Wednesday 20 October 2010

Running repairs

As casual as someone stubbing out their cigarette with their boot heel, my mother-in-law stood on my expensive Cutler And Gross specs, breaking them in 6 places. They had been trainspotted with get-me-home bodges in the past using paper clips and Band-Aids, but the wicked witch did her darndest to kill them proper.
Last summer I bought these old Polaroids as a cheap replacement, from the most excellent GDE Jongejans, on the Noorderkerkstraat Amsterdam. The shop is hardly ever open but I struck lucky. Anyway butterfingers dropped them a few weeks ago, breaking one corner of the top rail. The optician must have heated up the frame a lot to get the lenses in, as when I tried to Superglue them back together (unheated) there was a 2mm gap. Superglue is only good for sticking your fingers together with anyway. So I lightly filed down the edges of the plastic lens (lighter and shatterproof for biking), Araldite epoxy glued together, drilled a 1mm hole through the middle into the nose, then broke off the drill bit (on purpose) to act as a pin. A dob of brown Sharpie marker pen to colour in the glue; to match the tortoise shell. And away we go. BP

7 comments:

Diplomate said...

we like make-do-and-mend

Sideburn Magazine said...

- It's all my mothers fault Diplomat. As a war child it's her mantra. Not a single plate or mug is whole. The washing machine is 25 years old and it's internal organs are derived from various other deceased vacuum cleaners etc etc.
BP

Mick P said...

I'm a big fan of home repairs, very satisfying. I only realised the other day, when fixing a broken wire in my cheapy mp3 player earphones, that they insulate the wires with this ultra-fine coloured coating that if you don't remove (quick burn with a match and a scrape with the penknife) the connections won't be made. Sounds obvious, well... it is to some people.

Anna Butler said...

Hi Ben,
If such a problem happens again I can recommend a really good glue I use for jewellery. Its a structural epoxy...its the strongest glue on the planet.
Ps- thank you for the postcard, I imagine you wandering around dressed like Alan Wicker?
Anna Butler

Chris said...

speaking as a fellow speccy twat, the first mistake was taking the buggers off, no good comes from it mark my words.

Sideburn Magazine said...

...as once a 'speccy twat' takes them off, he needs a pair of glasses to find them again. An evil catch 22.
BP

Diplomate said...

yes - I actually trod on my titanium specs whilst looking for them - they were fine 'till then.