Unique/makedo fix its, what have you done?

[treesonggal]

I'm at my boyfriend's home today cleaning out the basement. All the Stuff down there got me to thinking about the times I've utilized different materials for a quick fix-it or put things together in an emergency, etc.

Like putting a soup can around a piece of the exhaust pipe and then duck taping the can until I could have the pipe repaired/replaced. Another time I used a small tarp and bungee cords tied off to four small trees as an emergency shelter during a heavy rain storm. Embarrassed to say I'd been dropped off at my house while car was being repaired and neglected to take my house keys off the key ring. Duh! Also didn't have a spare hid!!! Storage shed was packed full to the point I couldn't get in (HEAVY stuff inside). BUT, I could just reach a tarp and bungee cords hanging on the wall, so they became my shelter.

I think it would be informative and interesting to hear from others about these kinds of solutions.

[crystalniche]

Being swamp yankees we have a lotta stuff we've done this way. One thing was our use of good ol' duct tape. Everything that needs holding together gets a dose of duct tape. I should buy stock in the company that makes it. LOL We used an old pickup truck bed with a cap on it sitting on some stone as a grain storage, worked well. Also used pallets as a fence for some of our animals but that is down now. Tires become planters, winter squash does very well in them. When renovating DH used the chain saw to cut thru the ceiling~not a good idea but it did work. He also cut thru the ductwork, phone lines and came way too close to the power wire. In a pinch a trash bag will keep your clothing dry if it starts to rain and you forgot your raincoat. Done that. A clean tin can will heat water/food on a campfire when your power goes out and you really don't want to use your good cookware that way. Be careful not to get burned tho~they get hot! A cut down soda bottle makes a good emergency pet waterer or feed dish. I've used this in the car when I couldn't find my dog's dish. A smaller soda bottle (16~20oz) will fit in your drink holder in the car and you can keep a fresh water supply available for your dog that way. We do this and if you don't overfill it there are no spills. This way our dog can get a drink whenever he wants one as we are driving. I'd better stop now!

[via media]

My grandpa accidentally felled a tree longways on his farm pickup so that the cab had a space for the driver's head, a big dent in the middle, and then space for the passenger's head.

The impact broke out the back glass of the cab so he cut a piece of plexiglass in the shape of two-heads-with-a-dent-in-the-middle and screwed it up in place of the back window.

He sure had some things to say as that tree was coming down...

/VM

[MELOC]

i had no tube repair kit and needed to fix a mower tire so i used an old inner tube as a patch and crazy glue . it held. to be sure, i wrapped it with duct tape. it is still holding air.

[Nette]

The fuel line on my little landscaping tractor started leaking and I spewed diesel fuel all over the yard (up, down, round, and round) while I was mowing. To fix it, DH cut the line in two and used the barrel of a ballpoint pen as the coupler. Used small clamps on either side to hold it in place. Worked fine, and saved me a trip to town.

[lgslgs]

We have hllbilly weather stripping on the driver's window on one of our cars. The original rubber stripping dried and cracked after 15 years and we couldn't find a decent priced replacement part. Now we have the area fixed with duct tape and plastic packing tape so that rain doesn't run down the window and into the inside of the door.

We get enough air through the other three windows and when I go to the airport once a year I just open the door to get the parking ticket or to pay the parking fee as I exit. The airport is about two hours away in "the big city" and the attendents find it amusing as I explain the odd behavior as being due to having hillbilly weather stripping.

One of our other good, cheap make-do things would be our cold frames. We have a metal scrap yard down the road and the owner won the salvage bid on an old grade school. We have two big school windows in deep metal frames as our cold frames. They were a bit pricey ($20 - 30 each) but have earned their keep in getting the seedlings started early and they are built to last. Friendly neighbor with a big scrapyard is a very good thing!

Duct tape and scrap - can't beat 'em!

Lynda

[jill.costello]

ZIP TIES! Our entire goat pen is held together with plastic zip ties.

The "temporary goat pen" is ridiculously sturdy with 10 4' x 14' "utility panels", a tee-post every 14', and zip ties holding the two ends of the panels to the tee posts.

Let's see.... what else.....:

our "barn" is a HUGE, empty pole building [ 60' x 125' ], and there is NO WHERE to hang a feed bucket without drilling or welding to a steel I-beam. So, DH suspended pallets with bungee cords from the cross beams on the walls, and we use the "over-fence feeders" over the edge of the pallets for each horse.... we proudly refer to the pallets as "feeding stations"!

[treesonggal]

Gee, thanks for the responses! They're funnny and informative. Who says country folks aren't the greatest innovators.

My boyfriend just told me about a tie rod on his Chevy p/u falling off on one end. He eased it to the side of the road, went into a grocery store at 2 a.m. (he was delivering papers) and the help there gave him some baling wire used to wrap around cardboard that's been flattened). He used the baliong wire to connect the end of the tie rod to the ball joint.

I can add another rather embarrassing one: I'm rather large busted and had an old bra on. The hooks were well worn and two didn't hook anymore at all. Murphy's Law applied, of course, as the top two hooks were useless. The bottom hooks were straining and finally gave way at once. Here I was out at a park walking my granddaughter, about 3 at the time. We were far from the public restrooms and even further from my car. Sooo, we walked to some bushes, sat down kind of tucked into them and I pulled my arms out of my tee shirt and bra and got the bra turned around. Meanwhile, granddaughter's sitting there asking about my anatomy!

Anyway, I didn't have my purse with me, she was done with Pampers so no safety pins, and all I could think of was my barrette. I had and still have very long hair. So I pulled the barretted out of my hair, poked it through the very worn material on both dangling ends and clasped it together.

P.S. We had a wonderful afternoon and the "barrette bra" held the rest of the day.

[RandB]

My Dad gave us an old pickup truck of his, years ago. After a year of so, exhaust pipe was leaking. DH went under to have a look, came up laughing. The pipe had numerous patches on it, of Beer Cans cut and wrapped on, secured by wire.

[manfred]

When building my house I needed a temporary sink until I finished ceiling sheetrock and such. Cut a sink size hole in an old wood kitchen table and put the sink in. A real red-neck kitchen.

[MELOC]

a buddy on mine saved his exhaust system by using a dog chain as a hanger. it worked very well.

[MTNwomanAR]

My ex used an old beer can, and a couple of ss hose clamps that were in my motorcycles saddlebags, to hold the back pipe on, as it had sheared off at the head....which is NOT good on motors...
Vise grips on my old 77 chevy for window cranks, door bell ringer for horn, same truck.
I know there are more, but just can't think of them right now...will probably remember half a dozen on my way home tonight............... :baby04:

The floorboard on my 76 chevette rusted through and fell off so my Dad took a can of the foam that you use to seal up your windows and made a ring around the edge with it. He waited 45 minutes and did another ring. He did that all day and by dinnertime I had a nice foam bullseye on the floor and absolutely no rainwater splashing up in there!!

[poorboy]

A couple of times I've bought vehicles that ran extremely well, but the floorboards were rusted away till there wasn't anything there..On one of them iused metel from a junk gas cookstove, an on another I cut up an ole square type hog feeder that had rusted out at the bottom, That galvanized metal from feeders is good stuff.
i have stopped leaks in metal broken lines by whittling a peg, wrapping it with cloth , wetting it and driving it in the broken line..:-}

[sullen]

I tied some balloons up with masking tape this weekend, couldn't find string to tie them to the mailbox. Just ran it around the stems and the post a few times. But then it was so hot they kept breaking, so when covering the mailbox with tape didn't work, I taped a Hello Kitty doll of my dd's to it. Wrapped the tape around it's neck, someone asked why I was strangling a Hello Kitty. Well it was a Hello Kitty party......

[holleegee]

I patched a metal stock tank with a bumper sticker. That bumper sticker held water for 2 years!

[Taylor]

The turn-knob fell off of the door to the glovebox of our ancient station wagon, and so the door to the glovebox kept falling open spilling out maps and etc. I took a thick rubber band, threaded it through the hole in the door left by the missing knob, wrapped the rubber band in a U shape around the inside hook that used to lock the door, and then pulled each end of the rubber band out thru the hole, and there was just enough of the band to wrap around a peach seed that we for some reason had in the car. (It's always a treasure trove of miscellaneous items under the seats). It worked perfectly to keep the door held shut, and when I needed to open it, I just removed the peach seed. Simple and ecologically friendly.

[Jan Doling]

" A clean tin can will heat water/food on a campfire when your power goes out and you really don't want to use your good cookware that way. Be careful not to get burned tho~they get hot!"

Use pliers to grip the lip of the can in lieu of a pot handle.

We "jury-rig" so many things as I either don't have the necessary tool or the necessary know-how. My parents retired to live on a sailboat for 20 years and often had to "jury-rig" something to hold until they reached the next island. I currently have a new dog kennel in which the panels are held together with bungie cords until I have time to deal with the correct hardware. Bungie cords also provide the tension to hold the outdoor PVC shower stall together. And the back door is bungied to the next inside door until a doorknob is fixed. When I die, skip the coffin, just duct tape me into a mummy.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by Jan Doling

" When I die, skip the coffin, just duct tape me into a mummy.

LOL, I'll remeber that
Had a car that I used a flathead screwdriver to open the trunk with, nut bolt and 2 washers to repair a hole in crab pot. Duct tape for dry rotted drip line and leaky hoses. Right now I have a pipe gate that the bottom is being held together with baler twine. Dog kennel is also held together with plastic ties and the houses have feed bags over the doorways in the winter to block the wind.

Around here repairs are "temporay permanent".

[ladyrua]

We used to have an old refridgerator with a handle that you pulled out to unlatch it - when the handle broke off, we used a big screwdriver instead. I was probably only 5 or 6 at the time, but I remember it being a novel idea. I was all disapointed when we got a new "modern" fridge.