ended up needing specific tools that aren't made anymore bc the bikes were so old! I'd forgotten about that! Bike shops have everything. (RIP cottered cranks.)

I'm very into the idea of visible clothing repairs but have done nothing about it. I think ilxor elmo argonaut was learning about it iirc?

I follow someone on twitter who is a Navy vet & an anarchist farmer, I guess you might say? They've been watching the show "Doomsday Preppers" and picking out all the things ppl do wrong and I've been enjoying it so much. Something they specifically pointed out was that no one thinks they're going to need fiber arts after the apocalypse, so where do they plan to get clothes from?

so many annoying proprietary standards in bike maintenance (don't get me started on BBs) - really need a tool library nearby

Soooo true. Btw I wanted to say that

tbf I am having to clean and refurbish a lot of the components as I do this. it's a very satisfying process so far

...is super-relatable! Repairing things has done a lot for my mental health at certain times. It's good to be useful when you feel like a lump.

more bike repairing chat. building up my other bike has given me the confidence (and tools) to tackle some jobs I'd previously have handed off to the bike shop, so... I've serviced the rear hub on my good bike. one of the benefits of doing things yourself: you can discover when others (i.e. professionals) have previously bodged it. my rear hub doesn't have the little interior weather seal - which will probably have shortened the service life of my bearings which is annoying (altho they looked OK when I took them out). can only think the bike shop forgot to put it back in when they last serviced. looks like I can get replacement parts easily enough. very satisfying (if a little messy)

Yesterday I tackled the biennial breakdown of the internals of my ageing Gaggia espresso machine to scrape out corrosion and weird mineral grit. Don't think I will use the kettle as a handy jug to fill it any more. I will admit that I thought briefly about throwing it away and buying another, but no. At 18 it's my fourth oldest appliance, after the toaster (53, older than me), the dryer (42) and the fridge (19). I've repaired them all.

xp afterwards you can go for a lovely cycle in the rain to rinse it down

MatthewK that's an impressive lifespan on that toaster! (And the rest, frankly) What make is it??

It's a Sunbeam AT40 - I have repaired the internals a couple of times, but my parents got it as an engagement gift in 1967. Wait I think they got *married* in 1967, maybe it's 54. It's all electromechanical, just a triggered drop mechanism (which drives other people crazy) and some kind of thermal-expansion release. I don't think it's got so much as a resistor in it, aside from the heating elements. Makes better toast than anything I've otherwise used.
https://i.imgur.com/YTDpSW9.jpg
I have two backups, one working, one for parts ...

MatthewK, you possess a marvel of engineering.

heh heh
although mine will only trigger if the other slot is empty

oh my god, that is insane! I have pulled it apart several times but could never understand the mechanism.

fixed the link between the toilet handle and the plastic flusing thing earlier this year - it had rusted through after >20 years. replaced it with a 4" bit of coathanger but that has itself rusted through and broke again yesterday.

i've cut another bit off the same coathanger and replaced it, but i wonder if something like a zip-tie would be better. my worry is that the bottom of the link seems to be the only thing stopping the plunger thing disappearing completely into the flush mechanism to be lost forever.

you could try coating the coathanger in something that makes it rust resistant like plastikote if you have it?

yeah, wondering if if have any other plastic coated wire that'd work, like that usb cable that broke last week even. i'm not sure whether the link needs to be stiff or whether i can get away with something floppier, as long as the tensile strength is enough so it doesn't break when pulled.

and i can fix the plunger worry by adding something higher up the shaft - won't be in the way but will stop it from retracting completely.

i mean, zip tie sounds reasonable im just spitballing!

alternative solutions always welcome

You mean just the mechanism that pulls up the flapper? Isn't that often a lightweight chain?

It's not much of a repair, but just finding the name of the plastic thing along the side of a glass shower door was a challenge. It's an acrylic door stop, or jamb, or strike jamb! Decided to just glue it fixed first anyway.

there's a us/uk different with toilets and that goes for the internals as well.

https://www.tradewindsimports.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/300px-Toilet-cistern-01.png

the siphon there being the biggest difference. which i think means the pressure needed to pull is greater here. the old link was quite thick guage, probably 3x the coathanger wire (and perhaps galvanised to help against rust)

actually, here's a good pic, that bent wire there

https://www.ritefixdiy.co.uk/image/cache/catalog/Plumbing/Flush%20Syphon-500x500.jpg

A zip tie seems like it would work as a replacement - just needs to withstand an upward pull? And they have some rigidity, especially the longer/wider ones.

Is there a reason you can't just buy the actual replacement part? Hereabouts, a kit to replace all the inside bits is less than twenty dollars. Chains and flappers and things are significantly less.

Where's the fun in that, ymp?

ianap but maybe it needs to be stiff so you could e.g. stop it flushing by pushing the handle.

pushing pulling the handle.

there's a return spring in the siphon so theoretically it'll go back down itself. mine doesn't seem to want to, the wire's puling it slightly so it's no longer straight up and down.

eventually found the words to use to search for them and found them online, £2.50 for 2. just need to choose the right size. one size does not fit all.

yeah every time I've jury-rigged something in a toilet, I've regretted it. For a while I had a bread-bag twisty-tie as a temp repair; it rusted immediately.

I was today years old when I learned

there's a us/uk different with toilets and that goes for the internals as well.

Our ancient dryer stopped heating last week and I almost bought a new one before deciding to attempt repairs. I cleaned out the lint trap and exhaust duct, replaced the heating element, and have a working dryer again.

replaced the broken pipe connector for the faucet on my balcony so now we have water for the plants

the first day this has been an issue

Possibly helpful advice in this hot weather. Our outdoor umbrella's winding mechanism broke and I tried to repair it. Tip one: do not pull the cord out from the top of the pole! It's probably just come untied from the handle, remove the handle mechanism and use some wire to hook the cord out through the hole there. Like a fool I pulled ours all the way out and as our pole is hinged there's a tiny gap in the middle that you somehow have to thread the cord through. I eventually managed it by tying the cord to a long bit of garden wire that I straightened out, but of course I then discovered there's a plastic sleeve inside the pole near the bottom and instead of going through the large hole in the middle, the wire had somehow slipped between the sleeve and the metal pole, trapping the cord there. So that was an extra 20 minutes of teeth gnashing. Tip two: be extra sure a) you have all the handle parts and some of them haven't fallen out in the garden; ii) how the handle parts all fit together and 3) which direction the handle slots back in - the ratchet assembly only screws in on one side of the pole. Otherwise you may find yourself threading and unthreading and knotting and unknotting the cord, I don't know, three or four times. Tip three, tie the knot as close to the end as you can as they are not generous with the length of cord - or you might find yourself having to take the whole thing apart untie and retie the knot AGAIN.

But it's fixed now.

sounds like it's time to recover from the repair by sitting under the umbrella

Or I could sit in my sweltering loft while doing the 'working' from home I was enthusing about only a couple of days ago.

The other day one of our smoke detectors started beeping (not the alarm) so I assumed it needed a new battery and changed the 9v battery. But the next day another smoke detector started doing the same thing. And the day after that a *third* detector did the beep thing and I thought, hmm, odd that all the installed batteries should go bad within the same day. Then the one I changed first started doing the beep thing *again* and I suspected something was afoot. I replace the batteries in all of them, but I also order a cheap battery tester, and indeed, the batteries are not bad, it's the combo smoke/carbon monoxide detectors themselves that need to be replaced. That's what the beep of this brand was trying to convey. In fact, the way it apparently works is that they beep five times, and even if you reset them they start the beeping up again in a couple of days. And after a couple of weeks the intermittent beeping supposedly can't be silenced, ensuring that you absolutely *must* replace them. (Or I guess unplug them? Ours are wired.) Anyway, I had no idea these things go bad and need to be replaced! The downside is that they cost about $30 each, which ... sucks. But they're important, so you do what you gotta do.

I've got four wired ones in the upstairs that have a battery backup, and it started beeping at 4am because the battery had drained. I didn't want to dig around downstairs for batteries so I unhooked it which caused the other three to start beeping because they were alerting me that one was no longer connected.

Josh - I've had that happen, but they were older ones. They should all have a date stamped on them that is the date of manufacturer. Most are designed to "go bad" after a certain time has elapsed from that date, some are 7 years and others are 10, iirc. Some might even be less than that, but I would look at the dates to see how old they are.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DizArM0XcAIhyMv.jpg

Yeah, mine are c. 2013, so yeah, it's been about 7-8 years.

Need to replace the flapper seal on my toilet tank, going to try to do so tomorrow, when I was planning on deep cleaning the bathroom anyway. I am not great at plumbing stuff but also am not calling a guy who will charge me $100+ for twenty minutes of work.

Will let y'all know how it goes lol

Yeah that is one of the most frequent - possibly the most frequent - jobs that is realistic for a non-handy civilian to do. You'll be fine.

Yeah, i watched a short video on it and was like, "oh, i'll be fine" right after i posted here.

Anyway, I had no idea these things go bad and need to be replaced! The downside is that they cost about $30 each, which ... sucks.

yeah, that's why there are some that differentiate themselves from others by saying they last "10 years worry free" -- standard models don't last as long. $30/each is the cheap kind! "fancier" ones will run about $10-$20/more -- though the fancier ones were on sale at Home Depot today for about $35 -- the individually packaged ones. They also have "contractors packs" (of 2 or 3 or 4) -- which weren't on sale, why, idk.

I think the "10 years worry free" ones have a lithium battery built in. At least, I think that's what the "10 years" is referring to. Mine were hard wired combo smoke/carbon monoxide, so yeah, something like $32 each in the end, but I assume the lifespan (est. 7-10 years, iirc; mine made it to about 8) has something to do with the technology, not the battery, since the 9v batteries were still all good. The oddest thing was that at least a couple of them, the green operation light was still on when I flipped various breakers. In fact, one green light was pulsing, though most were solid. Maybe because they're wired together, or on their own circuit, or local codes when installed required them to be independent? Anyway, I get anxious around anything electrical, let alone devices designed to blare out an ear-piercing alarm when triggered, not to mention wired together to all go off at once, just inches from my ear when I'm standing on a ladder, so I just shut off power to the house and changed them all in 10 minutes or so. I think they could have been "hot swapped," but every instruction said to shut off the breaker first. Sure, most likely just to be safe, but I didn't want to fry a circuit somehow or whatever.

You can also get a kind that plugs into the wall that also has a battery backup -- so you don't have to deal with frying circuits and live wires.

Had no idea about these smoke alarms.

Had one connected to the wall through ... RCA cables? Started beeping even though there was no fire. Pull it off the wall... and it still beeps.

Find the battery and remove it. Still beeping. So now I'm convinced I got one of those possessed smoke alarms. Threw it out.

i bet the possession is related to the whole "smart home" thing -- like, yr smoke alarm was taking orders or having an argument with someone's smart fridge idk