repairing things

I recently "repaired" a slat on an outdoor table by holding the slat in place with a paint stirring stick that I wood glued under it.

My fave DIY story was when I had to change a lightbulb in my car, which shouldn't be that difficult except that everything is more difficult in cars these days because they all require computers and stuff (which is ironic, because the computers make things easier ... for the people with the right program/disc/whatever; see: special screwdriver). I look up a youtube video and it was a bit trickier than I might have expected but even so, the video was something like 45 minutes long, which seemed a bit high to change a lightbulb. I get what I need from the store and dive in and ... it takes me more like 10 minutes, because it turns out that the only reason the video was 45 minutes was because the dude was filming himself with one hand while he did the lightbulb change with the other. With two hands, it took 10 minutes.

screwing a plastic coca cola lid into the floor as an improvised doorstop and his pièce de résistance was then colouring it black with a sharpie marker pen!

omg this is hilarious!!!!! hahahah

a repair manual that repair people have access to.

yes, this was what I was trying to find online for my fridge/freezer ... and how I learned that so many fridges are the same fridge with different names.

Can't find one for my sewing machine either.
Drag.

one thing I did discover online, which was cool, is there are websites for repair people that are like, diagnostics-for-dummies kinda? ... like, "it is 50% likely the problem is actually this" vs. "it is highly unlikely that when the thing has this problem, you will need to replace this part" ... that's how I figured out what was wrong with my fridge sans manual.

Having gone down the rabbit hole of this sort of thing for cars, I was happy that my assumption that there would be the same for household things was correct.

At some point I need to take a sewing refresher course, or just sew some things again. it has been awhile

join us on ILX Sewing!

Four weeks after I replaced the support roller in the dryer, the drum stopped spinning. Presumably it's the belt. It's something I could fix (especially now that I already know how to take apart the dryer), but then what's going to go next? It's clearly an old dryer. So I said fuck it and ordered a new dryer.

I fixed my dyson (new battery)

microwave still sat behind the sofa, waiting for me to change the fuse. will only take 30 minutes, if that, and will pay for itself, timewise, within 3 cups of coffee / 2 bowls of porridge, but still...

I had (to me) a kind of fascinating microwave fix to do a year or so ago. I'd noticed that the microwave every once in a while would kind of behave as if there were a small piece of metal in it. Basically freak out and force me to turn it off. I could't figure out what was going on, and while a close inspection didn't reveal any answers, it did reveal this little square of relatively flimsy cardboard on the side that I'd never noticed before. It turns out this thing is called the waveguide cover, or magnetron cover, and is actually not cardboard:

It covers the magnetron (which is what generates microwaves) from food splatter and debris. It is not made out of cardboard, even if it looks that way on some models. It's made out of Formica-molten rock and shaped into a sheet.

What had happened, or what I was able to surmise, is that over the years the thing did its job, but in the process got a bit of splatter stuck to it, and that splatter of food, over time, got cooked and cooked over and over again until it essentially carbonized, and *that* is what was causing the sparking. Once I figured that out it was easy enough to take off and clean the waveguide cover.

done the microwave, was easy enough to put a new fuse in without touching anything metal, not even the fuse... (the wire was stiff enough that i could hold it by the insulation and push it over the fuse, then pick the fuse up by the same wire and push the other wire onto it). but haven't plugged it back in to test it yet - i wiped down the cover and am waiting for it to dry before reassembling.

win. after 2 months the microwave makes things hot again.

(i also wiped down the mica window over the magnetron, just in case)

bless you both!

I didn't know that the cover was mica, I always assumed it was cardboard.

We had some guests over in the backyard last night, and after they left, I half-drunkenly loaded the dishwasher, pressed start and ... nothing. Just a blinking red light indicating it wasn't latching. Except I heard it latch, and it's less than a year old and has worked well so far, so no way should things be falling apart this soon. I load and reload all the gross, covid-y dishes and glasses multiple times, but no dice. Still, I notice that if I push on the front of the dishwasher after I press start it *does* seems to work (until I remove the pressure; then it stops again), which implies, yeah, a latching issue. It's pretty late and I just want to lie down, but I also want this full dishwasher clean when I wake up, so I spend several more minutes googling potential solutions. Indeed, the blinking red light means it's not latching, and the only solution is either inspecting and fixing the latch (which involves 20 minutes of disassembly) or replacing the latch (which involves ordering a $50 part and ... 20 minutes of disassembly). Or, I suppose, calling a technician to come out, which even if covered by warranty would mean several days of no dishwasher. Regardless, it's late, so I go upstairs and pass out. (Figuratively speaking.)

I wake up with a start sometime pretty early this morning, like before 6am (it's still dark). I realize the dishwasher still needs attention, and it's annoying me so much that I can't fall back asleep. I go downstairs, make coffee, take an Advil, then get to work googling, reading forums and watching DIY youtube videos, figuring there has to be a simpler solution than taking the whole thing apart and/or paying for a repair. I remove everything in the entire bottom rack, and then the rack itself: doesn't help. Then I start taking everything out of the top rack and ... there was one coffee mug turned around just enough in its place that its handle was protruding out from the back of the rack the *tiniest* bit. Aha! The simple solution. I rotate the mug maybe 10 degrees, reload everything, press start and ... fixed!

Basically, I am a genius. Bosch should pay *me.*

either all dishwashers matter, or none do

i burnt my tongue this morning on microwaved porridge.

Serves you right for repairing the microwave.

the god of inbuilt obsolescence is a vengeful god

Oh god, I've had a frustrating weekend with trying to repair a broken toilet handle and I'm still not done with it. Should be one of the most basic, simple fixes on a toilet, no? Unhook the chain, unscrew the flange, pull out the old one and reverse for the new one. Except whomever renovated our bathroom years ago installed a side mounted handle on a toilet that was less than 3 inches from a chase wall - so no angle to slide the new handle lever in directly.

They make "universal mounts" that are designed to fit any configuration (front-mount, side- and angle-), with the supposed benefit of the bulk of the lever being installed from inside the tank and you only attach the handle on the outside last. Great, except the hole for our side mount handle it so close to the front wall of the tank that none of the three versions I've tried will fit and still turn for flushing.

Also tried an allegedly bendable plastic one that was super cheap, but that snapped as soon as I tried to maneuver it into the side.

So five hours and three trips to Home Depot, still no luck. The guy I talked to there told me that I have "no choice but to replace the whole toilet", but I refuse to believe that because, a) come on, and b) a moron at Home Depot also told me a few years ago that I would have to replace my entire kitchen sick faucet when the sprayer hose broke, but actually it turned out I could buy a $7 sleeve online and fix it in 15 minutes myself.

So going to try the local Ace today to see if they have any suggestions. Some online research indicates there are metal handle levers that are a little bendable so that I can get it angled in and straightened out. I certainly hope so, because having to take off the entire toilet to replace a handle seems absolutely batshit to me.

And Josh, I feel you. Our microwave decided to give out in the middle of all of this yesterday. Googling tells me it's likely donezo for good, so it appears microwave shopping in the pandemic is also in my near future.

Keep the toilet, demolish the wall. Problem sorted.

No, more seriously, could you take the tank off, replace the handle on the tank while it is detached, and then reattach the tank?

Not quite visualizing your problem so I don't know if that's feasible.

I'd have to see if the tank is detachable. Not near it at the moment, but I want to say that it's all one piece - the bowl and tank are all molded together. I think going down that route would mean taking off the lugs and lifting the whole toilet off, which I'm not exactly stoked to do - I foresee a mess and a few cracked floor tiles in my future.

I've done it a few times and it wasn't THAT bad.

But - hate to say so in this thread - at some point it may be cheaper and more efficient to just have a plumber do it.

I've certainly done plenty of five-hour sagas with multiple trips to HD... And then reflected that if I valued my time at even minimum wage, I would have come out way ahead by calling a professional and handing them $200.

You probably aren't wrong, I'm going to give Ace one more go (since I have a few other things I can grab while I'm there) and see if that helps, then maybe call in the pros. I certainly thought this would be a quick run for the part and a 10 minute fix, not the saga it became. Had I known Friday where this would go I might have just called someone from the start.

Certainly removing the tank would be easier than removing the entire toilet, which can be a PIA, because all/most of them (iirc?) have a sort of wax seal/ring at the base you'd have to replace as well. But it's definitely doable.

I learned a lot about that wax seal when my bf fixed his toilet with his brother's help, and his brother said you could add a new seal without removing the old one, which worked great until a few weeks/months later when the toilet clogged because too much wax seal had squeezed out and blocked it.

i bought a accordion on ebay and it arrived today with the bass keys all in the wrong shape so i screwed open the panel and it was a bit like a typewriter (i have a knack for repairing typewriters, they make sense to me) and i messed around until it all seemed to be in order and screwed it back together and now it seems to be working fine! didn't even consult youtube!

sidenote i'm learning the accordion now

Yeah I've read enough stories about dealing with/replacing the wax ring that I'm super nervous to go down that route.

Toilet wax rings are NBD if you have gloves and scraping tools. I used a small plaster "knife". Remember, its all designed so even a drunken plumber can do it.

Yeah, the toilet in question does not have a tank that can be removed, it's all one piece. So here's opening I can find a malleable metal lever.

laptop:
replaced faulty dc port

I've had a laptop sitting around for almost two years with what I believe is a busted DC port and I finally got off my ass to order the part in the mail. It seems like an easy fix, so here's hoping that's the problem.

What had happened, or what I was able to surmise, is that over the years the thing did its job, but in the process got a bit of splatter stuck to it, and that splatter of food, over time, got cooked and cooked over and over again until it essentially carbonized, and *that* is what was causing the sparking. Once I figured that out it was easy enough to take off and clean the waveguide cover.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, October 18, 2020 6:45 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is fun. splatter on the waveguide aperture will absorb more energy because the field is still concentrated there. the field diffracts and spreads out further away from the aperture, so the food splatter absorbs less energy there and won't 'spark'. A similar thing can happen in fiber optics, where the waveguide is a glass fiber with field concentrated to a ~9 micron diameter. If you connect an optical fiber with a similar cleaved output aperture to enough optical power, any dust or other contamination on the fiber's output aperture will burn. In fiber optics work, we are always looking at the cleaved ends of fibers with "fiber scopes" to check for this kind of contamination. If we find it, we clean the fiber end with specialized tools (or maybe a kimwipe soaked in IPA). congrats, you have now completed at least 33% of a phd in fiber optics.

if you inspect a fiber end in the scope and forgot to turn off a laser, you could permanently damage your retina. in that case, the splatter might save your vision.

Last time I replaced a wax ring I got one of the new fangled foam rings (after seeing someone on This Old House use one and I tend to trust them) and it has been fine so far and way less never wracking than trying to not to nick the wax and cause a leak that shows up after a few weeks.

microwave buzzed this morning and porridge came out cold. so i guess the fuse was a symptom and not the cause. i have 4 more, but at the current rate that won't last me past the end of the month.

So, yes, my local Ace had the solution - a brass handle that was malleable enough that I could get it in through the side and bend back in place. Worked like a charm.

Can I also just add that Home Depot is one of the most useless chain stores I've ever dealt with? I'm well aware of the owner's odious politics, but there is one that is five minutes from my house while a Lowe's or Menard's is a twenty minute drive away, meaning it can be a necessary evil in the middle of a project. But this is now the third time in about five years I've gone in looking for a very specific part that I knew was exactly what I needed to fix something, only for their employee to insist that the part I needed didn't exist and that I would have no choice but to replace the entire thing I was trying to fix. Once I could write it off as an employee that doesn't know any better, but at this point I can only assume its a corporate policy to not stock common repair parts and instead steer customers to a full replacement.

Menard's owner even more evil than Home Depot, iirc

Checks out. I can't say I've been in one of those for 15 years or so.

owner's odious politics

To be fair, it's the co-founder's politics, and the co-founder retired from the company back in 2002.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lowes-versus-home-depot-meme/

I swore I thought there was something more recent about Home Depot donating to something pretty awful, but I could be wrong.

there was one coffee mug turned around just enough in its place that its handle was protruding out from the back of the rack the *tiniest* bit. Aha! The simple solution. I rotate the mug maybe 10 degrees, reload everything, press start and ... fixed!

Basically, I am a genius. Bosch should pay *me.*

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, October 19, 2020 8:51 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I had a rental with a bosch dishwasher and for some reason stuff like this happened to me all the time - there would be like one little plastic spatula protruding slightly somewhere on the top rack and I couldn't close the door and couldn't figure out why

Bosch leaves no door unopened

I still think Bosch should release a line of dishwashers with front panels by Hieronymus Bosch.

Like, you'd put your cereal bowl in there and close it, and bam. Upside-down demons with trumpets in their butts. Melting skulls. Laughing donkeys wearing lederhosen. Awesome.

Jvc, the employee turnover rates at Home Despot and BLowe's are about as high as they come. Lots of seasonal workers, lots of people coming and leaving after a few weeks or months, etc.

The work is hard and sometimes dangerous, and the pay is shit.

I'm not scolding you, just noting that the people you talked to might not have known what the fuck they were talking about. It's baked into their whole employment model

Oh I get it, I always try to be polite to the workers there because I’ve been in their shoes in retail and I don’t blame them for dumbass corporate decisions. Still it’s kinda maddening when someone is swearing up and down that you have to buy a whole new toilet to replace a ten dollar part.

On the other hand, I had to go to Home Depot the other day, and as I was walking around I passed what I assume to be an off-duty employee, an older lady, by all indications packed up and ready to leave for the day, no uniform or smock or store identification, yet she immediately asked me what I was looking for and pointed me to the precise aisle I could find it in.

just repaired an extraction fan that was installed by an idiot (the builder who did our kitchen) real cowboy stuff of the kind calzino describes elsewhere in this thread. literally just stuck together with bluetac. Bought a couple of clips and the correct size reducer and it all seems properly sturdy now.