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REPAIRS ON A SHOESTRING

What Comes From Not Always Having the "Right" Tools? Renewed Creativity.

By Jim Simpson

All my life I've needed more and better tools--I thought! But I've discovered that not having better tools has pressed me to become more creative. Why? Because the "box" that we're always striving to "think out of" was, for me, like my first toolbox--empty. I have always worked "out of the box."

So how do I follow my ingrained male instinct to create and destroy without tools? I use caveman tactics. I make them. I pull in the necessary components from the environment around me, often no more than an arm's length away. Excellent sources of tools are the raw materials we discard daily into "round-file" containers everywhere. Some of the best tools are free or cost only a few pennies.

These days, boasting the least monetary value of any U.S. coin, the lowly penny is a good screwdriver, a conductive battery shim, lotto scraper, a gram weight, hole plug, fan blade balancer, chair leg shim, eyelid sun shield, bottle cap remover, shiny fishing lure or cardboard scribe. When flipped, heads or tails, it can even be a decision maker.

We always seek the best labor-saving devices we can find. Fortunately, thinking takes less energy than physical movement. Yet what seems obvious to one person is a real "hike" for another. "Use the power of the force, Luke," is really just opening up to ideas and making related concepts fit. Square pegs do fit into round holes (the rotary engine). The bad penny that turns up again and again, serendipitously demonstrates that the most obvious solution to a problem is most often in plain sight, obscured only by its camouflage of ordinariness.

I have always enjoyed association with people from entirely different work worlds. A cook's turkey baster performs well to evacuate a wound. A banker's ballpoint pen barrel opens a windpipe during an emergency tracheotomy. Grandma's knitting needles can roll a letter sealed in an envelope that has fallen into an air vent flap. One can catch a fish with a bottle cap or start a fire by fashioning ice into a magnifying glass. These unlikely tools are there for use by minds unclouded by the tasks for which the tools were designed, and cost less than a shoestring.

Image what Da Vinci would think of a paper clip. In his age rose thorns were used for thumbtacks. He would have marveled at the perfectly formed radial curves of a paper clip, wondered at its silvery patina and tiny, yet perfectly symmetrical cylindrical skeleton. Handling it, would he not have been amazed at its strength and resilience considering its size, its magnetic qualities, its willingness to take and hold other shapes when manipulated? Would he not have been inspired to utilize its qualities in some way to facilitate his dreams? Perhaps the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa actually conceals the world's first braces! Well, not made of paper clips, of course. These clasps came to light in 1899 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution--the series of events that precipitated the cast-off high-tech stuff surrounding us now.

The paper clip is a not-so-simple electro-plated, extruded alloy wire having tensile strength, malleability, ductile strength and variable electric and magnetic properties. It is made from body-centered cubic molecules and holds its shape in a standard temperature range. The paper clip had qualities that ET could use to phone home.

Here's how I use a paper clip. Right now, one is holding my quarterly payable documents together. But it has far more exotic uses. For instance, it has amazing capacity to hold other things together. Such as things made of plastic (that other relatively-new material that is typically under-engineered in our consumables). I believe that if Dustin Hoffman had taken his graduate advice, he would have been a better engineer than the many who have built things of plastics that break in our everyday lives.

Use of the paper clip with plastics works primarily on thermoplastics--those that melt when heated and are the most abundant of products that are injection-molded today. Take, for instance, the plastic vanity mirror cover on the sun visor in your car. Broken off, right? Don't replace the whole visor! Or the snapped-off paper roll holder arm on your desk calculator. How about the rocker switch for your coffee maker, electric window, lawn mower throttle or the lid on your wife's makeup compact? A paper clip can often rescue these broken plastic failures.

"Screw the glue," I say. "Skewer it with a mildly-heated paper clip."

Although there are many excellent plastic adhesives available today, there are few techniques as inexpensive, functional, and handy as plugging a glowing wire into cold plastic. Heating techniques vary. Matches, lighter or propane torch will provide the needed temperature. The heated paper clip grips the plastic as it cools. The steel is stronger than plastic and out-performs the original part of the fixture when accurately placed. Sometimes pre-drilling may help. Pin that undersized, under-engineered piece of broken-off technology back into its intended location with a piece of hot wire and you're a hero. Cut off the excess and file to shape. Finish, if necessary in your choice of paint or enamel.

Be creative, be clever, be open-minded, be stronger than plastic. Just skewer it with a paper clip. You, too, can experiment with repairs of a shoestring.

Jim Simpson is the owner of O.D.D. Parts (an acronym for Obsolete, Discontinued, and Difficult-to-Obtain Parts), which has served all aspects of fabrication and repair for more than 15 years. Simpson has a degree in fine arts from Cal State University Fullerton and his worked in the auto parts industry for more than 20 years. As president of O.D.D. Parts, he has shown his wares from Scottsdale, Arizona to the Pebble Beach Concourse De Elegance. Even better, he is committed to finding the right materials to make your project work. Visit Jim's website at: http://www.oddparts.net

You may also email him: oddparts@vom.com

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