Garage Sales are the Mother of Invention
The use of this image is in complete violation of copyright. It pleases me to imagine the facial expression of the lawyer asked to draft the cease and desist letter.
Garage sales are a terrific source of baby equipment. Most items have only been pooped on a couple of times before the baby grew too large and had to poop on something else.
Unfortunately, a dismaying rule of garage sale purchases states that any item made up of multiple components will be missing at least 50% of said components. This means if you buy a pair of scissors, probability dictates that one of the blades won't be there by the time you get home.
Fortunately, most components can be replaced, often for just a fraction more than the whole item would've cost new.
But in Whitehorse, some components are not so easily found. For example, the cylinder nut -- the preferred fastener of most pressed-sawmill-scrapings furniture manufacturers -- pictured at right. I couldn't find anyone in town that sold something similar, and having bought a 14-piece crib for $25, was missing 7 of the damned things.
"I must repair to the workshop posthaste!" I cried, confusing most everyone, since no one really talks like that anymore, and also because we don't have a workshop. Nevertheless, I was able to fashion a reasonable facsimile of the missing nuts:
"I can't believe it's not a hex bolt and cylinder nut!"
And now the crib is fully assembled, and just as strong as... Well, it hasn't fallen over yet, so that's reassuring.
I'll leave the story of how Carole rebuilt half of a missing stroller safety-belt for another day.
Archived Comments
L-brackets are your friend!
L-brackets and I had a falling out some years ago. There's still the little matter of $50 loaned between parties to clear up before any attempt at reconciliation.
You just have to accept that L-brackets are a little bit crooked. You thing they're going in one direction and then they go off in another. They're not unpredictable, though. Perhaps my earlier comment should have been "L-brackets are your frienemy!"
I'm trying to help a friend rebuild a Day Bed. Since it was put in storage 5 years ago, some hardware has gone missing. The screw/nut/cylinder thing in your photo (Top Left & Top Right) is what I imagined would fix it. We need 8 of these things. How do we buy these?
Lloyd: they're called cylinder or barrel nuts. Not easy to find hereabouts, but a big city hardware shop might stock them or you can probably find them online too.