Quantum Household Mechanics, Part 2

Subatomic particles.

The stopper in the bathroom sink broke (right). Specifically the plastic rod that supports it broke (bottom center). As with all home repairs it's go to the store now or go later. You know it will have to happen before you get this thing fixed. To appease the god of quantum household mechanics we went to the store right off the bat and purchased a replacement (left).The replacement was just slightly too large to fit in the drain. If I wanted to grind down all three of the edges, it probably would have worked, but how are you going to hold this triangular jobbie? And how are you going to grind down the edges? It's plastic, it shouldn't be that difficult, but plastics have gotten a lot tougher lately. A sander or a grinder would be the tool to use, and that means rooting around for the tool and the abrasive and setting it all up for a job that is going to take a minute at most. Hardly seems like a fair exchange. Fifteen minutes of fuss for one minute of actual work? Bah and humbug.

    I found a piece of threaded rod with a hook on one end (top center) that looked like it could be made to work. All I had to do was:

• squeeze the loop in the vise until it was small enough,
• cut threaded portion to the correct length with a hacksaw,
• file the burrs off the cut end,
• retap the stopper because the two rods use different threads,
• bend the loop over so it was more or less on center with the shaft.

I threaded the four nuts (top left) onto the metal rod and clamped them into the vise to hold the rod while I hit the loop with a small sledge hammer to center it. The nuts prevented the vise from damaging the threads, which would have made screwing it into the stopper difficult. Having a largish vise on a solid workbench made this job relatively easy. Having the tools handy also helped. Shoot, just locating the tools is the bigger part of most household repairs.