Boy that sounds like a hella lot o’ work to save $1.29.
That’s why I said “whenever needed” , and no, you don’t cut-up a hundred bands all at one time.
A comment elsethread reminded me of an idea I had that’s working nicely. Have as unique a doormat as possible. That way, when I get a picture of a delivery, I can tell whether it made it to the correct apartment or I need to go hunting.
In my home, I’m contractually forbidden to set my glass on the same table as a board game.
I used to be able to blame the cats, but as we no longer have cats, the jig is up.
The consistent width is fairly easy to get with sharp scissors, cutting across the tube. The length? Rubber stretches, and the belts I cut didn’t really have to stretch very much. The turntables I’ve done this to (Sansui and Pioneer) have spindles that are not perfectly cylindrical. They’re a bit thicker where the middle of the belt rides than towards the edges of the belt. This is an old engineering trick that always keeps the belt centered on the spindle, keeping the belt speed constant.
I understand your skepticism. So, I just put a record on one of the turntables. I’m sure I haven’t used it for the better part of a decade and it sounds fine. In my experience a stock belt would be stuck to the platter and wrapped around the spindle after that long.
Thanks for the response. Personally I’m not that adventurous about making my own stuff, so based on your observation that belts don’t last, I ordered a spare just now for my turntable. I kind of figured that the belt would likely be the first thing to go. It cost more than it should but still, $20 and free shipping gives me peace of mind, in case for some reason it becomes no longer available in the future.
Speaking of “no liquids in vessels without a cap in our house,” if you keep water on your bedside table, be sure to use a bottle with a cap or a cup with a lid or the like. Years ago, I used to keep an uncovered glass of water beside the bed, and one morning I woke up and a giant dead cockroach (the big Texas waterbug kind) was floating in it. That is a picture I will never get out of my head. Thank goodness I didn’t wake up thirsty that night…
I’ve seen that in classrooms, for showing how much time is left in a test or the like.
For smaller jobs, a Post-it works well.
The spare will probably go bad quicker than the one actually in the turntable.
I do know a great lifehack for that one: Don’t live in Texas.
Or you discover the cat with its head all the way in your drinking glass.
Typical cynic!
I know all rubber has a finite lifetime. But the turntable is already several years old, and due to a screwup on my part, at one time was left running (rotating) for probably several weeks before I noticed. All of that, combined with the fact that I intend to store the spare in optimum conditions, probably means it may be useful as an actual replacement. My betting, though, based on previous experience, is that I likely won’t need it at all. But it was a small cost for a bit of peace of mind.
Back when we used to get a daily newspaper - two, actually - I started making a rubber band ball with the rubber bands they put around the paper. I still have a baseball-sized rubber band ball in the kitchen junk drawer that I can peel a rubber band off of whenever I need one.
After thousands of attempts, I now cut tomatoes in half while putting my thumb on the green thingy. Allowing its removal in two cuts in stead of 4.
It is amazing to me how long it took between the first time I thought “I should do this smarter” and the first time I did it automatically.
I dunno if this is a secret or a hack or not, but I use my phone to help read small things or hard to read things. Like serial/model number tags on electronics. Take a pic, zoom in, there’s your numbers. Especially handy for when my Echo loses connection with my Smart devices and I need to re-find the damn things from scratch. I don’t have to unscrew my lighbulbs and write down the model number, I can just shove my phone in the lamp and shoot a picture.
Sorry, but I’m not picturing what you mean by this.
After I run, I take off my running shoes and remove the insole from each. My feet sweat during the run, and doing this helps the shoes dry faster.
I like to remove the stem from my tomatoes.
I used to cut the tomato in half through the stem.
When you do that you must cut 1/2 a stem from each half.
Now I make the first cut on one side of the stem, so I only have to cut the stem from one half.
Here are some things I have learned on my own while working on old cars for many years. All pertain to nuts-n-bolts:
When removing a difficult/rusty bolt or nut, do not simply turn it CCW. If you do this, you are forcing the threads to move lots of dirt and rust, and you could end up breaking the bolt due to the excessive torque necessary to do this. Do this instead: after breaking it loose, turn it CCW around 45°, and then CW about 20°. (These values are very approximate.) And then keep doing that: 45° CCW, 20° CW, 45° CCW, 20° CW, etc. etc. This helps break up the rust and dirt in the threads, and reduces the torque necessary to remove the bolt.
When starting a nut or bolt, begin by turning it CCW a couple revolutions. This helps seat it and prevents cross-threading. Once it is seated, turn it CW.
When using a hacksaw to shorten a bolt, thread a nut on the bolt beforehand. After cutting it, remove the nut. The nut will fix the threads.
When you have a bolt and nut, it is usually best to hold on to the bolt head (to keep it from rotating), and tighten the nut.
When mounting something that requires more than one bolt or screw, thread-in each bolt, but do not tighten it; keep it loosey-goosey. Start tightening the bolts only after all the bolts are threaded-in (and still loose). This helps with alignment.
A couple regarding shaving.
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Shaving is more pleasant if the foam is warm. This can be done by filling the sink with warm water and either shooting some foam on top (but not gel which may dissolve), or simply immersing the can for a couple minutes.
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If you buy the expensive blades, the side with five blades can be easily sharpened by rubbing them on a flat glass surface (try both wet and dry). One blade gives good shaves for months. You can sharpen the single blade too, but this weakens the pivot and will eventually break the blade.
Markers solve lots of silly problems of modern life. I have two kinds of salt in my kitchen, coarse and fine-grained salt, both in glass jars with glass lids. Drawing a C and an F on the lids made it clear at a glance which is which. I got that idea from something I did to a toolbox, the kind that has two flaps for lids under which there are two compartments that open up like a tackle box (fishing). I used to keep screwdrivers in one compartment and box wrenches in the other, so I drew a circle on one lid and a straight line on the other to know at a glance which is which.
This is about 15,000ish rubber bands. And since the thread is about self learned life hacks, the life hack here is that if you spend an hour mindlessly adding rubber bands to your rubber band ball, wash your hands when you’re done. At some point you’ll touch your mouth and it’ll taste like you have a mouthful of rubber bands. It’s pretty gross.