Mark Jerde wrote:

The point of my post was that I enjoy quickly making useful things
even if they don't get shellaced. I also enjoy using my tools to
repair things that 998 people out of 1000 would have to throw in the
trash.

Let me give another example. We moved into this house in 1993. It was
built in the 1960's. Heating and plumbing have changed a lot since 1963.
;-)

The drain from the laundry room is a simple 1.5" copper pipe, and it is very
pinched where it goes into the concrete floor. This caused many problems.
If the washing machine was directly connected to the pipe it siphoned out
the water during the wash. If there was an air gap water sprayed everywere.
(The washer that was in the laundry room when we bought the house was so
low-powered the constriction never bothered it.)

The "official" solution was to jackhammer the floor and put in modern
plumbing up to the current code. I didn't feel like spending over
$15,000.00 so I tried alternatives. It took several prototypes (that *did*
*not* work) but for the past about 8 years there is a "surge tank" on the
wall in the laundry room that takes all the water the washer can put out,
and puts it in the drain at a rate the collapsed pipe can handle.

It took a couple more years to come up with a lint filter that works year
after year, but now we have something that only needs changing about once a
year.

I have a workable solution that cost less than 3% of what the "experts"
recommended. To me this is very satisfying, especially since I didn't have
the extra cash to throw at their "solutions." I *love* saving myself money!

I live in hope that someday one of my solutions will be of universal
applicability and I'll be able to "retire" a wealthy person. If that
happens I promise to:
-- Only use "Old Growth" timber in my projects. MDF, "plain sawn" and
plywood will be curse words.
-- Eat nothing but "Endangered Animal Steaks" per Dilbert. g


-- Mark