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[JuntaJoe]

I'm starting this thread because we all run into things that we have no clue how to fix or deal with when they work poorly.

It's a general purpose thread that will cover anything other than computers.

I make my living fixing all kinds of things and I find those most people today haven't learned these skills that were so common when I was young.

Between a disposable society, increased specialization, and other societal factors, people just toss things away or get a pro to fix them.

It's true that some things aren't worth salvaging or you really do need a professional, there is a quite a bit that could be handled ourselves and we don't know how.

Do I know it all? Nope. And I won't ever try to fool you when I don't.

And I also know that sometimes you certainly need to get professionals and will tell you so.


But perhaps I can save you a few dollars and tell you how to fix it yourself.

So ask away.

[JuntaJoe]

Home care tip of the day.

Do your faucets and showerheads begin to run a little sloppy over time because of hard water?

Make a 50% warm water and 50% white vinegar solution and drop your faucet aerators and shower heads into it.

It will fizz all the calcium deposits away and everything will spray like new again.

[jimmyreb]

groovy...

[JuntaJoe]

Glad you liked that.

Now for some basic home cleaning tips.

Look at the grocer and you will see a huge isle of cleaning products. I imagine it looks the same under your kitchen sink with your own cleaning supplies.

A bit of chemistry will clear away your clutter and give you the angle on what works.

Sanitizing: This is the role of plain household bleach. Nothing works better to kill germs that an ordinary person can buy readily. Note that ammonia is both a poor substitute and reacts bad with bleach to release chlorine gas. My advice is to throw your ammonia away for good and stick with bleach.

Light cleaning and degreasing: Plain white vinegar is a mild acid and will really clean the house up. There is no better window cleaner when you use vinegar and newspaper to wipe. Trust me on this. Works great on countertops and kitcken/bath surfaces.

Heavy cleaning and degreasing: An extract from citrus called delimonine has gained popularity of late owing to the plethora of "orange cleaners" you see on the shelves at the store. Sure, they work fine, but I recommend going a little further. Any good commercial supply company will sell various grades of delimonine cleaner. Find a supply house (Grainger in the US) and buy the strong stuff. About $30 for a gallon of concentrate. This stuff will take the paint off a boat in undilluted form. You can water it down to a solution so mild that it will clean a baby's butt without fear.

Liquid soap: There are many soaps available for cleaning out there. Tons really. But they are really two major components plus lots of mostly useless additive. First you have the basic soap that cleans. The second part creates the suds. Those suds are actually for a process called whetting action. It helps the soap cling and penetrate. It also helps expand the soap which means you need less of the actual soap itself. So you need only a couple basic soaps to do all your chores. A low sudsing soap and a high sudsing soap. A low sudsing soap is for jobs where soap foam could be a problem. This is the kind of soap you use in clothes washers and in spray bottles. I currently use All Free. Just a clothes washing soap with no color or fragrances. A high sudsing soap is your basic dish soap. Just buy what's cheap or on sale. This is the kind of soap you use for bucket mixing and hand washing of surfaces. Just don't put it through a sprayer or you will get a foamy mess. One last note on soaps, there are a few special duty soaps that are hard to make yourself. Dishwasher soap is a special soap for that appliance and is fairly complicated. Just buy the type you like and forgo trying to concoct your own. And Dial makes an outstanding hand soap with antibacterial additives. Best thing out there to sanitize your hands in the kitcken to avoid contaminating foods.

Ok, now you have those basic products. You can build your own cleaner for your specific need around the house using the bucket or spray methods. You can buy empty spray bottles at your local home repair store. Be sure to label your concoctions! And I've found that an unused pesticide sprayer is perfect for spraying big jobs. Just never use it for pesticides or toxic chemicals and try to use it again for cleaning jobs.

Building your own concoctions is pretty much fuzzy logic. Just be mindful of the surface to be cleaned. Say you are cleaning a kitchen countertop. Some vinegar, water, a couple drops of low sudsing soap, and an ounce of bleach in a spray bottle will clean the worst kitchen mess in a flash. But that bleach would ruin a carpet. As would the vinegar ruin the finish on a wood floor. If in doubt, skip an ingredient or drop a note here and I'll suggest a mix.


Now all of this cleaning advice skips one aspect. Polishing. Sadly, there is no miralce polish for all surfaces. Wood, stainless steel, vinyl floors, silver, and porcelain all have their own polishes. Just accept this and get what you need for each chore.

[AriesQtPie]

Toothpaste makes an excellent jewelry cleaner. I keep an old toothbrush around for just such a thing. :wink:

[Eddy]

Ack! Ack! Ack!

Don't use toothpaste! It will eventually wear the jewelry away because of the grinding of the paste.

This is what I got from the net...

How Do I remove tarnish from silver?

Answer:



Look in your refrigerator

To remove the tarnish from silver, try this. Mix common baking soda with a little water to form a thick paste. Place some of the paste in the center of a clean cloth or sponge. Rub this paste over the tarnished surface, then rinse with water. The very fine abrasive quality of the baking soda will remove the tarnish and leave a polished surface.

Can you Cook?

Take a glass or ceramic or enameled pan.
Place a piece of Aluminum foil on the bottom of the pan.
Place your jewelry on the Aluminum Foil (make sure the two metals are touching)
Boil water with 2 to 3 tablespoons of Baking Soda stirred in.
Pour the boiling water solution into the pan till it covers the whole jewelry piece.
Watch the tarnish disappear.



Note: This process will work for all but the most tarnished of jewelry. This process is not recommended for jewelry with soft stones like Opal, Turquoise, Sodalight, etc... Use at your own risk when dealing with all stones. I am passing this information on and am not to be held responsible for any problems you may encounter using these methods

How can I clean my jewelry with things I have around the house?

Answer:

There are many more cost effective ways than people realize.

Remove Hair clots on chains by sticking them in the
oven @ 500°F for an hour, or use a lighter/ small torch to burn them off. Alternatively, you could place the chain on the top of your electric oven to burn it off. Quench in water when done.

Once the hair and organic material has been burned off you can use one of the following to clean it further.

Use toothpaste and cloth, toothbrush, or fingers and scrub the metal with it finish with soap and water.
Use Baking Soda with a wet cloth or a toothbrush and scrub the metal finish with soap and water.
Can I protect Silver from tarnishing?

Answer:

Sort of!

Well on the high end, there is a system which is sold for about $2000, which imparts a "Tough Coat" heat activated transparent polymer onto the jewelry. I have had no experience with it, however, I do hear it works very well. If you can find a jeweler who has the "Tough Coat" setup, you could spend a couple of dollars to have the piece coated.

On the low end, you may wish to try an automotive polish like NuFinish2000©. You would use it the same way that you would on your car; Wipe it on, let it dry, then buff it off. If you can, make sure that the product does not contain either Sulfur or Bleach, else Silver will instantly tarnish. Most of these products impart a polymer or wax onto the surface which if left alone will last quite a while. However, if the piece is handled often then re-application will be needed more often. If you are worried about the white residue that these products leave behind, they do make quite a few clear polishes.

My Favorite is "Future©" Acrylic Floor Polish. It can be found at almost any large grocery store for about $5. It can be used as a dip or a brush on. I also find that it works well to apply it to a clean rag/cloth and rub a coating onto the surface. Once dry, this imparts a tuff coating which should last quite a while without re-application. Heck, if the stuff is tough enough for floors, why not jewelry.

Also, there are a whole slew of products which supposedly "Protect" Silver from tarnish. My experience has shown me that they work about as well as the auto polish in most cases, but the cost is greater. However, if you are looking specifically for a jewelry product, then I would suggest the following:

Hagerty Silversmith Spray Cleaner.
Hagerty Products in general are very good.
Met-all
Flitz
Miracle Polishing Cloth


There are others, but their names escape me for the moment.

[Robbo]

Coke (or Pepsi) as also quite good at cleaning jewellry :lol:

[Brf]

Robbo wrote: Coke (or Pepsi) as also quite good at cleaning jewellry :lol:

Yes. The Phosphoric acid is good for cleaning pretty much anything ;)

[JuntaJoe]

Ok, time for another tip.


Air.

Mostly nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, small amounts of assorted gasses and filth.

The oxygen that we need for life is also what causes decay through oxidation in materials.

And you put it in your tires.

This is actually an old trick that is just starting to make a comeback.

Back when gas stations were really service stations and cars were far less numerous, the better stations had a compressed nitrogen tank out back.

Nitrogen is a stable noble gas with no oxidation properties.

Tires these days almost never wear out due to use. The shift to polymers over natural rubber gives modern tires these qualities. It is aging that causes the material to break down. Tires last several years and then seem to go bald, crack, or get in a bad way suddenly.

Using nitrogen to fill your tires will delay that date when aging becomes rapid.

So fill your tires with nitrogen.

You will find this a bit problematic, though.

Big discount tire stores, department stores, and gas stations don't offer nitrogen.

It will only be at small high end custom tire shops.

But no one said you had to buy the tires from them.

Drive in after getting your new tires and they will charge a fee for letting the air out and refilling them.

And you will find that your tires will last quite a bit longer.

[JuntaJoe]

Preparation.

The key to all jobs around the house. Especially home repair.

Most home repair or renovation jobs fail not due to poor quality materials or misapplication, but to shoddy prep work.

The fact is that people are always looking for the easy way out and look for tricks or gimmicks to save them a few steps. Pros too.

Don't buy into it.

A cheap $10 can of paint will last substantially longer when applied over proper prep work than the fanciest $40 a gallon stuff just slapped on over an old dirty finish. And they haven't invented the paint grenade yet. :wink:

So how do you prep?

Too many different types of jobs to explain them all, but you can gather good info at home repair stores and a bit of web research.

Just ask. Or ask me here.

One big reason I mention this is because many people don't know that even getting pros to do the job can result in failure over time. If a pro can figure out how to skip a step and the job still will last several years then they are off the hook. Most do attractive work, but use industry secrets to bypass time consuming prep. Time is money after all.

One thing that most homeowners don't know is that most pros will be more than happy to give you a discount if you do the prep before they come. They only ask to inspect what you did. Furthermore, most prep is actually rather easy, skill wise, if not labor intensive. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to push a putty knife as long as you bring the elbow grease.

I saved about 25% on a new fence recently by removing and hauling away the old one. No skill needed, but I traded cash for splinters and blisters.

Doing a new kitchen? Rip out the old stuff and get the room ready will save you serious money before you have the cabinet men install new ones.

I've done several variations on this theme in my home over the years. I get the finished look of a pro job, a sizeable discount, and the peace of mind that my new stuff is supported by a solid substrate that I personally did right. My new stuff will now last a good long time.