Favorites
Season: season 2
Episode:Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
Here're the posts! First post was on January 1, 2005!
PepperTech:
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Here's one MacGyverism that saved my hide. It's one I used while out camping. I was out by my family cabin and couldn't remember which way to get back to the cabin. I got hiking up behind the cabins and zig-zag'ed all over the place. It was getting late and I wanted to head back and I didn't have a compass. Instead of just wandering aimlessly trying to find my way I used a few things I did have in my back pack. I knew the winds only blew north/south due to the valley shape and my wind vane at the cabin when I'm there. Finding the sun at my 3 o'clock position helped me figure which was east/west. Now to figure out if I was north or south of the cabin lots. Following my shadow east I found the lake but didn't quite recognize the area. Using my binoculars I was able to find an island I do remember taking my boat out to once before with my parents, it was directly across the lake from our cabin. I found the island in what appeared to be south of me on the opposite side of the lake. I used a gauze pad as a writing pad and a felt to do a little calculations to make sure. I wasn't able to figure out the distance but had an idea of where I was going. An hour of walking south I was back to the cabins. A little luck and geometry and I was home safe.
Phoenix:
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truly, mac worthy, indeed! didn't panic; used your head and available tools. congrats (!) on the safe return and being able to share the tale with us!
ciao!
phoenix
PepperTech:
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I can tell I've seen all the MacGyver episodes, I've even taken a liking to chemistry, physics and playing around with various things to get the job done. SAK's come in very handy for fixing almost anything.
I Love Penny Parker:
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My Macgyverism ... It's not very complicated, but the other night at a party a girl cut her finger and there weren't any bandages around to cover the wound ... so I grabbed some streamer wrapped it around her finger and tied it on with a trash bag tie.
Rockatteer:
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ahh.. a true macgyverism... making use of whatevers around to do the job
PepperTech:
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I'm even a MacGyver when it comes to cooking, ya never know what will end up in the pot.
Rockatteer:
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No thats just male cooking.
Tomms247:
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hey thats great pepper - tech
if i could re live the last 26 years of my life knowing what i do now id learn everything MacGyver know's. Id do public and emergency services at college instead of the lame stuff i did. I get more into the outdoors and build my life like MacGyver's. although there is a couple things i wouldnt do unfortunatly, and thats jump out of a plane or hand gliding, rock climbing maybe, on an indoor one but unless its absolutly necessary thats my limit. I like my feet on the ground, saying that so did mac.
WhiteDragon:
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Here is a real MacGyverism that I did last year. I was riding my snowmobile in northern Quebec when the trailing arm broke. This meant that I had no steering on the snowmobile. I was also about 50 miles north of any sort of town-in, as you would say, the wilderness. What I did was use some rope to tie the trailing arm to the body of the snowmobile so that the steering would work after a fashion. This gave me enough directional capability to allow me to get back to the nearest town. I then was able to get the trailing arm fixed so that I could continue my trip. Not pretty, but it worked.
Rockatteer:
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although there is a couple things i wouldnt do unfortunatly, and thats jump out of a plane
I'm with you ont hat one... I cant see the point in jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.
MacGirl:
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Me either. I just don't get the attraction. I guess some people are just adrenaline freaks. But especially after that story this fall about that woman who jumped out of a plane and her parachute didn't deploy properly... no thanks. She lived, but was *really* beat up.
MACGYVERISMYDAD:
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one time i was driving down the road at night and my headlights shut off. i pulled out the headlight switch and smelled a wire burning. i used the flashliight i had with me to see inside. one of the ground wires had shorted out and was melted. i went to the trunk of my car and pulled out some jumper cables, then i trimmed the negative wire till it was just the good non melted end. i took 1 negative terminal from the jumper cable and clipped it onto the wire, then i took the other end of the negative jumper cable and clipped it onto the steering column on the underside of the dash. then i used my trusty duct tape to tape the remaining termnals up onto the dash so they didn't get in my way. the headlight worked and i got back to my house in one piece and i hardwired a new ground in the next day. if i only had a paper clip!
WhiteDragon:
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My Macgyverism ... It's not very complicated, but the other night at a party a girl cut her finger and there weren't any bandages around to cover the wound ... so I grabbed some streamer wrapped it around her finger and tied it on with a trash bag tie.
This is similar to what I did in Elliot Lake, Ontario a number of years ago. I had slashed my fingers on my snowmobile, and could not get any bandages-all the stores were closed. What I did was use some electrical tape to close up the slashes. Could not tell the differences-no bleeding once I put the tape on. I guess you would call that another Macgyverism.
rossfrye:
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i like to work on cars in my spair time but since i away at the university i didnt bring any tools. but the only tool i need is my SAK tinker boyscout edition (ive had it 9 years)
so the guy that lived next door to my had his window fall off track on his car..(to make it worse it was a power window)...so with only my knife i was able to take the door and tracks apart replace the window and put the whole thing back together and it only took the large screw sriver, small screw driver, philips driver, and small blade.
rossfrye:
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just though of one more
i changed the door handel and the lock cylinder on our VW with nothing but my Tinker SAK
all's i had to do was, pop off the cover of the handel with the large blade, use the philips driver to take the left side of the handel off, and the can opener driver to take the other side off, then one more bolt holding the lock cylinder in was taken off....then i held the cylinder spring in place with the tooth pick when i replaced the old cylinder and fastened it all back together and with the new parts the handel worked great and with the old lock cylinder in the car i did not need to get new keys made
Rockatteer:
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Now thats what you call Mac-thinking.
Hey you got VW beetle? and if so... does it look like this?
lol, no its a VW GTI 1991 its not mine is just a old car i was working on...the window trick i did was on a civic that was a friends...but knew how it worked cuz i have a 2000 civic si
BeefyBoyGod:
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Wow, that's some nice modification work. What all was used?
Kate MacKay:
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If it comes to a MacGyverism when you are cooking, do you use potatoes for your timer? . . I hope it is not those runny tomatoes you are using?!?! Sincerely, Kate Mackay
Amy:
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I've recently gotten a good friend hooked on MacGyver...In fact her whole family is devouring my dvd's! Even her 3 year old chooses MacGyver when he wants to watch something on TV.
Anyway...she just called me from a cell phone at a park to tell me she did her first MacGyverism! She had a flashlight for which she knew she needed batteries, so they stopped at the store and picked some up. At the park she was putting the batteries in and the flashlight still wouldn't work. She discovered that the little metal contact was missing. She also had just bought her hubby a pack of DoubleMint gum...
So she took the gum wrapper and folded it up to replace the contact. She put the batteries in and it works!
I'm so proud...
MacDriver:
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Speaking of which, Kate, do you know if a bettery operated clock can even run on two potatoes? Seems like I might've messed around with that MacGyverism a little a few years ago but couldn't get it to work...
Rockatteer:
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No. You need to use 1 potatoe.
you need two different types of metal for the "contacts" and they need to be close together.
If yoru interested in this kind of thing theres a book in our store called "sneaky uses for everyday things", which explains and shows how to do simply science experaments such as the potatoe battery, coin batteries and the such.
Firniswin:
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LOL! I got one!
So, some boy's came over to have a meeting with my mom about Jr. High Sunday School class becuase they were teaching that Sunday. Well, the meeting was over and the two boy's asked my brother's to join in on some video games. Trouble is that on the certain TV they chose to play at, the cords always get in the way of the screen.
So, they were really frustrated by this. While I was standing there watching, an idea totally popped into my head.
Quickly I ran and grabbed some wall tacky and a paperclip. I fashioned the paperclip so that it would act like a hook. Then, I stuck the blue tacky to the TV's side and stabbed the paperclip into the tacky. Then, to test the "design" I put the cords in. It worked perfectly! It kept the cords out of the way and I was thrilled. My mom thought I was brilliant. LOL! I just told I'd watched too much MacGyver...
Blessings!
Firniswin
OK...Think I'll do another post...for the rest!
"It's amazing what one can do when one doesn't know what one can't do." Garfield the Cat
"Another day, a whole 'nother set of fresh possibilities. I'm a sucker for mornings." MacGyver
Favorites
Season: season 2
Episode:Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
Here's more!
MacGyverGod:
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I tried to fix a laminator, unscrewed the thing, pulled out the plastic which was obviously stuck, screwed the thing down and result... they're going to get a specialist to fix it. Still I was on my way.
Old Fan:
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I once fixed (well... put a temporary patch) around a leaky faucet on a sink with chewing gum because we didn't have any putty or silicone. When the plumber arrived and saw the repair job, he was impressed - but he had a hell of a time getting the gum off because it had hardened.
Does that count?
Stupid Little Genius:
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my macgyverism didn't really serve any life saving perpose... but it'll save my art work from nasty tutor men who doesn't like me
what i want to do was take photos of aminals andbugs and stuff that were engangered or really common^^ well the big animal were fine and i got loads of photos of tigers and stuff but when it comes to taking a flys photo... well even on super macro it still looks lik a little tiny spec... not much of a photo...
so what i do is simple i take my digital camera (canon S2 IS if any one is interested ) and the taped on the 35mm lens back to front over the lens. then i zoomed the digial camera all the way in and got really close to the buggies^^ then focus and click! and wow oh wow then photos are amazing^^
the lens is used the wrong way round and is definatly not meant for this perpose but thanks to MacGyver i gave it a go^^ and i'm really glad i did
oh i'll add the photo here so you can see the result^^ i'm sooooo pleased with it and now i know what i'm doing the next photo will be even better
Sorry, couldn't find the photo!
Mac's Lab Rat:
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Hey that’s really cool Sluggy! Wow!
That photo reminds me a little of an ex boyfriend - except the bug looks cuter! Its those hairs around the eyes - reminds me of his eyebrows. I'm sure he actually combed them!
Stupid Little Genius:
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Kewl photo
QUOTE Hey that’s really cool Sluggy! Wow!
QUOTE Wicked kewl photo... disgusting... but kewl
thank you guys^^ i was really proud of it although i did look like an idiot stand rund the bin waiting for the file to land....
QUOTE That photo reminds me a little of an ex boyfriend - except the bug looks cuter! Its those hairs around the eyes - reminds me of his eyebrows. I'm sure he actually combed them!
hahaha you sure he was a guy?? mind you you were lucky... my exboyfriend was hairy all over you couldn't see the skin on his arms or legs or back or anywhere... and i would insist on waring shorts.... i think he must have had to comb his whole body mind you he didn't have eye brows.... maybe on thinking about it i got off lucky
QUOTE "help me! help meeee!"
hahaha yeah^^ saidly the poor little guy died right after this was taken... so 'help me' was probably what he was thinking
if any of you wanna see the photo in it's big glory plus all my photos and paintings and drawing and stuff.... well you can find it all here:
1) Made a guitar amp out of an old ghettoblaster, by de-soldering one of the record heads and replacing it with a 6.25mm jack connector. Then just press play and hey presto; play it again sam!!
2) I used to do a lot of music recording and the particular software I used was able to be controlled by the keyboard, stop, play, rec etc. So I took an old computer keyboard and combined it with a lond piece of ribbon cable and an old tv remote control, to make a small recording remote control.
3) Used two pieces of card covered in aluminum foil, seperated by some thin strips of card, to make a floor sensor for a burglar alarm.
I'll post more when I remember them.
silentk:
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Ahhhhh, the Rubanto. How could I forget. Whilst working in a supermarkets, I used to get rather bored of an evening. Being musically minded I decided to make a musical instrument from what was lyin around.
Take on card tube from the little grocery bags, add an elastic band, and top it off with cable ties, the plasric locking ones. The ties made great frets, just like on a guitar. The only drawback was the non linear nature of rubber. The harder you played, the more out of tune it was
Rockatteer:
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I just remembered something I did when I was about 13 or 14.
I pulled a computer gaming joystick apart, cut one of its switches off the circuit board and taped it to the inside of my bedroom door so when the door was closed it would press against the switch and send a signal to the computer.
I used lots of bits of speaker, wire to extend the cable to run around the edge of my room and back to the computer, where I had written a simple program to timestamp when the switch was opened and closed… thus giving me a log of when and if my room had been entered while I wasn’t in it… in effect.. a “MacGyver made” security system
Later on I got adventurous and set the program to make an alarm noise when the door was opened.
It looked very MacGyverish.. with lots of bits of wire all joined together simply by twisting the ends together and then covered with bits of electrical wiring and a circuit switch cut out and taped to the inside of my doorframe.
Stupid Little Genius:
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hey rockateer silentk id the some kinda thing... acept he used two pieces of card and some tin foil and made a presusre pad that made an alam ring when someone steped on it^^ he also had a key pad on the door.... so that if you wanted to get in there you had to tyope in a 4 digit number.... but that's a whole different kettle of fish.... (hahahaha fish^^)
silentk:
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I once used a nerf gun, remember those, that shot the foam darts, attached a blue tack o-ring to the end, and finished it off with a pea-shooter. With a few dried peas I ended up with something more powerful than a bb gun. It would shatter cds at a distance of around 2 metres.
Yuri Demetri:
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Some interesting macgyverisms here, I'll keep a note of them, because you never know...
Mine was a few years ago where I fixed a floppy disk drive by replacing the drive belt that had broken with a rubber band.
My other one is a bit of a cheat as it wasn't my design but it used parts that were lying around so it's quite MacGyver like. I was at work completely bored and someone had instructions in a magazine on how to build a device from office stationery that fires kitchen roll tubes. Well, being in an office with all that stationery lying around looked like an invitation to me. It was basically a poster tube, with a trigger system made from pens connected to a paper clip that held a stretched rubber band in place. Pulling the pen trigger unhooked the paper clip from the rubber band and the rubber band would then force the kitchen roll tube out of the poster tube. I can't guarantee that it'll get you out of a difficult situation, but it sure fixed the boredom problem we were having that day.
Yuri Demetri:
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I once used a nerf gun, remember those, that shot the foam darts, attached a blue tack o-ring to the end, and finished it off with a pea-shooter. With a few dried peas I ended up with something more powerful than a bb gun. It would shatter cds at a distance of around 2 metres.
Hey silentk, both our posts are making me wonder now. What is it with us guys doing macgyverisms that involve firing projectiles? Boys with their toys I guess.
Stupid Little Genius:
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Boys with their toys I guess.
i have to say here that it wasn't just by brother.... i was in on it too^^ not to mention firing corks out of bottles using vinigar and bicarbonate of soda that was fun fun FUN!!
my point is anyway girls like boys toys too
Yuri Demetri:
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not to mention firing corks out of bottles using vinigar and bicarbonate of soda
Yuri sneaks off to try out a new toy...
Stupid Little Genius:
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Yuri sneaks off to try out a new toy...
i knew i shouldn't have given you new ideas....
Astra:
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Hi guys!
I just recently found this forum and I read about all your MacGyverisms. I think they are all very cool and I wanted to tell you about mine:
The lock of my letter-box was frozen and full of ice so I was not able to put the key into it. I thought about thawing it with a hairdryer but there was no socket around. So I really stood there and thought: What would MacGyver do? Then I went into my flat and after a while came back with a pot full of hot steaming water which I held under the letter-box and after a while I could put the key into the lock since the ice was melted.
Of course I also could have used a spray to de-ice but I don’t have a car and therefore no spray either and where would have been the fun in that at all?
Greetings from Germany
Astra
Mac:
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Very good idea!
I just blow on my mail box lock to get to deice it, but I like your idea better. As long as you're just using the heat from the steam (ie. not letting the steam touch the lock) you're not adding new moisture that'll just freeze again.
Oh, and welcome!
Mac
Amy:
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I doubt this is the most impressive MacGyverism posted here, but....
One of my 7 year old's toy John Deere tractors had a tire that came off and we couldn't find the pin that held in it place. So until I have time to make a more permanent fix, I used a piece of one of those plastic coated round twisties that they use to keep toys in place in the package...you know, the ones it takes forever to take out because I don't want to cut the twisties...they're pretty nice after all and you never know when you'll use them! ( yes, I'm a twistie junkie) It's diameter was perfect to stay in the hole left in the axle by the pin and once I put the tire on, I just gave it a little twist and cut it off. So far so good!
Astra:
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I just blow on my mail box lock to get to deice it...
Oh, and welcome!
Thank you! That didn't occur to me, though...
I do have another one: My friend and I were in a hotel room where the shade at the window only could be fully closed (which was pitch dark) or fully opened (which was too bright because of the lantern at the street). So we had to secure it halfway down.
We looked at each other and said at the same time: "Shoelaces!" But since she did not want to have to put the laces into the shoes the other day again we just used the whole shoe to fix it. Looked really silly, but worked
Pseodonym:
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I used a paper clip to fix my watch after the metal piece that held the metal part,the one that has the thing that goes through the holes, to the band (that sentence was full of really obscure words...but i have no idea what to call the pieces...), fell out. I still use the watch, and it has held together with no problems (although it requires a little more work to take on an off...at least I know that no one will be able to steal it off my wrist...not like I worry about that anyways...*shrugs*). So if you understood that at all, that is one of my tiny MacGyverisms.
Mac:
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I think that these are all excellent examples of 'MacGyverisms.' MacGyversims aren't about gimmicks or using strange objects. They're about finding a quick and dirty way to achieve your goal. At least, I think so....
In addition to duct tape, SAK, and WD-40, I never leave home without those plastic ties that make a loop and go "krrssssh" when you tighten them (if you can envision such a thing...). I was camping once with friends when the canvas chair I was sitting in gave way and dumped me unceremoniously in the sand. It turned out that one of the corner pins had snapped. Without a word, and ignoring the gaping maws around me, I went to my kit, pulled out three of those ties, then used them to repair the chair. It's still holding five years later!
Mac
Last post was October 9, 2006
"It's amazing what one can do when one doesn't know what one can't do." Garfield the Cat
"Another day, a whole 'nother set of fresh possibilities. I'm a sucker for mornings." MacGyver
Posts: 2,949
Joined: 11 Nov 2006
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Explorer
Favorites
Season: season 6
Episode:Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
Hi all. I recently discovered this forum and after reading your MacGyversims, had to include my own.
The fan belt broke on my truck one day when I was miles in the middle of nowhere. The truck wouldn't run without the fan and there was no way to call anyone for help, so I made a temporary fan belt with the leg from a pair of pantyhose. The patch held long enough for me to get to a garage and have a new fan belt installed. The look on the mechanic's face was priceless.
I also have used leather boot laces to repair a horse bridle, duct tape as a bandage for an injured horse and PAM cooking spray on the horse's feet to keep ice from building up on their hooves in the winter. The horse's that had shoes had a problem with snow packing inside the hoof and freezing to the metal shoes. The ice balls would get very slippry and the horses would have a hard tiome walking around. The PAM prevented the snow and ice from building up in the hooves.
My sister also taught me that a double handful of pennies in a tube sock makes a very effective weapon.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein
The stuff is already here, I just find a different way to use it. MacGyver
Favorites
Season: season 1
Episode:Jack in the Box (...possibly!)
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
QUOTE (MacGyverGrrl @ Nov 11 2006, 09:39 AM)
My sister also taught me that a double handful of pennies in a tube sock makes a very effective weapon.
Yes, I can vouch for the effectiveness of the "lots of small hard things in a sock" weapon. Though in my case it was marbles. Lots of hard marbles. Ouch.
Favorites
Season: season 2
Episode:Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
Yes! Welcome Grrl! Glad to see you jumping in!!
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The fan belt broke on my truck one day when I was miles in the middle of nowhere. The truck wouldn't run without the fan and there was no way to call anyone for help, so I made a temporary fan belt with the leg from a pair of pantyhose.
I knew a lady who was a missionary in Africa and she kept spare panty hose in the her Volkswagen Beetle for just such an emergency! she also informed me that Beetles really do float relatively well in water...she floated hers many tmes across washed out roads during rainy seasons.
"It's amazing what one can do when one doesn't know what one can't do." Garfield the Cat
"Another day, a whole 'nother set of fresh possibilities. I'm a sucker for mornings." MacGyver
Posts: 524
Joined: 2 May 2005
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Superchamp
Favorites
Season: season 4
Episode:Too many to choose from
Vehicle: Nomad
Jacket: Black leather
House: House boat
Mine seems to have been lost, so here goes... I have two, one by me and the other by my mom.
Mine was about a year ago. I was backing out of the garage one night on my way to work, and was too close to the side... and proceeded to take the right side mirror off my car. Fortunately, I remembered that I had a roll of duct tape in the back seat, so I just taped it up. It held (for a couple of months, actually!) until I had the money to get it fixed properly.
Earlier this year, we were having issues with our sump pump at home. The pump would kick on every half hour or so, and the hose would spray water all over the laundry room floor (the water was *supposed* to go down the drain, but the pressure was too high). It was driving me and my mom completely nuts. Finally, one night, my mom woke up in the wee hours with a brainstorm. She grabbed a bundt cake pan from the kitchen, and a roll of packing tape. She put the cake pan on the floor over the drain, threaded the hose through the hole in the middle of the pan, and used the tape to secure the hose to a nearby pipe! It worked... a little water still got on the floor, but the vast majority of it went down the drain like it was supposed to. When we finally managed to get a plumber out here to deal with it, he laughed out loud when he saw what my mom had done, and said that was probably the best seat-of-the-pants fix he'd ever seen.
Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
You don't eat things like that, you call pest control! Kate in The Gauntlet
What's that? Lateral... cranial... impact... enhancer. *whack* Last Stand
Posts: 7,214
Joined: 2 Dec 2005
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Camper&Swissbit
Favorites
Season: season 5
Episode:Serenity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
Toward the end of Xmas weekend, one of my beloved beasts decided to up-chuck in my sneakers... one of my work sneakers, mind. I washed them but worried that they would not dry quick enough for me to wear them to work. So I decided to get creative...
I bent out two wire coat hangers (like Mac did in 'Everytime She Smiles') and then bend them so that they shaped a sharp L angle. Stuck the half of the hanger that doesn't have the hook on it inside the shoe so that it held the tongue, and fitted the other half of the hanger over the toe of the sneaker. Turned the hook out and hung my sneakers on the shower rod. A well placed fan and a nearby airvent blew the sneakers dry in time for work!
It also kept the cat from yaking on them again! (no more turkey for you, Xaphod! Bad Kitty!)
Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die... They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
My latest one was two weeks ago. We've just re-routed the cables of the hubby's recording studio and the way they ended up entering the control room from the sound booth was just fine for me, but way too low for him to go under. We kind of left those until a better solution would present itself. Well, that weekend he dropped me off at home and went to the gym and somebody must've been torturing their car or something earlier, because there were a couple of radiator hose clamps on the ground. Well, I just couldn't resist. I took the clamps, washed the grime off of them, got on the tallest chair and mounted one high on the door frame to the control room. I fed all the lines through, the diameter was just perfect to feed the fat XLR plugs through. That raised the cables by over a foot, which was enough so not even the hubby's tuft gets fluffed now when he goes under the lines. One of the lines turned out to have an attached velcro strap, so I strapped all the lines together in the middle of the run, so they would not hang at different heights. The other clamp is in my junk crate, where I store useful things that I find, eagerly awaiting a home.
Although what'll probably happen is my best friend from work will steal it. She's just as junk-creative as I am. Scares me to think where some of her junk ends up though. My random bits of garbage tend to stay on the ground at least or at most get up in an airplane. Hers are orbiting this lousy planet.
Posts: 2,949
Joined: 11 Nov 2006
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Explorer
Favorites
Season: season 6
Episode:Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
I'm using my latest MacGyverism right now. I have an old injury in my knee that tends to flare up and hurt like hell when the weather turns cold. It is supposed to be 6 degrees tonight and my knee is aching like crazy. Heat helps ease the pain, but I can't find the heating pad. My solution. I have the the battery charger for my laptop sitting on my knee. The charger gets really warm, so I sitting here typing and got to thinking, why not. Its working like a charm. the battry pack is quite warm and is relieving the pain. Yeah, drug free relief and I will be able to sleep tonight.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein
The stuff is already here, I just find a different way to use it. MacGyver
I have to place a warning before this MacGyverism, if you are a squeamish person, skip this one.
My husband and I were training for the One Day Hike last spring (www.onedayhike.org). It's an extreme hiking event, three concurrent events, the largest one is 100K, as it says, covered in one day (start at 3am in Downtown DC, finish in Harpers Ferry, WV, 21h45min later (at least that's what we got clocked at) ). This is not the crazy part though. I told my husband not to do anything crazy and especially not to play pick-up basketball while we were training. Wearing size 15 shoes, he's somewhat of a target for jumping jackalopes.
This is a story about a smashed toe, a paper clip, a candle, a match (or lighter) and a pair of pliers. Yep, two days before an 18-mile training hike my hubby got his big toe smashed. The real problem was that he's smashed the nail before and it grew to be roughly 1/4" thick, so I don't think the emergency room nail punch would've worked to relieve the pressure. And he's a real fan of needles to boot. I improvised. Here's a funny thing about nails and hair: when sufficient heat is applied, they melt. So I got him in the bathroom, lit a candle, secured a straightened paper clip in the pliers, heated the paper clip, held it up against the middle of the busted nail and let the heat do the work. Repeat. After about 10 minutes I burned a hole through the nail, didn't hurt, because there was a big bunch of liquid underneath. Stuff came gushing out and the nail went back in its place. How well it worked? We hiked that 18 miles the morning after I did that. It continued to drain for the next couple of days, but kept clean with peroxide poured on it, did just fine. The hole eventually grew out and simply got clipped off.
So this is a sure cure if you happen to smash your finger or your toe with something heavy.
Fun with pennies (gotta use them for something, right?)
This is one you can actually do at home or at a party for fun and profit. My own personal recipe.
Ingredients: 8 pennies, salt water, some denim or other thick fabric, an LED or some other low-current bulb.
Take 8 pennies, at least 4 of which should be dated after 1982. Place four of the pennies (late dated ones) between the heel of your boot and concrete and strip them. They should turn nice and silver. After all the copper is only on the surface. The inside of a late model penny is almost pure zinc. Anyone see where I'm going with this?
Cut the denim to somewhat smaller than a penny. Dip the denim in salt water. Make four penny sandwiches by placing a stripped penny down, then denim, finish with an unstripped penny. Make sure that the outsides of the sandwiches are dry, stack them up, so top of one is in direct dry contact with the bottom of another sandwich and hold the leads of the LED to the top and bottom of the stack. You've just made yourself a pretty decent flashlight.
With this setup, you should get about 2.5-2.7V. An AAA battery gives 1.2V, an average LED comes in two varieties: 2.4V and 5V, so do the math what you can run with this. Main advantage over the potatoes? You WON'T get bugs. ("Out in the cold"). If said alarm clock doesn't run right, you don't have to dispose of the tomatoes, just reduce the power by using fewer penny sandwiches. You can duct tape the setup together if you want to. If the battery runs out, just replace the unstripped pennies with new ones and strip the stripped pennies some more to remove oxidation.
If the LED doesn't light up a couple of things may have happened.
1. You got the outsides of the sandwiches wet. 2. You didn't strip the pennies enough, so not enough zinc is exposed. 3. You reversed the LED leads (flip the LED)
I did this trick for a five year old son of a friend of mine over the weekend and the kid almost went into orbit.
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My husband MacGyvered the snowblower tonight. It has been snowing since Thursday morning and we have about 16 inches of light fluffy powdery snow. Its great for the skiers, they're loving it. I'm not. We have to move the snow out of the driveway so we can get in and out. We also have to move the snow from in front of our mailbox if we want the postal service to deliver the mail. Apparently mail trucks are not designed to drive in snow. The easiest way to move the snow is with a plow or a snowblower. We don't have the former so we use the blower.
Anyway, our snowblower has a mind of its own. It starts when it wants to and and works as long as the snow isn't too wet and heavy. It also has some sort of pin that holds the auger assembly in place. Every now and then, the snowblower shoots the pin out of the assembly and we have to replace it to make the thing work again. It happened again last night after the second pass down the driveway. Only this time we didn't have a spare pin. My husband badgered about in the garage until he found a bunch of wire. He found a length of wire in a gauge that was slightly smaller than the pin. He cut the wire to the length he needed and the wrapped the wire with a much thinner guage of wire for strength and to make it fit in the assembly. It fit into the hole and the auger assembly is working fine. It seems to be holding up ok, which is good, at least until we can get to the hardware store for a replacement pin.
Hope this fix lasts awhile, its still snowing.........
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein
The stuff is already here, I just find a different way to use it. MacGyver
I never had a cell phone, figuring the darn things are an annoyance and cause brain cancer. Well okay, maybe with a headphone they don't as long as the thing stays in my bag and doesn't come anywhere close to me.
Now going out and buying a cell phone was just too lame as I had a perfectly good broken cell phone laying around the house. Sure it's a brick that I had in the old Corolla, charged so I could call 911 in the likely case that a wheel would fall off or the car folds in the middle or something like that (yes it was getting to be this bad). The phone stopped working after a while, maybe coming into too close a contact with soaking wet and muddy hiking boots in the back of the car had something to do with it. Now three years later I found myself actually needing a phone and before running out and buying one I decided if I could get this one working again. I took it apart, couldn't really see much wrong except some mud on the contacts. Cleaned it with some nail polish remover, screwed it back together and it came back up. Sure the battery compartment is held together with duct tape, but guess what, pinking shears can do wonders for the look. Now I have a thoroughly MacGyvered cell phone. Now the beauty of the old brick is that it picks up a signal just about anywhere where other people's phones are dead. I guess that humongous antenna is worth something after all. :-)
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Okay, here's mine. About 8 years ago, my husband and I were camping in northern Arizona--in the middle of nowhere. I accidentally locked the keys in our 1987 Honda Accord hatchback. Well, like I said, we were in the middle of nowhere and it was getting dark and cold, fast. Actually, it had started to snow. So, my husband was getting ready to bust the window out so that we could get out of there before it got too cold (We weren't prepared for that kind of cold.). We were getting desperate. I couldn't let him break the window. It was a 6 hour drive back to our home. Then it came to me...two boot laces and two underwires. Yep, the underwires from my bra. So, I took the laces from my hiking boots, tied the laces together and wrangled with the underwires to make a hook then I attached the hook to the laces. I used a tree branch to pry open the driver's side window lowered my "MacGyverism" down to the handy trunk release and voila!! An open hatch! I crawled in the back and unlocked the car. I saved the day!!! My husband was impressed and amused all at the same time.
I was a little embarrassed....but for once soooo grateful for an underwire bra.
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Here's one I thought of. It was a long time ago, and it was extremely simple, so I'm not sure it would count, but here goes.
My dad and I and a friend of his were doing something that required a bucket. All we could find was an old dishpan with a hole in the bottom. Dad was out of ideas, but I said, "Why don't you just use some duct tape to fix it?" Dad looked at me (his expression was priceless!) and then said to his friend, "This kid knows stuff!" (I was maybe ten at the time.)
And this was before I'd ever seen MacGyver.
Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
You don't eat things like that, you call pest control! Kate in The Gauntlet
What's that? Lateral... cranial... impact... enhancer. *whack* Last Stand
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This summer, I went camping with two of my friends, we decided to take an impromtu road trip to the woods (about 4 hours away from home) and our friend Merri's ONLY job was to bring the tent, Kelly and I took care of sleeping bags, food, everything else. So we get to the campsite, I go to set up the tent, and MERRI FORGOT THE TENT POLES! Now, how do you make a tent without poles? Well I did! Using the tree as leverage, some nylon rope to make a pully system, and duct tape and knots to keep everything secure, I managed to make a 8 person tent perfectly sleepable without a single tent pole.
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This probably barely counts...and it's....gross, kind of....
I was on a ladies retreat over night on Friday. I wear contacts. I forgot contact solution. Since mine aren't the kind you can leave in over night, that was a problem. Nobody had any I could use.
Flashback to about 5 years ago: I'm in a car with a couple of teen girls and the one driving (who is notoriously not a great driver) started having an issue with her contact. So (while driving) she takes it out....and sticks it in her mouth. And then puts it back in her eye! Of course we had a grand old time with that! She said...why not?...it can't be much different than being in your eye!
Back to the present: I remembered that. So....I worked up enough spit in the case to at least keep my contacts from drying out. They didn't make it back into my eyes the next day (contacts and I don't get along after a very late night), but I cleaned them real well after I got home and put them back in this morning....they don't seem any worse for the wear!
"It's amazing what one can do when one doesn't know what one can't do." Garfield the Cat
"Another day, a whole 'nother set of fresh possibilities. I'm a sucker for mornings." MacGyver
I second the gross factor. I did that once when I was a teenager and I did stick the contact back in my eye. I ended up with a raging case of pinkeye. You know human mouth is septic, right?
If you washed it real good before wearing it again, it'll probably be fine. :-)
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Don't worry Amy, if I had a nickel for every time I've spit on my 'tacts, I would probably have enough money to buy a jumbo bottle of ReNu sterile contact solution...
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The only time I’ve been unlucky enough to be stuck without the solution for my lenses was when I had to unexpectedly pull an all nighter at work. Luckily for me there was some eye wash bottles that were out of date that month and were due to be thrown out as we had bought replacements. They are basically sterile saline solution in a sealed bottle in our lab first aid kits for chemical splashes in the eye. Personally I think you’d be better off sticking your head under the tap to get a proper rinse out rather than squeezing bottle after bottle of eye wash in your eye but never mind. The solutions were perfect for a rub and refresh of mine and the managers contact lenses. He treated me to a bacon buttie for breakfast for the suggestion.
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