Repairing Backrest of Chair & Punctured Bicycle Tubes

Long time visitors would have notice that i have not blogged with any personally taken pics for more than 1.5 years. That's because my digital camera is spoilt. And the 2 megapixel lens on mobile phone is too grainy to be of any use.

$8 for 16 megapixel camera
In blogpost Half Ass Approach in Salvaging Plunging Morale Among Sinkie Males, i suggested using the vouchers for groceries. Well, i found a better use for the $80 vouchers by using it to buy the Canon A2500 entry level digital camera on sale at $88 ($88-$80). Canon website list the retail price at $149.

Furthermore, it comes with free 8GB 30mb/s SD memory card & camera case.

Moving Up the Value Chain
Long time visitors may have realised also that the quality of blogposts have gotten better ever since the camera got spoilt.

When the easier way out is shut off, you'll just have to adapt to a higher level. It is also the case with Google as i've blogged in What Google's Homepage Can Teach S'pore's Overpaid Ministers.

• No digital camera --> Being forced to blog at higher level.
• Google Homepage Zero Ads --> Forcing itself to operate at higher level for profits.
• Close floodgates to cheap foreign labor --> Being forced to productivity gains through automation route.

Google has done it, i've have gone through it myself. The most expensive government in the world - Sillypore govt can't do it despite being paid millions. Being paid the highest in the world yet taking the easy route & inflicting hardship on the peasants compared to other 1st world governments.


Anyway, back to the reuse & repair topic. Now with a camera i can show with examples. Repair & reuse is not just about saving $$$. It is the amount of energy resource that went into producing, packaging, transporting the item as oil prices nowadays are around triple-digits.

We ought to reduce our carbon footprint besides saving $$$. Throwing away something that can be repaired without much difficulty is wasteful.

Chair Repaired With Badminton String
Backrest of the chair broke on one end due to its thinly welded metal plate. Luckily there's a hole. Thickness of broken badminton string can be just nice in threading through holes to secure things. Once done & knotted, pull both ends of string with pliers to tighten the string.

Clothes Hanger in Shower Room
The spare wall mount with its big mouth. To fix the 'big mouth' i stuff badminton grip patch in attempt to plug it.

Bicycle Tyre Tube Patching
I'm an idiot at repairing punctured holes at first. Why idiot? Because i didn't follow the rubber glue instructions & always apply the patch while the rubber glue is still wet as that is what we always do when sticking paper to paper. Apparently rubber glue doesn't work like paper glue.

In the end i have 3 spare tubes instead of 1 since i don't know how to fix the punctures. Is only when i throw out the paper glue mindset that i managed to fix them all.

1. Sand punctured area.
2. Apply rubber glue on sandpapered area.
3. Let it dry completely!
4. Apply patch & apply pressure for 1-2mins
5. After like 1hr, inflate tube & leave it overnight to check for leaks.

3 patches (orange rims) )for the 3 punctures suffered on the tube pictured above. All patched & quality checked with no leaks after inflating & hanging it on the door knob for 3-4 days.