Thursday, February 7, 2013

Repair Or Replace

At Jenny's suggestion I recently repaired a paper towel holder we use in our kitchen. This task had been on the "honey do" list for quite some time and to be honest, I was ignoring it. I believe when it broke my first thought was, eh... just pitch it, a new one can't be more than $10 or $15 bucks. I had had it tucked away neatly in our pantry conveniently out of sight so I didn't have to be reminded of something I was supposed to be fixing. The past few days though I noticed it was making appearances around our kitchen out in the open. Upon re-discovering it I thought to myself, hmmm... that's funny, why haven't we thrown that thing away yet? When I mentioned this to Jenny she said I should fix it and do a blog post about it, hahaha!!! So, anyway, here I am... posting about our now fixed paper towel holder.




It was a simple repair. I don't really know why I was putting it off. Anyway, having this project brought to my attention did also remind me I had promised a friend (Matt and Sarah Witry) to fix their cutting board. Funny enough, similarly to how I had found a convenient little hiding place for the paper towel holder, I also had tucked Matt and Sarah's cutting board neatly out of the way at the shop so I wouldn't think about it. Hmmm, I'm noticing a pattern to my procrastination tactics, out of sight out of mind, right?!? In my defense on this one, Matt did say it wasn't a big deal if I didn't fix it. Anyway, here are pictures of the repair job on the cutting board. 






This repair job was a little more involved than the paper towel holder, but it really wasn't tough. I glued and doweled it to prevent it from breaking in another spot and really the only time consuming part was sanding the dowels down in diameter to fit the holes nice and snug. I must say, I am glad I repaired these items and I'm proud of the job I did on them. We could have just thrown away the paper towel holder and bought a new one, but chances are the new one would have eventually broken too. I'm glad I fixed these things. It feels good to repair something instead of tossing it in the garbage. 



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7 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 7, 2013 at 5:53 PM

    Next time try a block plane. You can get a really nice one for $100, or a cheap one for $10. Either one is good for shaving off endgrain type stuff like the dowel (though the cheaper one might need a little time on sharpening stone first. Get it nearly flush, then sand.

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    1. Andy ParkerFebruary 7, 2013 at 8:01 PM

      Block plane would be a good investment, good call. The "time consuming sanding" I was talking about was to reduce the diameter of the dowel enough to tightly fit the holes I drilled. I belt sanded the ends down to be flush with the edge. Thanks for reading Josh!

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    2. UnknownFebruary 7, 2013 at 8:20 PM

      Gotcha gotcha. A spokeshave can help with that. Great for reducing the radius. If you just need to reduce by a small amount, you can use a steel plate with the proper diameter drilled into it (you can buy one at the hardware store, usually). THen you pound the dowel through the hole. But for a long dowel, that might not work. I'd probably use a spokeshave for that. Sanding them can be a bear.

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    3. Andy ParkerFebruary 7, 2013 at 9:08 PM

      A spokeshave huh, that sounds like a handy tool. I should get one of those. Thanks Josh.

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    4. UnknownFebruary 16, 2013 at 5:58 AM

      Also, grab a cheap Japanese saw from the hardware store. They can do flush cuts because the blade is so thin. I do that all the time. I hate sanding, so I try to do as little of it as possible.

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  2. UnknownFebruary 7, 2013 at 5:53 PM

    I'm thinking of doing an entire guitar in "Cutting block style" with those alternating color laminates. I think that would be cool.

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  3. Andy ParkerFebruary 7, 2013 at 8:03 PM

    I read up on your website about your guitar making. That is so awesome!

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