Mend it and make do

[Drago]

Shamelessly inspired by another thread...

There's been a bit of an environmental theme on the forum of late, and today a wise man commented on these hallowed forums that it's kinder to the environment to repair something and keep it going.

This got me thinking...what have you bodged, repaired, or otherwise coaxed back into life? Everything from clothes and furniture through to cars and houses, if you've mended it when others would have simply bought another then tell us about it.

 

[Chris S]

I got my laptop running again by booting it of a Linux boot disk and then installing it permanently.
(The BIOS had become corrupted and Windows couldn't boot)

 

[Supersuperleeds]

A mixture of electrical tape, packaging tape and blu tac kept a broken rear mudguard going for a fair while

 

[jongooligan]

£7 for a bit of tube, a handful of bolts and half an hours cutting and drilling saved this old tandem carrier. It was too long to fit between the roof bars on our new car.

Detail

A new one is £200 + £20 p&p.

 

[Salty seadog]

I got my laptop running again by booting it of a Linux boot disk and then installing it permanently.
(The BIOS had become corrupted and Windows couldn't boot)

Me too, windows vista gave up the ghost a couple of years ago and I've been on Ubuntu on the desktop since then.

 

[sheddy]

Pretty much everything I've ever owned. Cars, furniture, vac, fridge, oven, irons, clothes, there is almost no limit.

Glue gun, superglue, epoxy, zip ties, duct tape, jubilee clips, wood glue, solder, string, needle & thread are our friends.

We've even managed to keep our marriage going...

 

[Salty seadog]

Btw turning your pants inside out doesn't count for the purposes of this otherwise frivolous worthy thread.

 

[Threevok]

I've just got into epoxy.

Not fixed anything with it yet though

 

[nickyboy]

Son #2 runs a little gardening round in his summer holidays. He bought a petrol mower from homebase. Of course it's only designed for occasional use and he's hammering it so bits keep failing and falling off

Currently the handle is connected by a proper nut on one side and some tightly wound string on the other. The air filter casing is broken and won't stay on. Or at least it wouldn't until I wrapped several heavy duty elastic bands around it. The petrol filler cap split so carefully using a hot knife got it to melt and reseal.

Other than that it's fine

 

[Chris S]

The rear mudguard on my bike is a plastic 700C one that I found in a (communal) rubbish bin.
My bike has 650A wheels so I only put it to see if it would fit. It did so I sprayed it up and now it's on permanently.

 

[MontyVeda]

I think there's a thread somewhere on CC for everything I've managed to mend over the last ten years. Thanks guys!

edit... plus there's this invaluable resource on my book shelf:

It's beautifully illustrated and has everything from guttering to guitars.

 

[Dave7]

Pretty much everything I've ever owned. Cars, furniture, vac, fridge, oven, irons, clothes, there is almost no limit.

Glue gun, superglue, epoxy, zip ties, duct tape, jubilee clips, wood glue, solder, string, needle & thread are our friends.

We've even managed to keep our marriage going...

What........with zip ties

 

[MichaelW2]

I have been going mad with Gorilla Glue. Attached the soles to 2 pairs of shoes, fixed a hole in the membrane of my roof. Reinforced the screw holes of a rotted fence post.
In other news, I re-purposed a fire extinguisher bracket to support a wicker bicycle basket.

 

[classic33]

[QUOTE 5348110, member: 9609"]Time to stick my boot in
View attachment 424301 [/QUOTE]
You could have sewn it in place!

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Most recently a computer mouse and a couple of cycle lamps.

With the mouse I had already replaced it once but the replacement terminally broke and not having anything else to hand I got out the soldering iron and fixed the broken connections on the original. I won't win any prizes for the neatness of the joints but it works and you can't see that once the case is reassembled.

The lamps have been sitting around dead for a while so I thought I might as well have a go while the soldering iron was hot. Success with them as well.