non-fixie 

I prefer to stay close to home.

My lawn mower:

dddd

Lawn mowers for me, too. Even seemingly-dead, disposable electric-age things like the blown-out handle assembly on this battery-powered mower.

But gas mowers for me are a relaxing way to kill a few hours of iterative diagnostics/repair. And as simple as mowers are, I've known them to present myriad surprises!
And it's too common for me to use bicycle hardware in repairing all manner of non-bike things.

Restoring structure to a molded plastic clamshell assembly here meant adding select metal reinforcements inside, then flooding the insides with gorilla glue and damp newspaper. Then assemble very quickly and stand back as the glue foams up and makes possibly the biggest mess ever!
Picture me dancing around this thing with a hacksaw blade as a scraper and carrying a large rag for a good few minutes until the glue calmed down, having filled every cranny within those molded pieces with hardening foam.

Still using this one though, another couple of years having passed...

And luckily I remembered to cinch the dead-man's handle switch in the ON position using a toe strap before the hardening glue made that selection permanent!!!

bark_eater 

Past life...

bark_eater 

Oh what fun...

thinktubes 

bark_eater 

Greek to me. My dad could design that kind of stuff in his head, I tried to get him to start making analog guitar effects in the 90's , but he was on to other things, like beating a chess computer, successfully.

John E

I love this zombie thread. Since the mid-1970s my wife has called me "bicycle repairman," after the Monty Python skit. If something in the house, car, or ... bicycle ... broke while I was at work, I would come home to, "I have a job for bicycle repairman." For financial, environmental, and personal reasons, I tend to keep bicycles, appliances, electronic equipment, and cars for a long time, which becomes advantageous only to the extent that I can do much of the maintenance and repair work myself. This is also true of the house itself -- our first one was a 1928 duplex in west central Los Angeles, 46 years old and terribly neglected by a 14-year absentee landlord when we bought it. Our current house, built in 1974 and bought by us in 1981, is approaching that age.

house:
designed a new 2-car garage, hired out the foundation, framing, and roofing, did my own siding, garage door design and construction, and electrical. Converted existing 2-car garage into a "bonus room," now my wife's art and ballet studio. Replaced water heater twice over the years. Replaced full set of kitchen cabinets (modulars). Cut two openable skylights into the roof, drywalled in light wells for them. Replaced single-glazed windows with double-glazed. Replaced forced air gas furnace about 5 years ago.

appliances:
1996 Kenmore/GE Profile gas range: replaced igniter module, burner ignition switch, just got parts to replace two of the air mixing tubes;
2013 Whirlpool Cabrio clothes washer (unmitigated repair nightmare): transmission, suspension rods, water pump
2001 GE gas dryer: new drive belt (easy repair with a $7 part from Lowe's hardware chain)

cars:
2001 VW Passat wagon: timing belt/water pump job (great father-and-son project); tie rod ends (known VW/Audi weak link); mass airflow sensor; antilock brake control module; power mirror control knob; added CD player
1996 Audi A4 2.8 Quattro sedan: one-piece headlight conversion; cold solder joint in HVAC conrol; replaced ignition system; timing belt/water pump job
Postscript: I keep debating whether I have hit the end of the road on this one, after a short/meltdown in the power window circuitry in August. I know exactly what I need to do to replace the overheated wires, and I have replaced the wiring harness from the driver's door to the A pillar junction panel, but now I need to go wire-by-wire from the A pillar to the least-accessible relay panel up under the dash. It's a fun car to drive, and it was my younger son's first car, which he found on AutoTrader back in 2005, but, as he told me yesterday, "The juice may not be worth the squeeze at this point."

bikes:
many projects, restomods, repairs, upgrades
1959 Capo rebuilt from the frame up after CyclArt repaint

thinktubes 

Love that people still know how to fix things!

Since buying a house last year, I have become intimately familar with my furnace, dryer, dishwasher, underground drainage system, air-conditioner, masonry, roof, trees, and brick sidewalk. Can't imagine the $$$ if I had to farm all this out.

Pompiere

Partly from growing up in a farming community and partly from having a natural curiosity about how things work, I very rarely hire someone to fix things. I have taken apart a lot of things over the years and (most of the time) put them back together in working order.

When I brought this tractor home, it would start and run, but the lights and charging system did not work. A lot of the wiring was melted, so I found a schematic on the internet and fabricated a new wiring harness. It had been converted from 6 to 12 volts and the junk yard alternator was not working any more, maybe a victim of the melted wiring. With it all back together, everything works as it should. Now I need to tackle the carburetor and governor.



1958 International Cub LoBoy

This Kowa SeT single lens reflex camera came to me with a non working shutter. These are unusual in that they have a leaf shutter instead of a curtain shutter, so there are a lot of tiny parts that have to work in sequence. To take a picture, the shutter closes, the aperture sets, the mirror lifts, the shutter opens, the shutter closes, the mirror drops, the aperture opens, then the shutter opens. All that happens in 1/500 of a second! It has a fixed lens, so I had to disassemble it and work through the front. I found the errant leaf and reassembled everything in working order.



1960's Kowa SeT slr

dweenk

When I was a little kid (I am 70 now) my neighbor had a small farm and a Farmall Cub. He and his wife are gone now, but his kids own the house and the Farmall still runs.

Narhay

I saved a small amount of money refinishing the existing 1951 hardwood in my current home among many other projects. If theres anything I can give advice on it is to hire someone to do it for you. It was days of dusty, dirty misery. I generally dont want to hire people for much but that is one of them.

Your future self will thank you. You're welcome.

Classtime 

Repairing/restoring any "oldie but a goodie" is sooooo satisfying. We have a 15 year new house that needs 2/3 of the window sashes replaced because moisture has seeped inside the double paned windows which is not satisfying. This new house replaced a 63 year old house with 63 year old windows restored by me. A few years before we put the old house in the dumpster, I replaced the window sash springs and a piece of trim to make them operate and look as good as new. So cool! If we hadn't upgraded, I wouldn't have to now replace new windows. Reminds me of why I sold my 7900 brifter bits after the third set of shifter cables.

My kids will inherit my Sachs with its current set of shifter cables.

markwesti

Very cool , @bark_eater



Here is a job you will never have to do with your boat . What is your boat anyways ?


For those of you wondering what the old dude is doing , it's blister repair . Water gets into the layup , (various ways) and causes "blisters". They must be ground out and filled and fared . The boat is a Westsail 28 . "Patricia A"


006 by mark westi, on Flickr
IMG_3301 by mark westi, on Flickr

thumpism 

What he said. Sanding floors with a drum sander is the dustiest, most boring and blinding job with the potential for disastrous results at the tiniest lapse in attention that you could ever undertake to do.

Yes, it's doable. No, you don't want to do it. Pay the man.

oddjob2

👍🏻 Been there, done that, agree 100%. Rent 2 sanders, 1 buffer, 3 grits of paper, rollers, sponge brushes, $45/gallon Varithane, it adds up fast.

BFisher

Neat thread. This is a Singer 66 from the 1920's in a later table with electric motor conversion. When I found this it was dirty, the power cable was destroyed, the belt was bad, and the timing was off. I cleaned it up, replaced the bad wiring and belt, and set the timing. Works great. I don't sew, but my wife does.







Oh, also replaced the bobbin winder tire.

steelbikeguy

and here I was thinking I was the only person with Burr Brown op-amps in my parts box!

unfortunately, I've also got a whole variety of 35 year old IC's... and some similarly ancient data books.
I have no idea why I don't throw them out.
OTOH, I'm pretty sure I can trust my old IC's... unlike my old tires.

Steve in Peoria

mpetry912 

I am awed by the skill and resourcefulness of you guys ! Great pics, thanks for sharing!

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA USA

steelbikeguy

another C&V electronics project.....

The heart of the project is a 1950's Junghans ATO electro-mechanical clock. It's a neat clock... using a solenoid to give a tiny shove to the pendulum on each swing. With a weird square carbon-zinc battery in the base, it could run for a year or more.

Unfortunately, it used a mechanical switch to apply power to the solenoid. After so many decades of operation, the switch contacts were just worn out. Some sort of replacement was required.




My goal was to come up with some replacement for the switch that wouldn't wear out. The first proposed solution was design a sensor that would detect the pendulum position. Two types of sensors were tried, but neither could generate enough signal to work.
The solution was to use the voltage induced onto the solenoid coil as the curved magnetized rod at the end of the pendulum moves through the coil.

It was fun to solve a few of the problems associated with this approach.
A token scope photo (the scope is fairly C&V itself).....




and a shot of the circuit board that I hacked together. Not pretty, but okay for a one-of-a-kind board.



Steve in Peoria

thinktubes 

yep. This was part of a Polytone guitar amp which I bought as a pile of parts. Beckman analog scope is serious C&V.

complete thread on Jazz Guitar Forum

big chainring 

Getting these old American Flyer trains running after being stored for decades is very rewarding. Picked this set up at an estate sale. A few hours of cleaning and lubing and it smokes and chuffs like a charm.

bark_eater 

Its a post war Alden. Not my boat but the last project I had as a "have tools, will travel" shipwright. I certainly miss the shop space.

bark_eater 

I've had good luck using the big square sheet sanders, starting with the maximum 24 grit size. It takes longer to to do a floor but it makes the floor flatter if your at all careful, which can make a big difference if the last person wasn't that good with a drum sander. It also keeps the dust down low out of the air. You have to do a thorough clean up between grits to keep errant gravel from leaving marks as you work towards finer grits.

oddjob2

I never would have achieved as immaculate results. Well worth writing the big check. Saved me from ceramic tile installation in the foyer.

noglider 

My wife and I replaced a headlight bulb in her 2007 Prius yesterday. It was such a pain that we will hire a mechanic next time. It took the two of us one hour. So annoying.