All About Pocket Knives

On these pages along with many others across the country much is said daily about the inferiority of Chinese made products, and how they can fail at the worst possible time. I had an experience to share that happened last night. My wife and I have a niece that lives 1/2 block from us, so we see a lot of her and her 2 kids. But last night I get a call from her that she needs me to come down to her house right away as she has been away for a few hours and when she and the kids get home, there is water spraying in the bathroom. So I rush down there and turn the main water valve off, but as I am on the way to do that I walk past the bathroom and SEE the water spraying. I was slightly relieved when I saw that at least a part of the water spraying was actually going into the bathtub and down the drain. I return home on foot to get some tools and plumbing parts to repair the failed unit. Turns out that the water shut off valve to the toilet has failed, the whole top of the plastic valve under the t-handle has blown off and let water gush out on the floor. After I get the thing apart and install a new Pex 1/4 turn valve and connectors, I get to looking at the old valve that failed expecting to see the words "Made in China" on it. I was rather stunned to read instead the words "Made in Chile" Anyway, with a wet or dry vac, fans to move air, and a dehumidifier running the next few days, the damage seems to be minimal.
Upon thinking about this for quite some time, I really cannot remember ever seeing a product that was marked "Made In Chile". This one must have been made from "imitation plastic" which seems to fail at the worst possible time, as opposed to "genuine plastic" that seems to last forever. lol

Chile? I've never heard of that either. I'm glad though, that the damage appears to be minimal and that you were around at that time to save the day. Nice work OC.

__________
Mike

Glad to hear your repair went well, Jim. Some clever soul laid a new floor in the bathroom of our old house before we bought it. He put down a subfloor cutting in around the toilet shutoff valve so that the valve is now recessed in a well, so to speak, and cannot be accessed in any way without cutting out the pipe in the basement and starting over. So far I have not had to mess with it.
So now here is my good repair story. I spilled a drink on my keyboard for the desktop some time ago and a couple keys were just not behaving. So I went to the autoparts store and got an aerosol can of Brakleen, an excellent solvent. I sprayed the keyboard really well, and by golly that solvent is even better than I thought; it welded the keyboard into a rigid block of fused plastic. Heading for Walmart tomorrow.

OC, inferior product testing and production sells well in the big box stores. Glad you were able to make a repair.

TR, that is hilarious. Brakleen is not meant for computer keyboards!

Maybe OC should keep a Can of Brakleen in hand for future plastic plumbing failures. Could fuse holes in the plastic.

tongueriver wrote:Glad to hear your repair went well, Jim. Some clever soul laid a new floor in the bathroom of our old house before we bought it. He put down a subfloor cutting in around the toilet shutoff valve so that the valve is now recessed in a well, so to speak, and cannot be accessed in any way without cutting out the pipe in the basement and starting over. So far I have not had to mess with it.
So now here is my good repair story. I spilled a drink on my keyboard for the desktop some time ago and a couple keys were just not behaving. So I went to the autoparts store and got an aerosol can of Brakleen, an excellent solvent. I sprayed the keyboard really well, and by golly that solvent is even better than I thought; it welded the keyboard into a rigid block of fused plastic. Heading for Walmart tomorrow.

ROFL! That sounds like something I would do. What am I talking about, that's something I have done! My son's Marlin 60 needed cleaning bad, so I sprayed the trigger group down good in brake cleaner, not even thinking that the trigger guard is plastic. It's still in one piece, but it's brittle and off colored now. I need to find him another one.

I once bought cheap plastic magazine for my .22 semiauto pistol. After my first trip to the range with the new mag, I did my usual cleaning, which included spraying some Gun Scrubber. After spraying, I picked-up the plastic mag to wipe it down, and the plastic mag literally disintegrated in my hand. It crumbled like a year-old biscuit. A few years later I noticed that they now make a "synthetic safe" Gun Scrubber...

TwoFlowersLuggage wrote:I once bought cheap plastic magazine for my .22 semiauto pistol. After my first trip to the range with the new mag, I did my usual cleaning, which included spraying some Gun Scrubber. After spraying, I picked-up the plastic mag to wipe it down, and the plastic mag literally disintegrated in my hand. It crumbled like a year-old biscuit. A few years later I noticed that they now make a "synthetic safe" Gun Scrubber...

Birchwood-Casey eventually removed the "Synthetic Safe" label and began making it all safe for use on synthetics. Good move on their part.

Tongueriver, we might be kin. I have a whole list of things I've fixed that then needed replaced. I fix things like new because after I'm through it usually is.

doglegg wrote: I fix things like new because after I'm through it usually is.

That is one quote I am going to try to remember! And, sorry Jim for kinda hijacking this thread!

tongueriver wrote:

doglegg wrote: I fix things like new because after I'm through it usually is.

That is one quote I am going to try to remember! And, sorry Jim for kinda hijacking this thread!

No problem, this is all very entertaining. I will have to remember NOT to try the Brakleen keyboard cleaning trick. Actually I did something that was mentioned above, before there was plastic safe gun cleaner I sprayed some on a Marlin 22 rifle with synthetic stock and it "fogged" the black plastic. I wonder if there is any brake cleaning products made in Chile??