My Waring WMK200 Belgian Waffle Maker quit. No lights, no heat … nothing.

It cost me $50 and it’s just out of warranty. Not cool, Waring. Wait … it IS cool, which is uncool.

Fortunately, I have experience with this issue.

It’s the thermal fuse. Cheap, easy to replace. The same thing happened on my VillaWare waffle iron. I replaced it, and it’s been working for years.

In this case, the fuse is an SEFUSE type SF240E. I bought five on eBay, just now, for $1.01 with free shipping.

You have to take the top half of the appliance apart to get the bottom half apart. The fuse is inside a woven heat jacket, under a clip, on the red wire. Here’s what it looks like.

It’s a half-hour job. That’s $100 an hour. I can live with that.

Did you fix something today? Tell me about it in the comments!

The pedal on our 17-year-old trash compactor came loose yesterday, a consequence of a shoulder screw having worn through sheet metal at the bottom of the drawer.

Only one side had broken out, but both needed reinforcing. I found steel washers in my parts bin, ground the plating off, drilled them out to spec and applied an abrasive disk to the sheet metal.

Since the drawer is galvanized, I worked outside. I also drank a glass of milk before starting, a traditional welder’s precaution against zinc poisoning. I have no idea if it works, but welder’s manuals still advise the practice.

Here’s the repair after dressing with a grinder. I used a DHC 2000 gas torch, oxy-acetylene, a #0 tip and a stick of clothes hanger wire for filler rod.

Mind you, I undertook this project knowing the outcome was uncertain. Unknown alloys, dirty metal, a little too windy outside to be gas welding … blah blah.

But, a lifetime of skills development and the willingness to fix things instead of replacing them has paid off. Even if this project had gone south, I’m still ahead.

You can do this, and things like this. All you have to do is try.

 Are you inspired? Do you have a similar story to tell?

Put it in the comments!

The keyless entry feature on my wife’s 1991 Buick Roadmaster quit working.

“Eh, use the key”, said I.

“Uh, uh, baby. You fix that thing”, she seemed to say.

So, the local car radio and security installer says to me, “300 Dollars, plus tax.”

Checking on eBay, I learn that the device he intends to install is $47. So … $253 labor?

Let’s try something else. A plain-jane remote unlocker from China is $5.98 with free shipping. What the heck, I bought one, and here it is.

It’s the little box with the red wire. That’s right … $5.98, and four hours labor.

It was a hairy bitch of a job, requiring hours bent over in back of the station wagon, much reading of OEM wiring diagrams, fussing with splice connectors that REFUSED to make contact, repeated testing of circuits with meter and paper clips …

Yes, I made $64 an hour doing it myself, but it was painful, and there was more than one moment where I feared I might fail.

“Why”, you might ask, “is the OEM receiver still connected?”

Because, dear heart, the driver’s door lock solenoid depends on the keyless entry receiver to reverse circuit polarity during lock/unlock cycles. Can you believe it?

Good thing that part of the box works, else I would have needed to add a couple of relays.

The moral of this story is: Don’t feel bad if you take yours to the installer. I almost wish I did.

Today was the first trial of my Henrob welding torch (eBay – $283).

I used a wire coat hanger for filler rod to put the finial back on this iron screen. Also re-applied a leaf and repaired a hinge.

I’m really satisfied with my purchase. The DHC2000 torch is just as amazing as the vendor claims. It gets the metal hot right now!

I hadn’t had any experience with gas welding, partly because the torch that came with my compact oxy/acetylene kit couldn’t weld. This one can. I find it’s a lot like TIG: get everything hot, push the puddle around, try not to trip on the hose.

Walla!

But I did buy a working handheld VHF marine radio at a yard sale yesterday, for a dollar.

Sadly, it is missing the antenna. Happily, a replacement was available on Amazon. Sadly, I now have $10.50 invested. Happily, I got up this morning and my name wasn’t in the obits.

I can’t wait until the antenna gets here.