Beaten by a switch

[dadiOH]

I'm preparing to paint a room and was removing the switch/receptacle covers. One of the boxes has a Lutron Glyder dimmer switch. That switch has a cross piece...push on/off, slide to dim or brighten. Here's a photo:

The cross piece keeps the cover from being removed. The obvious solution is "remove the cross piece". My question is, "How?" I've tried pulling, twisting and prying, doesn't budge. I KNOW it comes off, has to, I put in the switch in the first place. Anybody know?

[Jon Danniken]

My guess would be to pull harder, possibly using a piece of wood behind the cross piece to use as a lever.

Jon

[Tony Hwang]

Hmm, Yes but I know one thing if you remove it a few times it gets loose. I'd just cover it with masking tape and start painting instread losing time on it.

[Nate Nagel]

I don't know the answer to your question, but apparently the entire rest of the universe paints right over the covers and switches (except for Yours Truly, who is very annoyed by that practice.)

nate

[David L. Martel]

Dadi,

Tight "push-ons" can often be levered off using a couple of soup spoons as levers.

Dave M.

[dadiOH]

No tab that I see. Where did you find instructions?

[David L. Martel]

Dadi,

Dave M.

[Retired]

lower right hand corner of first page

[woodchucker]

Can't you pry the cover at the ends then twist it around and fit it through the slot?

[krw]

You aren't the only exception. I had my other house professionally painted. They painted around them but it still pissed me off. It was obvious that they didn't remove them.

[dadiOH]

Thanks. I'll pull harder :)

[dadiOH]

Nope.

[micky]

Glue it back on with Ambroid Cement. Sticks to almost anything, dries quickly, strong, but not so strong you can't break it when you need to. Never grows old if you keep the cap on the tube. I had a tube that I used on occasion and it was as good 20 years later as it was when I bought it.

IIRC I remove excess either with a knife or by rubbing it a lot with my fingers. I'm not sure if the solvent in the cement will damage the wall plate or not. Probably not, since it's used to assemble plastic modesl, but test on the back of the plate.

Only available in hobby and model stores, model airplanes, etc.

[micky]

Not my mother or me. My mother once hired a blind man to paint the interior, and she saved money by removing and later replacing all the wall plates herself. He couldn't see well enough to do that part, but he did a nice job on the paint. I was at school during the day so I don't know how blind he was, but that's what she said.

[micky]

Easy. Just remove about one square foot of the wall and take it to an electrician or electrical supply house. They'll show you how.

[Tony944]

I never took one apart by the look at picture you prime up edges twisted at

90 degree and it should come off.

[nestork]

I would put the slide in the middle position so that you can move the wall plate away from the wall as far as possible, wrap a piece of masking tape around it's perimeter and sneak a brush over the area of the wall covered and bordered by the wall plate.

I agree with Tony on this one. It's not worth spending a lot of time finding out how to properly remove that knob when you can work with the situation you have reasonably well.

[Pavel314]

Does the cross piece rotate? From the picture, it looks like the cover would slip over the cross piece if it were rotated 90 degrees. Or maybe you could rotate the cover.

Paul

[Stormin Mormon]

I saw a metal sink painted over, in a cheap apartment, one time. Yikk. Disgusting. Also painted over switches, sockets, and probably cockroaches.

[The Daring Dufas]

I've used small needle nose pliers like a pickle fork ball joint removal too to remove stuck knobs. The trick is to have something to cover your fulcrum point on the cover to prevent damage. If you have a popsicle stick and a fork you don't care too much about, with the power off, of course, slide the fork under the flat knob and use the wooden stick under the fork to protect the plastic cover and pry against the popsicle stick to pop the knob off. It should work without scarring op the plastic. ^_^

TDD