Aha! Found the perfect replacement adjustment arm for this bicycle trainer! #BikeTooter #repair #kludge

@ai6yr

Mother-in-law has a bunch of vise-grips she is trying to give away.

You make me think I can’t have too many vise-grips.

@AndrewHenry @ai6yr
Friend.

Friend.

You can't have too many vise-grips.

@msbellows @AndrewHenry @ai6yr The accelerator cale snapped on our VW Fastback. We were able to coast downhill to a typical Maine gas station/store, where we got some picture wire. The vice grips (already in one of the trunks) served to hold one end of the wire and to use as a gas pedal. Worked well enough to drive another 3 hours to Boston. I'll always have a place in my heart for vice grips.
@sbourne @msbellows @AndrewHenry I guess I need to add vise grips to my box-of-automotive-tools-in-the-trunk, lol.
@sbourne @msbellows @AndrewHenry @ai6yr
If it's being used in your heart, wouldn't it be a locking hemostat? 🤪
@evilotto @sbourne @msbellows @AndrewHenry someone called for a hemostat?
@ai6yr Hemostats are the electronic nerd’s equivalent to the mechanical nerd’s vice-grips. Hemo’s are great third hands for soldering stuff - especially if they are the curved tips version.
@n8dmt Particularly important I learned for soldering diodes, which tend to be heat sensitive.
@ai6yr @n8dmt I’ve heard the bigger ones are just called clamps, not hemostats. I have both
@n8dmt @ahttps://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaGxpaTF0OTBjcXQwMDJuNXUyMzJtYnJ1Ymhmb2F1YjZuNTNkNTRvaCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/TSlfgM3dU0VuU/[email protected]
@n8dmt @ai6yr I couldn't agree more. And beyond that, they're incredibly useful for all sorts of random projects ranging from digging out a broken connector to helping hold something in place while fixing it. I have a whole set of them with different sizes even because I use them that much, lol.

@n8dmt @ai6yr

A small pair of vice-grips was among the tool set my dad gave me when I graduated high school. I still have nearly all of those tools. (I think one screwdriver may have gone walkies.)

My hemostats I picked up more recently. I have two pair in different sizes. (The thing I need that don't have is some sort of non-locking hemostat kind of thing.) Like, needlenose pliers, but with loop handles.

My hardware store also finally stocked dental picks.

@sbourne @msbellows @AndrewHenry @ai6yr Reminds me of the day the same cable snapped in dad’s ’75 Audi Fox.

He pulled the interior trim panel off the front door, pulled out the speaker wire, tied it to the accelerator doohickey and threaded it up through the hood vent.

Drove the stick shift car home with his left hand out the driver’s side window using the wire as a throttle.

#MacGyver before the TV show existed.

Oh, and my inherited tool chest came stocked with a great many vice grips of varying sizes and types. Needle Nose vice grips are a real thing.

@nrohluap @ai6yr @sbourne @msbellows @AndrewHenry And that makes me think of the time I was with a buddy of mine in his 1978 Honda Civic and the accelerator cable snapped. He got out, opened the hood, set the idle screw to about 4000 rpm, and we idled all the way back to his house, rowing through the gears.
@larand @nrohluap @ai6yr @sbourne @AndrewHenry Brilliant solution. I miss manual transmissions sometimes.

@msbellows @larand @ai6yr @sbourne @AndrewHenry If you’re not using the left hand to manage the throttle and the right hand to shift the transmission, maybe.

And he used to give me grief for steering with my knee … yet another useful skill!