Some things just aren’t meant to be: kids and a clean house, teenagers and unbroken chairs (or laptops), HWTFM and tools in their proper place. You get the picture.<\/p>\n
My teenagers have been rough on the ten wooden chairs around our kitchen table. They don’t fare well being rocked back on two legs, so a couple of my chairs have gotten pretty wobbly — to the point that no one actually sits in them anymore. But, expecting 12 for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, I have to have all the chairs in usable condition.<\/p>\n
I figured that a couple of small L-brackets strategically placed under the chair would adequately stabilize them, and searched Downtown Hardware, K-Mart, and Home Depot. Unfortunately, no one carries anything small enough. When I described what I need to the nice fellow at Home Depot (who used to be a custom metal fabricator) and realized that they don’t have any such thing, I asked if it might be possible to make one from a very small piece of angled aluminum, which they do have. He said that would work.<\/p>\n
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We have the proper drill bits for metalworking, and a hacksaw. So, I bought the piece of metal, and set out building the thing I need. Getting the holes done, sized to fit the wood screws I already had, wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it might be.<\/p>\n
(Finding the drill bit was easy, because I keep them in MY toolbox.)<\/p>\n
Getting them cut to the right length and filed down so that they aren’t dangerous didn’t take long either. (I keep the file, too.)<\/p>\n
Actually installing them was where the trouble began. HWTFM had somehow misplaced the phillips bit for my cordless drill — the second one he’s lost. So, after a cursory search in the old Radio Flyer<\/a> (where he keeps many of his tools, despite having at least three large, quality toolboxes and a couple of others that are older and dirtier), I gave up and remembered that I won a set of screwdriver bits by answering a question at the recent Y-12 Safety Fair. Those were in my purse.<\/p>\n Armed with the correct bit, I began. The cordless drill, for which I have two batteries (one had been charging all afternoon), quickly ran out of juice. So I switched batteries, only to find that the alternate was completely dead. After switching them out a time or two, I realized that the charger simply wasn’t charging.<\/p>\n HWTFM suggested that he could troubleshoot it if I could get his multimeter… which he had misplaced somewhere. Sigh. Next, he asked for Delta’s multimeter (yes, our 13-year old daughter has her own multimeter), which was not working. He took it apart, finding that it needs some odd-sized battery that we don’t have one of.<\/p>\n I can’t fix the chair because the drill batteries are dead (and neither of us can turn it hard enough to tighten it by hand). I can’t charge the battery because the charger is broken. He can’t fix the charger because his multimeter is lost, and Delta’s has a dead battery.<\/p>\n So, I asked to use HIS drill — the one that actually plugs into the wall. But he doesn’t know where it is, and it’s not in the Radio Flyer. Or the boat (don’t ask).<\/p>\n The chairs are still broken, and we’re one day closer to Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some things just aren’t meant to be: kids and a clean house, teenagers and unbroken chairs (or laptops), HWTFM and tools in their proper place. You get the picture. My teenagers have been rough on the ten wooden chairs around … Continue reading