Made wood handles for homemade lathe tools, shop made hammer handles, made wood gates for metal fence (I can't weld to save my life), butts for socket chisels, wheels for a garden cart (from pressure treated wood), made wheel barrow handles, rigged temporary scaffold repair, cased a broken tool box with plywood, etc.
Wood isn't much more than play dough for me. There are very few instances where would can't be used as at least a temporary fix, and most of the time , permanent.
Made wood handles for homemade lathe tools, shop made hammer handles, made wood gates for metal fence (I can't weld to save my life), butts for socket chisels, wheels for a garden cart (from pressure treated wood), made wheel barrow handles, rigged temporary scaffold repair, cased a broken tool box with plywood, etc.
Wood isn't much more than play dough for me. There are very few instances where would can't be used as at least a temporary fix, and most of the time, permanent.
Robert
How about pail handles. Drill a hole through a dowel, split it in half lengthwise and glue it back together on the bail. Those plastic roller handles are junk. btw, golf balls make nice file handles too...just beware of the liquid center filled ones.
One garbage can wheel, two layers 3/4" ply, about 10 years old now.
One knob for the front-end loader control lever on my compact tractor. Missing rubber knob got snagged and pulled off on a tree, I think. Replaced with turned scrap of ash about 2 1/2 by 3, several coats of poly and epoxied onto the 1/2" steel rod. 5 years ago. Still looks purty...
Borrowed my father-in-laws '84 Chrysler for a few days. Fabric headliner had come loose and sat on my head, could not see out the rear. (He was much shorter, it didn't bother him.) Ripped five 3/16" square ribs from scrap cherry, long enough to spring into place across the roof, supported by the window trim. Looks factory installed, still working fine 8 years later.
This probably counts more as an upgrade as opposed to a repair, but I consi dered it a "fix" to the conversion van that I leased back in '97.
The conversion package for the Dodge Ram van came with cheap plastic cup ho lders that were screwed to the conversion walls. Square fold down units. Th e "windows sills" were fabric covered particle board, creating a shelf. I m ade new shelves from some 3/4" pine (stained dark) and cut big holes in the m. I inserted mesh pen/pencil holders as the actual cup holder.
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They were the perfect size for water bottles and soda cans. There was just enough space between the "conversion walls" and the original walls of the v an for the cups to slide right in between leaving the new window shelves in the same position as the originals.
I also made a matching cup holder unit to sit on top of the engine compartm ent housing in the cab area.
It looked similar to this:
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The original "cup holders" were nothing more than 1/2" deep recesses in the top of engine bay cover. They worked great as long as you were parked.
Again, more of an upgrade, but I sure thought that the conversion needed to be "fixed", and wood was what I used to fix it.
One of the more interesting things I recall was my father making a rim out of plywood and epoxy to replace a rotted out steel rim on a very old 2 wheel garden tractor trailer (1940s vintage). It was an odd-ball rim for which a replacement could not be found...
Had the plastic handle on my table saw fence break. Replaced it with a pie ce of Katalox (Mexican Ebony) turned on my mini lathe. Looks almost like i t was original with the fence.
BTW, I used the drill the blank on the lathe, cut a 1/4" off the drilled en d, chisel out for your nut in the remaining blank, epoxy back together, mou nt on a threaded rod and turn trick of mounting the threaded insert. At l east you do not have to worry about the threaded insert backing out doing i t that way.
A guy lost an eye in an accident, and made himself a wooden eye as a prosthetic. But he became withdrawn over his appearance. A friend finally persuaded him to come to community dance, but he just stood there all alone.
He finally noticed a young lady sitting alone, and saw (with his one good eye) that she too had a prosthetic, to replace a leg she had lost. He thought to himself, "maybe she would dance with me."
So gathering his courage he approached her and asked, "Would you like to dance?" She looked up with a smile and said, "Would I! Would I!" So he pointed back at her and said, "Peg leg! Peg leg!"
If you turned the temperature knob all the way to the coldest position, it was hit or miss whether or not you would get any heat when you turned the knob back towards hot. The damper doors would close at the cold position but they wouldn't always open back up to let the heat come in.
Under the dash I found the linkage from the temperature knob to the damper door motor. I cut a small block of wood and attached it to the linkage, preventing the linkage from moving to the fully cold position. At the knob end it still felt like a solid stop, but it was about 1 "line" above fully cold on the dial.
The damper doors opened and closed properly from that point on and the minuscule difference between true "fully cold" and my "almost fully cold" was imperceptible.
I don't recall how El Auruns fixed the busted spring on the Rolls that he was driving around all over the desert teaching the Arabs how to be pains in the butt, but I suspect that a piece of lumber of some sort was involved.
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