On Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:14:14 -0600, jw wrote:

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 21:29:01 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson
wrote:

On Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:33:50 -0600, jw wrote:
Duct tape and bungie cords are all you will ever need to repair
everything.

Duct tape didn't work when my clothes dryer belt snapped the other day
and nowhere in town had a replacement. I never thought of trying a
bungie cord, though ;-)

A bungie should work fine for your belt, just remove the metal hooks on
the end and duct tape the ends together. Of course you need the proper
length bungie. You can measure that by taking a tail hair off one of
you your cattle or horses. or using a piece of balin twine as a measurin
device. If you aint got none of them things, but are lucky enough to
still have a dollar bill in your wallet in this poor economy, all dollar
bills are 6 inches long. Then measure to the closest letter or number
on the bill if it's an uneven divider of six. Then you get a bungie
thats a little shorter.

Ha ha! Funny thing was, a replacement belt was six bucks (inc.
shipping), and I found five in change kicking around inside the machine,
so it's sort of like having a warranty.

Humor aside, I think an emergency duct-tape belt might actually be
possible, but only if made entirely from the stuff; a taped-together belt
tends to bend around the join when it passes by the [tiny] motor pulley,
which then loses traction and chews away at the tape. A belt made
entirely from tape wouldn't have any weak spots (but the stretch might
simply be too great for the tensioner to handle anyway).

Re. pantyhose, I've only ever heard that as an emergency car fan belt
replacement; I do remember someone trying it (back when I was maybe 6
years old) but don't recall if it actually worked. I expect it stretches
too much to be really effective, but I suppose having the fan turning a
bit would be better than nothing and could get you home (possibly with
several cool-down stops).

cheers

Jules