What was the last thing you repaired?

Not exactly fixed, but yesterday I removed a fluorescent tube in my father-in-law’s garage and am going to buy a new one tomorrow. I realised I’d never replaced one before and had no idea how to remove it (this one needed turning 90 degrees and then the pins slip out the bottom). Apparently a good idea to replace the starter motor too so I’ll do that at the same time.

Also, had no idea what they were called in Spanish until I asked for one in a shop this lunchtime. (it’s a ‘barra’ if you ever need that info).

I realised I’d never replaced one before and had no idea how to remove it (this one needed turning 90 degrees and then the pins slip out the bottom). Apparently a good idea to replace the starter motor too so I’ll do that at the same time.

Yeah I have done a few of them over the years (growing up in the 70s when they were very popular probably helped). I don’t recall ever changing the starter at the same time. Also – I thought modern tubes didn’t need starters? Or do they need a different base for them to work?

Ah, didn’t know that – there’s a space for one so I’m guessing it will need something in there. I’ll ask in the local ironmongers tomorrow – they will literally know everything.

My oven. Quite fiddly but working again now 🙂

The house alarm and the cover for the boot area of my car.

The dishwasher. It stopped mid-cycle, googled the error code which identified a lack of incoming water. More googling said that the most likely suspect was the solenoid valve that controls the incoming water.

A bit of dismantling later, I had the valve disconnected from the internal electrics – it’s one of those where the solenoid is integrated into the water supply pipe. I knocked together a mains test cable from the box of useful electrical bits in the garage, which confirmed the solenoid was knackered.

For bonus satisfaction points I found a local independent parts guy who had a replacement in stock at a good price, he even delivered it for free the same day.

Some of you may like this

Air con pipe in my Alfa. The crimping around the rubber pipe, where it connects to the aluminium solid pipe, was showing signs of splitting but there was no evidence of leaking (unlike another one I had to replace recently, at huge cost).

I made up a clamping block to reinforce the crimping, thus:

Tow bar wirinng on the T4 camper. What a pain. Can’t even feel the bilb release tabs let alone see them. Crappy chocolate blocks every where. Done now.

Laid a carpet this morning.

Rebuilt two kitchen cabinets Weds. All reinforeced with solid wood. Good job I have a circular saw.

But is it a Festool circular saw? 😉

Roland UA25 sound card with a faulty USB socket

Our Renault Scenic handbrake switch (contact cleaner) and the heater blower fan (replaced resistor pack).

Still to fix are the rear windows (I think the motors are blown) and the poor radio reception

Stripped the rust and paint off my XC90 subframe in preparation for zinc coating then new bushes.

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Really satisfying home fix today.  Mrs Scape stood on the floor by the kitchen door and said it felt spongey. Lifted the lino, sorry, “bespoke vinyl floorcovering” and found a layer of ply that was clearly flaky, then under that the chipboard floorboard had blown and disintegrated.

Happy few minutes lifting it all away, dreading to discover some sort of leak, but no, it looked like it was just from wet boots, dogs and a bit of rain over the sill.

A couple of leftover fence palings, a layer of hardboard,  then a piece of ply cut from a figure 11 target board and all was  fixed. I even got to repurpose a leftover box of cable clips as I couldn’t find any appropriate nails to tack down the hardboard.

Mrs Scape takes the  piss because I hoard lumps of leftover timber but it really paid off today!

This week I repaired both the kids walking boots which have fallen appart due to 10 days of soaking scout camp in the uk and several rocky walks out here in the Picos. Not only that, I repaired my own keen sandals which brok (TBF these are about 12 yrs old) And I had to go into a Spanish diy place and get the right adhesive and whittle a stick for adhesive application. All holding up so far.

Also – I thought modern tubes didn’t need starters? Or do they need a different base for them to work?

If you’re replacing a regular fluorescent tube with an LED tube, which is what you really ought to be doing, then you replace the old starter with a dummy, otherwise the light won’t work, it has to have something there to make sure the circuit is complete.

I’ve had an LED tube in my kitchen overhead fitting for a few years, although I’ve got a series of spotlights and under-cabinet lights that I use, if I do need it, the fact that it comes on instantly without that irritating ‘bink, bink, bink…’ and the light is a clean white without that ghastly greenish tinge. Plus there’s no starter to fail causing the light to start flickering and flashing on and off.

I didn’t have a photo of the little lava lamp when I posted about it, so here it is lava-ing happily away 😁

my audi aircon has never worked, but the heaters not much good either.

One of the air flaps packed up, so couldnt get cool air in the car. Theres 5 of these motor/flaps, one is impossible to get at.  It wasnt that one though, so the glove box came out, and i took the motor off, and took it apart. You have to hold a plastic clip open with one hand, open the next clip with the other hand, while holding it and opening the next clip with another hand.

the gear was stuck but freed easily. The motor worked, the pot resistance was good, it was put back together and didnt work again

i stripped it right down,sprayed all the plastic gear with  silicon oil and reassembled it. The gear was sticking in one place, and i couldnt see why I triple checked everything, sprayed it some more and put it back together and back in the car and reset the values and tested it with the software.

Its still making some clicking noises, but the car is a lot cooler,and hopefully wont go wrong again, fingers crossed. If it does i shall disconnect it and keep the flap open

My brand new warranty replacement paddleboard. Walking it through a gate, misjudged it and tapped some barbed wire with the tail. 😭

Patch on but it’s spoiled the new look for sure.

My mini lathe. The white plastic things in the foreground are the high speed /  low speed gears. I stripped a couple of teeth off one. To fix it you need to completely dismantle the lathe to remove the headstock, press out the spindle, press out the layshaft and reverse. I don’t have a press so I bought 2 pieces of steel plate and used 12mm studding to make a press. A bearing puller and new Thor aluminium / nylon faced 2lb hammer completed the job.

Along the way I found out just how badly the lathe had been assembled.

The white plastic bits have been replaced with steel ones, all the bearings replaced with brand name ones (including angular contact bearings for the spindle, top tip, check which way round they go before fitting them to avoid having to do the job twice). If something breaks now it’s likely to be the motor pulley or belt, they’re much easier to replace.

Replaced the wheels on a Samsonite suitcase, the wheels were ok except that the rubber bit on the outside had fallen off one of them.

Found some new ones on Amazon which were a bit too large, so just filed the rubber down, taking 2mm off the diameter.

Samsonite suitcase wheels by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Does refurbishing my troll count?  I have been fitting new hir to the bald ones and making them new clothes

Fixed a mailbox for a neighbour and got a feel good vibe out of all proportion to the scale of the job.

We live on a remote bridleway out in the cuds with just 3 houses, the nearest a couple of hundred metres from me. The elderly lady who lives there lost her husband last year. She has no family, few friends and doesn’t drive. We keep an eye out for her and help where we can.

She asked me to take a look at the wooden homemade box as it was starting to come apart. Her old fella had made it and she didn’t want to replace it as it reminded her so much of him.  It was clear it had real sentimental value. The steel mesh bottom was falling out, the lid was rotten, hinges rusted up and the wood was split in several places. Only took me an hour or so to fix and a couple more for the varnish on a new lid to dry and some wood glue to go off.

She was absolutely made up and a little tearful when I dropped it off. I thought I was in an episode of the Repair Shop!  Properly chuffed to have made someone’s day with such a simple thing.

Melted the handle on my Wusthof chef’s nice. Filed off the melted bit and then smoothed it with some wet and dry.

A nice one at work today.

Rayburn Heatmaster range cooker. I had changed the consumer unit, when turned back on, the range was dead. Rang up the Technical Helpline, no idea was their response, probably a PCB failure. Rang up the chap who services it, he had no idea too, but said take the display pcb off to check the connection on the back. Took it off, all was good, then notice a CR2032 battery on the PCB. Hmm, I’ve had similar before where the back up battery is dead, and the item won’t work. Changed the battery, and all working again. Very relieved with that, as the householder was looking at me as the one who broke her range cooker.

The key from one of the works vans. The switches that lock and unlock it had come apart and we thought a £300 bill was due. Fortunately all the pieces of the microswitch assembly were still within the key body. Some delicate tweezer work re-assembled both switches. The the caps of 4 presta valves were trimmed to provide new plipper buttons taped over the microswitches. A new battery and the key functioned almost like new.

Our inflatable kayak.

It’s only been out 10 times in 4years (COVID+ 3 year old+ pregnant wife)

Found leak one on a seam, patched it thinking it would not hold.

Deflated the next day.

This evening it’s been quiet enough to listen for leaks.

Found a second big fat hole in an easy to patch place.

Patch glued on, hopefully it will stay inflated tomorrow 😊

Our outdoor table got smashed when the verandah roof fell on it. We put it to one side and we’re getting a new one made. The timber for the new one will need a bit longer to dry so I thought I would take a look and see what was needed to repair it. Turned out to be really simple. The only part that couldn’t just be glued was a corner ‘wedge.’ So this afternoon I remade that and put it back together. Rushed a bit when fitting it and didn’t pre-drill the first screw which caused a slight split, but it should be ok.

Reeksy your grass needs mega attention.

Sort that shit out you have no excuse. Standards should be upheld regardless of any megastorm house tree interface carnage.

Fair enough 😆

The plumbers have put all the stormwater pipes underneath the ‘lawn’ but we’re not really lawn people so it doesn’t really look any different!

Fixed the tumble dryer after it went from squeaking to sounding like it had a brick rattling around in the drum. Took it apart expecting the bearing to have worn out but it turned out the drum shaft had sheared off too.

All quiet and working again for £18

Two things!

The battery on my Pixel 6 swelled up a few weeks ago* 🙄

Although it’s still under warranty I would have had to pay for a new screen as it’s got a small crack in it. So I bought a new battery kit from iFixit and tackled it yesterday.

Amazingly it wasn’t a difficult job and I took my time – result is pretty perfect.

Second job was on the central heating.  Switched it on the other day, for the first time since the summer, and although the [Drayton] wireless system said the boiler should be firing it wasn’t.

Their digistat wireless receivers have a capacitor that wear out every X years.

This is the second one I’ve done in the 22 years we’ve been here.

Did some soldering and fitted a new one for £4. All working again.

* I think it was because I’d charged it the night before using one of those usb ports built into hotel room bedside light switches 😠

I’ve always charged it wirelessly up til then.

Pool pump has been making a fair bit of noise … pulled it apart and discovered a spacer had worn its way through the diffuser. Replaced it.

Our washing machine started making lumpy noises and bouncing round the laundry. Opened the door and saw the drum had dropped a couple of inches. Took the top off and saw that one of the two big springs that the drum hangs off was loose.

Where the spring hooks through an eye hole on the drum casing it used to have a nylon sleeve, which has gone AWOL at some point. The bare metal of the spring has then slowly worn through the eye hole.

(The two holes at the sides were drilled by me as part of the bodge)

So I knocked together a couple of plates out of a bit of scrap steel (an old L-bracket) and bolted them to the sides of the flange, creating a new eye hole for the spring.

Simple enough except that the flange was in a really small space. Couldn’t get a drill in there, or my knock-off Dremel. Had to resort to a puny micro-dremel to that I use for tidying up 3D prints. It can only take a 2mm drill bit so I had to drill small holes and use sideways pressure on the drill bit to (very, very slowly) remove enough material to get my 5mm bolts through. Good as new, at least the washing machine should make it to its 15th birthday next month!

I’ve recently discovered JB Weld and keep hoping things break so I can miraculously save them. Last thing was the food waste bin, the binmen had given it a good hiding with a gaping Y shaped crack going the whole height. Before that did the car windscreen reservoir leak. Last weekend after a very muddy ride I switched the tap on to hose the mud off the old Sub 5 and heard a pop. The newish Karcher lance must have had ice inside and the handle burst open with the pressure. So that’s next on the list.

Why did it take me so long to discover JB, that stuff can fix anything.

This happened

So I smoothed the tear down and glued a bit of old canvas on top

Kept it flat while it dried

Then carefully filled the canvas until leveland painting over

Anmyone want a cheap painting? One (not very) careful owner 🙂

Our 15 yr old + bread maker which we’d passed on to no. 2 daughter snuffed it. I said I’d have a look. When turned on it lit up and made a noise but no drive. Guessed it was the belt. Checked up and you need a special tool to get the bottom off to get it it. Sod that. Half an hour with a small drill bit followed by a bit of attention with a hammer and a screwdriver and the belt and pulleys were revealed.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0cdTh39Rnn5FTwTrnhmFaE2-g

£13 odd for a new belt off eBay plus a strip down and lube of the bearings. Jobs a good ‘un.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0ball7-UPSom2O2qbNQuToirA

Gaffer tape to put the bottom back on again.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0076TdxIsx1VPnf6TeyxMMNkw

My Heals sofa broke so I fixed it. I got it from the Heals outlet some years ago for half price (£2k instead of £4k) so it wasn’t covered by a lifetime warranty.

The new webbing wasn’t as substantial so I used more span and lots of staples:

I also had to add an extra layer of dense foam as the webbing is now attached on the opposite side of the cross beam than it was.

May or may not be slightly firmer now, I am not sure.

Don’t think Heals stuff is as well made as it was – wasn’t very impressed on examination. The cross beam had split because of a badly placed nail shot into the side of it during assembly.

Good work. 👍

My fence, well three of the four panels damaged from the storm last week. Knew the middle beam was rotten but turns out most of that part is beyond repair. Now standing upright and held together with old decking boards, couple of bungee cords, any solid old chunks of wood that was lying around and a couple of untreated batons. It’s going to need a professional later in the year along with the decking that I went through when fixing the fence – also fixed the hole in the decking by covering it so I couldn’t see it!