The Republican from Springfield, Massachusetts (2024)

August 26, 1990

Publication:

The Republicani

Location:

Springfield, Massachusetts

Issue Date:

Sunday, August 26, 1990

Page:

116

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

6 SUNDAY REPUBLICAN AUGUST 26 1990 Project of the week Geometric redwood or pine planters add charm to yard By STEVE ELLINGSON If shopped around recently for planters discovered that their prices are high (and construction often flimsy) Save money and build any or all of six sturdy pieces (four pic tured) of plant furniture yourself! They are easily constructed by following our detailed instructions with photos and drawings The materials lists are broken down individually so know what to purchase for each plant er The geometric shapes pictured here can all be made from durable redwood redwood lathing white or southern pine to go with any decor All you need to build these attractive items is a hand saw coping saw hammer nails and glue To obtain Plant urniture Plan579 send $550 Our Greenthumb Grab Bag includes the 579 plan as well as eight other gardening aids C43 Greenthumb Grab Bag is $18 The Pat terns for Better Living catalog pictur ing 700 woodworking and handicraft projects is $395 All prices include postage and hand ling Send check or money order to: Steve Ellingson Project of the Week care of The Sunday Republican PO Box 2350 Springfield MA 01102 Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery TT I 'I J' ''1 T'W Met 1 'I I fflr IHII' BhJ li AfA lih 'I! 1 ISm I1 I fl IP Tighten hinge screws on door easily with glue toothpick By BERNARD GLADSTONE The New York Times The hinged door on my bed room closet has been sagging and it binds when I try to close it I checked the hinge screws and found that several of them are loose so I tried to tighten them I was able to tighten most but two tighten they seem to have stripped the wood and just keep turning when I try to tighten them The hole goes clear through the wood so using a longer screw work and the hole in the hinge leaf is not large enough to permit inserting a larger diame ter screw Is there anything you can suggest that involve major carpentry? glue The easiest way to solve a problem of this kind is to use wood toothpicks packed into the screw hole as shown here With the screw removed and the hinge leaf folded back out of the way dip each toothpick into a container of glue then push it into the screw hole and break it off flush with the sur face of the wood Keep inserting glue coated toothpicks until the hole is snugly packed then replace the hinge leaf and screw The wood slivers will have filled the hole suf ficiently for the screw to now grip tightly and the glue will keep the wood slivers in place My fiberglass garage door is pale green in color this is the original color it was when installed I would like to change the color to white Can fiberglass be painted and if so what kind of paint should I use? iberglass can be painted boats made of fiberglass are paint ed all the time Most good quality outdoor enamels will work fine or you can buy a marine paint that is formulated for use on fiberglass boats Make sure the surface of the fiberglass is perfectly clean and dry before you start and in most cases it is best to wipe down with a solvent recommended by the man ufacturer of the paint you will be using ollow the directions on the can as to whether a separate prim er is needed and whether thinning is advisable The pop up stopper in our bathtub drain barely opens so that water drains out very slowly when the lever is flipped to the drain po sition With my fingers I can lift the stopper about 14 inch What adjustment can I make to cause this stopper to open higher and thus to provide a larger opening? irst take out the lift linkage of the stopper by removing the two screws that hold the control lever and its plate in place near the top of the tub (the lever that you move up or down to open and close the drain) Pull the plate and its attached linkage out of the tub wall There will be a rod a threaded yoke or a bar connected to a coil spring at the bottom (you may have to wiggle this around a bit to get it out) After everything is out check the adjusting nut (there may be more than one) to see if it is loose or missing Then adjust this nut to increase the length of the linkage (try only about two or three turns the first time) This will push the stopper higher when you open the drain At the same time check the linkage spring to see if it is broken or needs replacing Then lift the stop per and its linkage out of the drain opening by pulling straight up (you may have to wiggle and twist slightly to get it out) See if the stopper is blocked with hair and or soap if so clean this off To replace the stopper slide the link age back into the drain making sure the curved side of the linkage is facing down Then replace the control lever plate and its linkage by sliding it back down through its opening at the top of the tub Our garage floor is stained with rust and grease Is there some kind of paint we can put on that will not be affected by cold weather and will not flake off or be carried into the house when we walk on it? Yes Most paint stores sell latex deck paints made for con crete that will work fine on ga rage floors Buy one that says it come off when hot tires drive onto it and be sure you clean the floor thoroughly first to remove all grease and dirt Use a good driveway cleaner then fol low with a wash of dilute muriatic acid (one part acid to four parts water) Rinse off with plain water and let dry before painting Questions about home repair problems should be addressed to Bernard Gladstone care of The Sunday Republican PO Box 2350 Springfield Mass 01102 Questions of general interest will be answered in this column we regret that unpublished let ters cannot be answered indi vidually any 5 resist about Man runs on a nine volt battery and re tails for $119 for a two foot model Convenience was the driving er drainage Although Smartlevel resembles traditional bubble lev els it relies on a digital readout rather than a bubble that is cen tered within hair lines Until now carpenters have had to estimate how far off of plumb People are renovating and remodeling so that they can make their existing space more liveable force behind Black de cison to develop a high speed paint stripper and heat gun for amateur refinishers Called the Heatworks gun it is designed for multiple from stripping paint and varnish to thawing fro zen pipes The gun works twice as fast as conventional heat guns because it is a scraper and heat gun in one The refinisher moves the hot gun across the surface as if using a chisel Black Decker estimated that the device could strip a 3 foot by 4 foot table top in less than five minutes keeps the surface hot allows the paint to bubble and then re moves said Jon Chamber lain the assistant product man ager for Heatworks The gun which will be available Jan 1 costs $40 Another helpful product is the new water detection device by the Zircon Corp of Campbell Calif The battery operated water detec tor can be placed under sinks be hind refrigerators at the base of dishwashers or on basem*nt floors to detect leaks or flooding If water seeps into the area and touches two metal sensors on the detector an alarm sounds The device can also be mounted on a ceiling to determine whether a leak coming from a higher floor has stopped The Zircon product is cheaper than existing products $1495 versus $50 and it does not need to be mounted on a surface The 0 inets could use the Smartlevel to determine the precise angle that kitchen walls form with a floor The installer would then know exactly how much surface to shave off the bottom of cabinets to insure that they butt up against the wall Similarly a landscaper could By ERIC BERG The New York Times CHICAGO With housing 5 prices way down the tear at the recent National Hardware Show was that the retailers and who lesalers would be in no mood to make big purchases So manufacturers resorted to the obvious: They displayed prod insure that a new sod lawn has ucts that would allow home own the inclination necessary for prop ers to improve and beautify their existing properties Leslie Lock Inc of Atlanta for instance showed a self leveling ladder that required no blocks or chocks to stabilize the base The General Electric Sili con Products division displayed bricks made from plastic br level a surface was by judging that could be snapped together how for off of center a bubble And the Milwaukeee Tool was The Smartlevel which was Equipment Co of Brookfield Wis first shown last fall but is just demonstrated a vibration free now being marketed nationally power saw or the lawn Power Lawnmower Parts Inc of Ro chester NY exhibited a uni versal mulching blade that can be attached to most lawn mowers for shredding both grass cuttings and leaves and Allen Allen Prod ucts of Longview Texas intro duced a rake that gathers leaves and picks them up in a pile are renovating and re modeling so that they can make their existing space more livea said Amy Riemer a spokes man for the hardware show Timothy Miller vice presi dent of marketing for the Ver mont American Tool Co in Lin colnton NC said: four bedroom two bath house used to be the model Today the master bedroom takes up half the company displayed what may have been the most bi zarre contraption at the show the the drill bit which bores holes in the shape of a right angle The bit enters the top of a sur face and exits from the side Such 90 degree holes are necessary to run wire in electrical applications or tubing in plumbing jobs One would think the new drill bit would be shaped like a right angle It is not Rather the bit is rigid and its tip is sharp on the front back and sides The drill can be angled so that the bit begins boring a curved hole shortly after sinking beneath the surface The sharper the angling the closer the hole to 90 degrees Until now carpenters have had to make two holes: one from the side another from the top most cases they meet and you would end up cutting three Miller said of bit which was introduced in May to retail for $8 Like the 90 degree drill bit the Smartlevel by Wedge Innovations of Sunnyvale Calif also appears to be an important advance The company claims that its product is the first digital level and that it produces a more precise measurement than a con ventional bubble level A person installing kitchen cab unit can whprp Another detection device is the Sake smoke alarm for rooms The alarms made by untech Inc of Buffalo NY' resemble fire trucks cats and Dalmation puppies we are trying to do is teach children not to hide under a bed or closet in case of a said the founder Law rence A Mattison children have a smoke detector of their own they make their room fire safety The kit includes a coloring book with fire safety stories bership for children to pre tend they are part of a fire safety Ji club and a decal for the bedroom door to alert firefighters that a Ji child is inside The alarms are $1899 to $2499 Yet another company coh cerned about heat the genera tion of it is Pyromid Inc of Redmond Ore which is expand i' ing distribution of its environmen tally sensitive line of barbecues irom catalogues io large stores Pyromid models use a fuel tab let to start a fire and require nine to 15 charcoal briquettes to cook an entire meal instead of 40 to 50 the company says The secret is in the design An aluminum liner that comes with most models is placed on the bot tom of the barbecue to reflect heat onto the food The grate stands coals upright and apart allowing more air to pass between them and exposing more of their surface so that they ignite quicker And the cooking surface is a perforated metal sheet that absorbs more heat while a metal i hood concentrates heat and keeps wind out The units range from a $59 por i table collapsible model for camp ers to a $375 model designed to be the cen terpiece of a patio Most are I made ot stainless steel to rusting or dog owners worried pet obesity the Doskocil ufacturing Company Inc has in )i troduced a machine dispenses a fixed portion of dry feed Developed by the ))Petmate division in Arlington Texas the Dinner Mate dispenser sits on a kitchen floor and holds up to 10 pounds of dry feed roughly three worth for a mid sized animal Existing feeding devices rely on gravity to dispense food and thus permit dogs to eat until they are sick The Dinner Mate which is made of molded plastic with a bowl at the base resembles a Mr Coffee appliance and operates like a bubble gum machine A locking 1 1 zl ZYn 1 1 A A livt picvciivo UUgd L1U1U HlLUUdUIig the machine and rubber prevent skidding Dinner Mate even comes with a shallow bowl that can be used to feed cats not particularly high acknowledged rank Rudy Dos vice president for market ing just an easy way to keep food contained and off the be placed almost Hardware makers adjust to slow housing market Poker video games for the home )i 1 By LONNIE BROWN The New York Times Twenty years have passed since video poker machines were intro duced into casinos The machines a cross between slot machines and computers deal five cards The player decides which cards to hold or throw away Payout is deter mined by the odds of drawing that particular poker hand Software has brought these poker video games home A new one offers the popular or machine plus four other variations on video poker and a progressive jackpot machine that builds on its $4000 prize when it and the other machines in the pro gram are being played Video Poker a la Carte by Ted Gruber Software has some nice touches: unusual deck of pay ing cards is a replica of a deck of cards from the Soviet Union pur chased in a small shop in Moscow in the mid says the man ual different need an EGA or VGA monitor to play The game inci dentally is currently available in IBM format only Some IBM com puters like the PS2 Models 25 and 30 come with EGA monitors the Tandy 1000 series normally support either EGA or VGA the manual warns The other variations of video poker are: Joker Poker (jokers are wild) Deuces Wild Double Down and Second Chance (players are given a second chance to improve their hand) Each time you play the jacks or better machine or any of these other machines the jack pot on a sixth machine the Multi Meter Progressive in creases It starts at $4000 for a royal flush and builds until hit Multi meter machines in casinos are tied together and work the same way Having one in a computer version of a video poker game adds anoth er nice touch to the game Playing the games are simple using either the keyboard or a mouse for selecting the cards and placing the bets Using a mouse is the easiest way to run the game Simply click on the left button to increase the bet point and click at the cards to be tossed out of the hand Graphics are good equal to the real machines found in casinos Another nice touch: A statistics screen keeps track of the hands played money lost or won and the percentage payback for each of the six poker machines The statis tics screen can be called up at any time during the game It will not only keep track of the statistics on all the machines but it will do so for up to 10 players And finally the game includes a slot machine just in case you want to take a break (or go broke) from the poker machines It runs from the keyboard only By inserting five coins the machine will pay on all five lines (the three rows across and the two diagonals) The payoff rate has been set for 9886 the machine on average will keep $114 for every $100 played The only thing missing from this package is the coin slot And the clatter of quarters if you hit the jackpot Video Poker a al Carte is dis tributed by ComputerEasy and carries a suggested retail price of $4995 If not available locally it may be ordered directly from the Tempe Ariz distributor at 1 800 522 EASY 8 am to 5 pm Moun tain Time 1 I Vegas Gambler for IBM compa tible Amiga and Apple IIGS for mats is now available for the Com modore 64 The game from California Dreams offers four of the most popular casino games: blackjack video poker roulette' and slots It only offers the or bet video poker game It does however allow splitting of hands and other blackjack options Depositing money into the slot machines got tedious at times (it must be done by guiding a gloved hand up to the money slot) but otherwise an entertaining product The Commodore version lists for $2995 the other formats $3995 It may be ordered directly from Electronic Arts at 800 245 4525 Lonnie Brown is assistant editor for The Ledger in Lakeland la This article was distributed by The New York Times News Service).

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