Plastic lugs on kitchen appliances

[AnthonyL]

Typically for small mixers and choppers the "bowl", usually clear plastic, has three lugs which are rotated into plastic/rubber recesses on the body. Obviously the fit has to be tight enough to stop what ever is being mixed/chopped from escaping.

My wife seems to break these lugs with regularity and then goes out and buys another machine or replacement parts. Either way it's costly.

Any suggestions including:

1) Rebuilding snapped off lugs 2) Lubricating the assembly 3) Techniques for smooth removal

and/or anything else that might work.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Buy bowls that are not clear plastic.

I have a blender that is glass bodied and needs no rotating, I don't have a mixer, but if I did it would be stainless steel bowled.

Don't try and contravene nature.I bought 'the Ex' a Miehle ashing machine on the principle even she couldn't break it.

Buy decent stuff- styrene crap is for the Sharons.

>

[Max Demian]

4) Replace wife.

[GB]

Buy Kenwood Chef or Magimix.

Incidentally, I like the wife I have. You probably likewise. Do all wives have a tendency to force mechanical bits and break them? Small price to pay for the love, companionship, and ....

[Thomas Prufer]

Stick em back on. This

"UHU Model-Making Glue Allplast"

works for me, on many plastics. It's a diffusion weld glue aka solvent weld glue, i.e. dissolves the plastic parts at the join, they mix, and the solvent evaporates, the parts are now welded together. (The above leaves behind some gummy bit that holds the solvent in place for longer, AFAIK).

The chance of making lasting repair is about 90%, IME -- let the join dry for 24 hours, though.

Thomas Prufer

[Nick Odell]

Thank you for that.

Last night EQDSO broke yet another set of earphones and today I will mostly be putting them back together again. (I keep a small stock of replacement bits for this purpose.) But you helped me put it into perspective. If the worst thing I have to complain about is repetitive headphone destruction then I am a pretty lucky chap.

Nick

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Its not just kitchen appliances. my Bosch vacuums lugs that old the filter pads on the back snapped. Who thought that hard plastic should be used as a spring? so it now has two self tapping screws in the back instead.

My Shavers heads are held in or were by a push fit little double lug made of plastic. This had one half break off on reassembly, plastic again. Had to resort to just packing it out instead. Garden lights where the globe bits push and twist on, the plastic goes brittle in two years of uv and frost and breaks up. As to what to do about food mixer bowl holders based on this principle. Depending on the design, some can be fixed by merely gluing a few bits of metal to the bottom and using those under the edge twist on flange. If its the base that breaks then its a bit more of a problem in my experience since there seems to be nowhere solid enough to mount anything, most ladies do not like the look of such repairs as above and buy a new one. I agree its a stupid way to design things, but its gone on for years. Remember cassette recorders with lids that flew off on eject or Videos and tellies where the station preset doors catch always broke. What about the hinges on battery compartment doors on radios that broke or the catch stopped catching. Plastic brittleness again. Then there is that stupid rubbery material put onto hand grips of things that goes so sticky it is unusable. Cameras binoculars and hand tools are prone to that one.

Bah humbug. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

There are despite the unlikelyness of it, some people whom by merely being in close proximity to devices, cause them to fail. I really do not know what it is, whether its some kind of invisible disruptive field or what, but I believe it exists. I remember when I worked testing pcbs for tvs back in the 1960s, I could go many months with no faults to the test gears cable looms and plugs. I go on my holidays and the person doing my job would say, I don't know how you cope, it kept on breaking down and I had to get the engineers in. Brian

[AnthonyL]

There are a couple of Kenwood machines (not Chef) in the pantry. I vaguely recall a Magimix but that's gone.

She wants something small just for chopping.

There is no way the lugs can break in rotation unless being totally forced, and strongly, the wrong way. But if the bowl is tilted in the process that would do it and is what I suspect happens.

[GB]

Buy a Magimix Mini Chopper. That's £50, but it's cheap compared to a divorce.

[Max Demian]

But plastic lasts forever!

I bought a steamer from Argos and after a few years the plug disintegrated. Then the steamer bowls started to crack up. Finally the lid cracked to pieces. That was after about ten years, but why wait so long?

[tabbypurr]

Get some 1920s headphones and no-one'll ever break them again.

[Nick Odell]

<Grin>

Or an aviation headset, maybe?

These are flat, Panasonic on-ear types. If she wakes in the night she listens to the radio and they allow her to turn over on her pillow...

...until turning, she drags the radio(1) off the bedside table the force of gravity on same dragging off the headphones.

Nick (1) I have three, nice, Sony radios waiting for me to get around to repairing the antenna coils.

[Max Demian]

Where will you get a crystal set to use them with?

[Andrew]

Women seem to be particularly good at destroying things that should last longer.

[Andrew]

Ditto Kenwood mixers. Get an older one and it will be built like a tank.

[Andrew]

Board and a decent knife ?

[Andrew]

The "repair shop" refurbed an ex German WW2 Pair of ?Zeiss binoculars that had been 'expropriated' by a UK navy captain when the sub was intercepted in 1945. No gooey rubber, just three layers of paint, Original Green, then battleship grey that the Navy commander repainted it in, and then black that his son painted it in again. Considering the hostile salty environment and 70 years later, I was quite surprised that it came apart at all.

Andrew

[JohnP]

@Unfortunately they sthing that a "wiggle" is what is needed to assemble and disassemble - as they have no empathy with the design. I whince whenever I see my wife plugging in her phone for a charge. The concept of looking at the plug to see which way up it should go is too much trouble - prefers a bit of force - if that fails then reverse it.

[AnthonyL]

I bet they could fix the plastics lugs. Wouldn't make for a heart-tugging story though.