chill, Bill, i trained as a sparky...years ago...forgotten most of it, now :biggrin:
if you read the other posts, you'll see...
and so, we go on:
never in the field of human DIY has so much been owed...or refunded or who knows?:dunno:
the other night, as i shut up to shut down for the night and as i exited the kitchen with a ponder of, "should i leave the light on?", i decided not as it was nearly 4 in the morning, raining and the scumbags'd probably be on their way home, if they were out on such a damp night.
i stepped back to flick the switch, not seeing that the kitchen door had partly closed with my wafting through, and twatted my hip on the [low set] door handle :cursing:
call me what you will, but it fecking hurt!
i've caught myself loads of times on that handle, over the years, and it's just become one those things that you take for granted. mum has also caught herself many times, but with her age and thinner skin and thinner blood, it takes a greater toll (you should see the scars on her arm!)
the offender with it's snagging, bruising and cutting nobbles:
View attachment 27712
the handles are a legacy of when times were good and money aplenty; at the time they were bought, they were quite expensive and as such, whenever the subject of replacing them came up, mum would always refuse. not today, though.
having a look online, the localest store-which-shall-remain-nameless had some of the rounded-off type of handles that i sought and the bumpf claimed 'bolt through for stability'. 'bolt through' sounded good as the door has been fettled many times and there's barely owt to screw into. alas, when i went and saw them, 'bolt through' wasn't what i thought it meant; and i'm still not sure what they meant by it as the only thing 'through' is the spindle, which we don't need as we don't have a latch or lock.
despite that, i bought two sets (one for the kitchen door and one for the porch door as they're the ones which get the most traffic). i had nipped into a shop around the corner for a look at their offerings and while they were cheaper in price, they were also cheaper in quality, but they did have a greater choice of styles. i took a few photos, just in case.
once back home, mum wasn't overly happy about the round rose style and when i showed a set from the other shop, she wanted those. so, back out into Saturday traffic (and have i mentioned that i was having a bad day with my shoulders??? it's true and the story sounds better for it. quick, get the violin).
i bought the ones she wanted, first, and then nipped 'round to return the one first ones that i'd originally bought.
a refund should be simple, shouldn't it? even the new lad should able to do it, shouldn't he? i lost count of how many times the refund was put through and with he fuss of the printer running out of paper and his putting a fresh roll in wrongly and then somebody else getting involved and the new lad buggering off, i've not got a clue how much i've been refunded, if at all. i've got a receipt which says i have, for the original cost, but i saw the card-machine report which showed about £90 of refunds!!!
i'll have to wait until Monday to find out what's happened.
and 'bolt through' was still in my head, so i bought some
interscrews, although they didn't have ones which were quite long enough. luckily, the screws from the heavy-duty-cavity-wall-screw-fixings left over from the bathroom job were the same diameter and thread, but longer than what were supplied in the interscrews pack.
i had to make the handles' screwholes bigger to take the female sides and i was short of the right drill bit, but a bit of Dremelling and forcing through worked, albeit with a bit of distortion (i said they were cheap quality).
the downside of the interscrews is that the screwheads don't seat into the countersinks and so the coverplates stick out a little bit. but you could probably swing an elephant of the handles, if that takes your fancy.
View attachment 27713
oh, it's lovely. i did a few 'accidental' catch-my-arm walk-bys and it just glided off me.
the paper sticking out gives a clue as to the amount of messing about the door has had over the years; latches were the original fittings, but they were another thing to catch your arm on (not good, especially when you're coming and going with car parts for to wash in the kitchen sink) and often rattled in the wind and were ditched in favour of various other types of things. in the end, a piece of paper did the job that we needed.
the interscrew idea is a good one, but i think i made the mistake of marking-up the screwholes on the door before i'd enlarged the holes on the handle. the distortion seemed to throw it out and i had a bit of a bugger about trying to match up a couple of the interscrews.