Slick-50, Prolong, or any of a multitude of oil additives. Teflon stays solid at engine operating temperatures, Dupont, who created the stuff, advises against using Teflon as an oil additive and the FTC has successfully sued Slick-50 and the like over their claims, yet people still think that Teflon somehow makes a lubricant perform better.
Come to think of it, almost anything that you could put on or inside an engine or transmission that isn’t specified by the manufacturer or that makes some vauge claim that it improves perfomance is almost guaranteed to be pure crap.
I have given up on a craft-for-semi-profit because I have had a major glue problem with about 7 glues that I’ve tried. I’ve spent more on glue than the rest of the supplies.
Craft glue, elmers, super glue…you name it. They are either too runny, too clumpy, or don’t hold anything.
The Glue Manufacturers of America have earned their last $ from me.
I must lead a charmed life because I have few of the problems you all seem to experience. Superglue for example, the wonder of the ages. In flying model airplanes it has virutally replaced white/yellow glues. You can get it in different viscosities from almost gel to watery thin. You have to be careful but it works great on wood.
Those flea-fighting products available in the grocery store. None of them work, not a one. The only thing that works is the drops you buy from the veterinarian to put on the back of your pet’s neck, plus one of those aerosol bug bombs that requires you to leave your home.
I’ve never had any luck with screw or bolt extractors. If a bolt is wedged tightly enough so that I destroy its head, no reverse threaded widget is going to help. Especially not one that relies on drilling a hole in the existing bolt.
Chain saw sharpening guides. I’ve never tried one that wasn’t vastly more effort than simply eyeballing it (or sending the blade out to be sharpened by someone who knows what they’re doing.)
This thread has gone two pages and nobdoy’s mentioned CONSUMER ROACH PRODUCTS, especially common “Roach Motels?”
No way. You could put those damned things down for a year and the roaches will just treat them as concession stands on the grand tour of your home, ESPECIALLY if you live in an apartment building.
In my experience, the ONLY hope is a professional exterminator (and even then, several or even many visits).
Superglue works great, but only on porous materials–stuff it can really soak into. Smooth plastics and metals are hopeless. I was building something out of thin-aluminum a while back, I had to stick a couple small tabs on and thought that using a bit of superglue would do the job quicker than a couple pop-rivets. Not so. The metal was clean but the glue barely held at all, and broke/peeled right off, only holding on where it ran over an edge. So, I figured, okay, smooth is bad. Get a mill file and scuff the whole bonding area up real well right? -So the aluminum surfaces are not smooth. But that only worked a tiny bit better.
I tried a Nordictrac ski-machine once (some years back now) at my health club, and it was pretty-close to effortless to do. It was the full-model, the one that cost $1400 or whatever, I remember they cost a pretty good chunk of money. It had a resistance-adjustment mechanism that was some imprecise screw-down knob, and I screwed it down farther than anyone else I saw, almost all the way it could go, and the machine was still extremely easy to use–there was still very little resistance involved. I know it was not supposed to be a weight-training machine, but still–the ONLY muscles that even got tired during a 20-minute test were the ones in my back that pull your arms straight-back (I dunno the name). Other than that, I could have stayed on that thing for a few more hours. There was almost no cardio work involved. By comparison, a regular stair machine was WAY more work to stay on.
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These cheap poster frames that I have. The plexiglass front is held to the backing by u-shaped plastic channels on all four sides. After a couple of months of hanging on a wall, the bottom one always slides off and smacks into the ground. Presumably it’s due to a combination of gravity, lack of friction, and slight movements in the wall, but it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have realized this when they made it.
Another one is IKEA 4x6" photo frames. They are clearly labelled as 4x6, but they won’t actually hold a standard photo that is that size. They’re just a couple of millimeters off in both directions. You have to trim the photos to get them to fit. I think they’re actually metric sized at 10x15cm, which is 3.94x5.9". How can they sell these?
Amen to that! There is no efficacy study showing pyrethrins to be effective as a spot-on application. However, companies “copy cat” the application design of Advantage and Frontline. Do not buy Hartz products, especially!
If only I’d known this a few months ago. We had a terrible experience with their cat flea product. Do you have any information on what, exactly, they do differently than the other flea/tick companies?
Hartz Mountain has a long history of what I and many others consider poor ethical behavior. They marketed a product years ago called Blockade that was very effective against fleas, but killed many animals. Rather than pull the product, they instead paid the vet bills of those whose animals died. Eventually there was so much negative press that the product was reformulated.
You and me both. I only use it with the nail polish remover opened and ready to go.
irishgirl, my hair laughs at hair remover cream. No, really, you can hear the tiny little giggles when I lose my mind and think the NEW, IMPROVED stuff might actually work and waste some money on it. Same with wax strips. The only thing that works on my tough, well-planted hair is hot wax or a tweezer.
You know, up until now, I thought the worst possible pet care job was expressing dogs’ anal glands for them.
It must take serious protective gear to vacuum your shark.
I bought one at Padeye’s recommendation, and yes, I could use it to illuminate an airport runway. It would blind anyone who looked right at it, and it’s small enough to fit in my hand. I could also knock someone’s teeth out with it. You do get what you pay for; if you want a flashlight you can attach to your key ring that also lights things up in a meaningful way, it’s gonna cost ya. I feel so much safer having it with me at all times that it was worth the money. IANA shill for Surefire either, just a satisfied customer.
elmwood: Your dog is adorable.
Drain openers: I buy Zep professional strength drain opener. My best landlord told me about it and I buy it at Home Depot (they don’t sell it in the grocery). Works great… and I have hair that’s 3’ long and falls out by the fist full, or so it seems.
