Tips

Tips 22

When a couple of the little rubber feet (LRF) came off the bottom of my laptop, I tried without success ...

When a couple of the little rubber feet (LRF) came off the bottom of my laptop, I tried without success to re-attach the small bits of rubber with “super glue”, rubber cement, and a hot-glue gun. After the last attempt, I realized that the rubbery material used with the hot-glue gun could by itself serve as an LRF replacement. This worked so well I ended up ripping out the still-attached LRFs. By now the hot-glue replacements have served longer than the original LRFs.

— Preston L. Bannister

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I had a white board with old old writing on it – I tried Windex, alcohol, etc, to little avail, then my girlfriend suggested using a whiteboard marker – they are full of the correct solvent! Just color over what you want to erase and wipe it away. Doh!

— David Spargur

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Eighth inch shock cord is wonderful stuff. However, it can be hard to keep knots in shock cord. I use cable ties to fasten loops in shock cord, and I have never had a cable-tied loop slip. Shock cord loops have body, so it is easy to clip things into them and easy to throw a shock cord loop over a hook, they absorb shock, and it does not hurt if you fall on them. I first saw this trick being used to attach rescue whistles to life preservers; since the shock cord stretches, the whistle does not dangle too much (a long length of cord might wrap around your throat) but the whistle can be pulled up to the mouth. Since then, I have found that cable-tied shock cord loops are great for key rings, to use to hang things on wall hooks, as lanyards, and to elastically attach valuables, such as cameras, to belt loops to discourage theft while keeping the camera ready to use. And of course, you can cable-tie loops to the ends of a length of shock cord and use it as a clothesline.

— Jock Chung

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I rub my nose with my finger and put the tip of my finger in a soda or beer that has too much foam. The oil from my nose does a remarkable job of getting rid of the foam quickly so I can drink sooner.

— Penley McQueen

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Sure you can buy special plastic “chip-clips” to keep your snack bags closed, but they’re expensive. Or you can use clothespins, but they’re bulky and don’t always stay put. Binder clips, those little spring steel clamps available at any office supply store, are perfect for resealing opened bags of dried snacks or or frozen food. The versatile little jaws are strong enough you can even use them on cardboard containers. I fold my bags at the corners and roll them down to keep things really airtight. The clips also come in a variety of different sizes.

— Tom Lundin

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When your container of shaving oil is empty, try filling it with olive oil from the kitchen instead of spending $15 on a new stuff. I discovered that when I ran out a few years ago & I haven’t looked back since. Olive oil does just as good a job and costs almost nothing per shave. People have been shaving with olive oil for thousands of years, there’s no reason not to continue doing so.

— Mark James

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When I need to solder a connection to a leaky pipe, I just stick a piece of bread into the pipe to sop up the drips while I fire up the blowtorch.

— RW

01/2/07

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