What have you fettled today?

[Afasoas]

Was hoping to finish fettling the cheap audax bike today - but retrieving a dressing gown from the airing cupboard which was unexpectantly moist put paid to that. A condensate hose on the boiler has cracked, leading to a considerable mopping up and drying out effort.

Replacement hose arrived today, a day early. This was very weclome news.
Opened the airing cupboard to the smell of unburned gas. This was less welcome news.

Wondered whether this was related to the cracked condensate hose.

Old condensate hose removed. Some cleaning ensued. New condensate securely hose fitted. This of course involved a good smattering of assorted swears on account of the difficulty compressing the spring-type hose clips but perseverence prevailed. Shut the airing cupboard door. Tested the heating/hot water. No water leaks. But the cupboard smells of gas again. So that's the central heating turned back off and the gas tap closed. 

Thankfully a competent person with a Gas Safe certificate should be here later today.

Update 1: Couple of heating engineers arrived late this afternoon and claim to have resolved the leak (they did do a leak test).

Update 2: El cheapo audax bike has pedals and mudguards. Well almost; missing an M8 bolt to secure the rear mudguard to the chainstay bridge. Looks like the only spares in stock at strudel central have deep heads leaving insufficient tyre clearance. Time to get an appropriate bolt ordered, and whilst I'm there perhaps find a lightweight rear rack.

[Mrs Pingu]

I attempted to take the Euro cylinder out of the garage door so I could measure it properly but didn't quite manage, I didn't really want to send a whole bunch of keys through the hole and twiddling the thumb turn didn't quite do it.
I shall have another go tomorrow.

[Mrs Pingu]

Lol well that went well. This time I started with the front door which is keyed both sides. Couldn't get it to move at all. So I went back to the garage door which I realised I had not secured properly with the screw yesterday because when I put my key in the cylinder moved. So I faffed about a lot making sure I could get the screw in the right place and then found I couldn't withdraw my key from the slot after locking it so then I had to take the screw out again and fiddle the key appropriately so that when I did screw it back up again it was all in the correct orientation so that I could remove the key once locked.
After all that faff I gave it up again as a bad job for a damp lunchtime.
The one thing I did manage to achieve was to blow some of the graphite dust into the garage door keyhole so at least my key goes in and out a bit more smoothly now.

[Gattopardo]

So the nice suspect 531 frame and random forks i have collected were rubbed with ancient t cut from a metal tin and the t cut contents were coloured brownish.  But all the marks are now gone.  So I now worry about the paint being bare and needing a wax coating to not cause a fire like inferno.

Straightened the bobbin shopper forks with an cut off end of a ikea table chip board.  Forks now straighter and no damage to the paint.

[SteveC]

The cubby hole next to my desk, which is where all the cables go to die, has been tidied. About half the cables have been demoted to the garage, the rest have been bagged up and labeled. Looks much better and I know we don't need to get any more USB to Lightning cables for ages, whatever MrsC does to hers (she has form with these).

[Mrs Pingu]

Question for the panel:
20230417_220743 by The Pingus, on Flickr

Are we going to be able to remove this monstrosity ourselves or is it going to weigh a bazillion tons and we should GAMI?
(We'll already need to GAMI to remove the gas pipe that's poking out of the heath and board up the floor and the chimney, I'm just hoping we don't have to remove the back boiler as well)

[peterc]

The switch in my mothers spare reading light

Found a new switch on that there ebay and soldered on some jumper leads as I killed the old ones getting the dead switch out.

Seems to provide light when given a bulb. Yay

That means the holes in the wall where it mounts won't need to be filled and painted. Also Yay

[canny colin]

Dear Pingu over forty years fitting fireplaces and removing them . Tells me that should be made of reinforced  light weight concrete and tiles . Not that heavy, but is bloody awkward to move . It all depends if you can afford time off work with a strain or bashed fingers .

[canny colin]

I now haz superduper brakes , front and rear on the cheap and cheerful  trike  . Still handles like a blinking camel thou .   

[Mrs Pingu]

Dear Pingu over forty years fitting fireplaces and removing them . Tells me that should be made of reinforced  light weight concrete and tiles . Not that heavy, but is bloody awkward to move . It all depends if you can afford time off work with a strain or bashed fingers .

Thanks. After I posted I watched some youtube vids of people taking them off the wall and then trying to bash them to pieces to dispose of them (which based on my dismantling some huge concrete slabs last year I could probably do, but I don't really fancy doing it in the house!). Based on that and your comments I am going to try to GAMI... sounds like a need a builder.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Bought and fitted two radiator valves. It's almost like being an adult.

[rafletcher]

The Tree from its resting place in a bucket outside the back door to the required spot on the lounge. Plus added lights. Then our “Christmas” dinner (roast Pork) as we’re visiting family on the day to have overpriced and probably overcooked turkey.

[robgul]

Organised the nest of wires at the back of my desk by making a shelf under the back edge of the desk and positioning all the socket outlets, plugs, USB cables etc on the said shelf - it all works again - and I liberated about 6 redundant cables (and quite a bit of dust).  Oh, and I created a "charging point" for phone/tablet/Garmin etc.  All the USB ports on the front of the PC are now free of trailing wires - just need to plug a cable in when I need data transfer (e.g. routes to the Garmin)

While I was at it I used the label machine to, err, label all the 13A plugs and their outlets in the distribution blocks so that when I need to change somethng it's simple.

Last job is to switch over the smart switch that turns the whole lot off overnight from a Hive unit to a Tapo one so that I can use the Hive elsewhere.

[Mr Larrington]

Resurrected the distascope and PVR at Fort Larrington.  Former cannot get a signal if latter is not plugged into a source of voles.  Latter also requires a remote containing
1. flatteries, that
iv: are not bat.

[T42]

Put heavy alu foil insoles, cut from a parrot-seed bag, under the normal insoles in my shoes.  Outside is printed on but inside is shiny so that's uppermost. Saw the idea on GCN but foil from seed bag is much heavier than kitchen alu. Tried kitchen alu already and it seems to work but breaks up PDQ.

[Jurek]

Poison.
Poison, poison and more poison.
I have mice in the kitchen.
I put stuff out.
They eat it.
I put more out.
They eat it.
Rinse and repeat.
Gah!
No sign so far of them or their appetites disappearing.

[IanDG]

I made a curtain "tie back"

P1030018 by ian, on Flickr

P1030017 by ian, on Flickr

[rafletcher]

Poison.
Poison, poison and more poison.
I have mice in the kitchen.
I put stuff out.
They eat it.
I put more out.
They eat it.
Rinse and repeat.
Gah!
No sign so far of them or their appetites disappearing.

Humane traps and a bucket of water.

[T42]

Poison.
Poison, poison and more poison.
I have mice in the kitchen.
I put stuff out.
They eat it.
I put more out.
They eat it.
Rinse and repeat.
Gah!
No sign so far of them or their appetites disappearing.

Humane traps and a bucket of water.

Here's one I made four years earlier:



The "bridge" is pivoted in the centre and drops the mouse into the bucket; the bit of inner tube brings the bridge back to horizontal.  The brown lumps are peanut butter, and we put a bit of parrot seed in the bottom as an extra enticement, since the wee buggers regularly invaded the birdcage.  We set the mice free a km away from the house.

In the end, though, poison was better.

[chrisbainbridge]

We had an invasion in the garage last year.  My fault, I had left bird seed on the floor and in an open box.  I used peanut butter baited traps.  After 5 or 6 the problem stopped.

[trundle]

A quick fettle of the gears on the Elan.

The chainwheel is stuck on the outer ring. Clicking down results in no change in chain tension.

I seem to remember 5700 105 10 speed shifters can do this. I'll have a deeper look later and see if I can poke the cable out of the shifter - if so, the tumbler is stuck, rather than the cable. I've got a spare Sora triple shifter in the shed. Although I'm also tempted to go completely old school with friction shifters and another shiny silver Spa chainset. We'll see...

Changed the chain on the fixed bike. Gave it a wash, scrubbed the rim brake tracks and adjusted the brakes. It is such a handsome bike; Sparkly blue metallic paint, a classic polished silver crankset, chain and cog. Held together with svelte steel tubes. Time for a trundle to the shops I think...

[Mr Larrington]

Trued the front wheel on Miss Marple, the three-speed Raleigh Thing lurking in the garage for the use of carers when the weather warms up, and adjusted the brake to stop it rubbing.

Fort Larrington's hideous grandfather clock had stopped working.  Based on no evidence at all Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) diagnosed a failure of the wossname that the pendulum hangs from and requested the purchase of a soldering iron that it might be fixed.

Inspection of the mechanism of the hideous clock indicated that failure of the wossname would have caused the pendulum to fall off and crash through the floor of the hideous case and that the real cause was the rocking doodah not revolving the big cog that drives the rest of the mechanism due to insufficient clearance 'twixt rocker & cog. 

Jamming my thumb in the mechanism made it work but is not a long-term fix.  Jamming an artfully-squished foil pie dish in the mechanism likewise, because it fell out, but this seems to have bent something enough to make it work again.

It’s still hideous, though.

[JefO]

Removed chain, the recently mangled rear derailleur then the rear shift inner cable. Cleaned the MTB (which has formed a habit eating derailleur hangers), fitted a new derailleur, chain and inner cable (all found lurking in the shed parts store).

Was particularly annoyed, because I wanted to use a new chain tool (bought a few weeks ago, and still unused!) to shorten the new chain to fit the MTB... and the chain was the right length already. 

 

[The Family Cyclist]

Poison.
Poison, poison and more poison.
I have mice in the kitchen.
I put stuff out.
They eat it.
I put more out.
They eat it.
Rinse and repeat.
Gah!
No sign so far of them or their appetites disappearing.

Do they have access to anything like chicken food as its some of them have vitamin k added which is the antidote to mouse/rat poison

[JefO]

If it is the same as rat poison, then it will only work if the vermin cut themselves. If they are living in your kitchen and they are not cutting themselves on thorns, sharp edges etc., then giving them warfarin will have no effect.