Suffice it to say that as a Plumber and Gas Engineer, I utterly LOVE bodgers*.
Not a day goes by that I am not reminded that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Over the last year alone the direct consequences of bodgers have been responsible for about 30% of my company’s income and about £12k in my pocket.
Long may utter fucktards with half a clue continue to pay my bills!
I LOVE AND RESPECT THEM ALL!

*but not the ones who ACTUALLY manage to kill people with their stupidity, only the half-arsed water-heads who don't quite manage it.
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Fri 11 Mar 2011, 20:37, 2 replies)

Gaffer tape is not the same as duct tape
gaffer tape is a cloth backed tape designed to be cleanly removed
duct tape is often a plastic backed fabric tape with adhesive that is designed to be semi-permanent

duck tape is a brand of duct tape,and isn't even very good
( mictoboy shitting in your cunt since, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 20:24, 8 replies)

You only need two tools in life...
WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.



Sorted/simples/whatever
( Vambo, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 20:18, Reply)

Could your furniture be improved by hammers?
So i managed to break my bed a few months back, not even with some kind of epic sexy funtimes, but rather just from bouncing about on it like a complete tit - grown man indeed.
Anyway this thing is snapped in two places and it's bedtime soon, so some kind of quick-fix is in order and luckily i had a rock hammer nearby which propped it up and supported it just right.
"excellent" thought Waffle, "that'll do for now and i'll go bed shopping tomorrow". - Of course that never happened and all this time, which has included further bouncing around like a possessed twat and even bouts of raucous and lewd acts with other not only had the thing remained sturdy but creaks far less than it did before.
Pretty sure i beat the system there somehow :D
(Waffle Iron ain't gonna take it anymore, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 20:11, Reply)

Dear B3TA
I to used to believe that if you can't fix something with duck tape, it wasn't worth fixing. Until a friends wise old dad explained to me, that if you can't fix something with duck tape, you are not using enough duck tape.

Hope this clears things up.

*I don't and have never worked for duck tape, although thinking about it I would quite like to.
(Tarquin DLM wasting his life here, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 19:15, 4 replies)

Duck Tape and Hammers
My first IT job was in desktop support. We had a bunch of desktops that came ready to use except one of the drives needed swapping out. My esteemed team leader pushed me out the way to, "show me how the pro'd do things".
He managed to take the case off without breaking it, I'll give him that. Not wanting to waste time undong all those pesky nuts or reading the instructions he proceeded to, "show me the tricks of the trade" involving (no I'm not making this up) levering the hard drive out with the hook end of a hammer.
It came out; he hooked up the new drive and proceeded to hammer the thing back in the drive cage and duct tape the thing to stop it rattling.

"There fitted and working in 3 minutes! Let's get this fucker running!".

He turned it on and the motherboard cracked, smoked and melted.

The magnumanious prick put it back in it's box, wrote, "received damaged" on the top and told me to "carry on, I'll check on your work later".

RTFM!
(DustyD, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 18:40, 2 replies)

Large project gone wrong.
I was once fortunate enough, or so I thought, to be apointed project manager for a large community building project.
The problems started on day one. We were supposed to be creating a large hemispherical structure to house various exibits -- but the budget was severly lacking. Added to this, the contractors were all minimum-wage and knew nothing of building -- it took months just to get the circular frame layed out.
This is where the bodge came in:
There was no way that the bunch of expendable numpties taken on to build this were going to be able to manage a conventional roof of this size. So, I was forced to improvise. I chose to cover the structure in an organic semi-permeable membrane -- quite a new idea at the time.
Anywho -- the project finished, I was paid and all was well. That is, until the opening ceremony -- some daft twat had used almost-fresh skins for the roof. The torches carried by the priests for the first sacrifice lead to the building burning down -- the only trace left being the door and window frames -- which were specially positioned to allow the viewing of celestial events.
Last time I do any building for those bloody druids in Wiltshire.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 17:56, 5 replies)

The previous owner off my house
Would have won a Nobel Prize for Bodgitology, if indeed there was such a thing. Things we found included carpet underlay = bits of cardboard , newspaper bits of old carpet. Electric wires bound together with SELLOTAPE. TV aerial cable junction box in the loft = strip the wire back, put 4 lengths of co-ax cable together and wrap it all up with insulating tape and hope for the best ( How the hell did we ever get a picture on our TV ! )Curtain pelmets held up by a mixture of staples and carpet tacks. The Kitchen tiling was by far the worst I had ever seen. He had actually broken bits of tile into small pieces to 'tile' around electric sockets. He had run out of wallpaper paste so in places he obviously had used evo -stick. As for the state of the patio and the fishpond, I could write a book about that!
(Mackeson_drinker, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 17:44, Reply)

Moles
A mate of mine lives in a nice small house right next to the beach, along with his slightly neanderthal-esque father. Nothing wrong with the guy, in fact we get on pretty well (particularly when we're having a smoke with him reminiscing about his wilder days in the 60's) however Gerry, for that is not his name, bears a significant resemblance towards our pre-evelolutionary ancestors, especially with practical matters.

An example - moles. He had a small plot of grass in front of his house. Nothing special, just a nice bit of soil & turf that we could all sit around on chugging a few brews and watching the world (along with suitably attired voluptous young ladies heading to and from the beach) go by. One day there appeared on said patch of grass a dimple of soil. The molehill. Now there are generally accepted ways of dealing with moles. Amongst these include such methods as calling in pest control, mole bombs (if you can get to France that is) or hiding in the garden at night with a twelve gauge shotgun. They generally do NOT include, however, pouring several gallons of petrol down said mole-hill followed by a lit match and shortly therafter a distinct "WHOOMPH" sound.

Unfortunately, this did not appear to remedy the matter as, a couple of days later, said mole reappeared in the (now slightly browning) garden. Gerry's answer? Concrete the whole fucking thing over. Two days and a whole shit-load of concrete later and the garden has transformed itself into a lovely little patio.

Bad luck Mr. Mole.
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Fri 11 Mar 2011, 17:41, 5 replies)

A number spring to mind...
A Honda 125 with a holed piston? Drill it out, fit a nut & bolt with a bit of loctite, file the bolt head round, and voila!

Exhaust on a Marina fell in half? Cut open a handy beer can and fix it in place with some spare electrical wire (from the reversing lights, I think). The insulation melts on to the exhaust pipe for added security.

Trying to fit a Honda 50 engine in a Honda 90 Sport frame? (Only 1 mounting bolt fits, at the back) An old windscreen rubber stretched from one foot peg, over the tank to the other foot peg work a treat!

Hole in your Marina petrol tank (after running over some random scrap from the back of a pikeymobile)? While your mate puts his finger in the hole, get a small branch from a tree, whittle it into a point and bang it in with half a brick!

Fuse in your rover keeps blowing? Cut an inch long piece of 6" nail and bung that in! (Don't try this at home; it melted the wiring loom and started a fire in the engine bay)

Not got a light for your rolly? Dip a torn off bit of shirt into the petrol tank, remove a plug cap and using an insulated screwdriver, make the spark go to earth through the rag and, voila! Fire!!

I've got loads of them: Gaffer tape makes good butterfly stiches, a few cheap plumbing fitting can replace a £40 Saab hose (£40!!), Cornflakes boxes make excellent gaskets..
(Razors, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 17:18, 1 reply)

This is my wallet.


Bodged out of duck/duct/dick/gaffer/rape tape and an old money clip, it's had the clip replaced once and the body 4 times, but it's lasted longer than any other wallet I've ever owned. It even has a secret compartment with an emergency cheque.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 17:06, Reply)

How to get a 6 foot fence panel home.
I've just remembered about this after seening Miraclefish's posting;
www.b3ta.com/questions/bodger/post1115775
This is how I fetched a fence panel home with my Smart car;
2.bp.blogspot.com/_rjXeICPe9Yo/SpOs_A5gs_I/AAAAAAAAAIY/p_HtVZgyguM/s1600-h/photo.jpg
(thisisian, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 16:27, 3 replies)

If you keep bodging eventually everything will work fine.
I was on my way to work enjoying the drive at the death defying speeds rush hour traffic allows in this part of the country (around 10Mph on a good day) when the traffic in front stopped...and so did I, the trouble came when I went to pull away...Into gear, accelerator down and nothing...not even the slightest change in revs...Bollocks thinks I, snapped throttle cable.

A phone call to the AA (I had already opened the bonnet/boot and it looked fine to me at first glance so it was clear that it was a super technical issue that only the best Lotus engineers would be able to figure out) and a 2 hour wait ends up with the AA man looking in the footwell of my car, saying "oh right", then going to his van and picking up a carrier bag which he proceeeds to rip up and stuff in the socket of the ball joint that had worn away, causing the connecting rod between throttle and linkage to fall off. 30secs and I was on my way again! Only for it to come off again a mile down the road.

I popped the bodge back on and got going again, about half a mile from work it happen again, so, knowing what the problem was at this point I looked around the car for something to bodge the bodge...The only thing even slightly string like was an in car charger for my phone...which I spent a good 5mins tying as tight as possible to secure throttle to cable, I was on my way again...And it failed in the car park at work...Fuck.

Fast forward to early evening and I'm leaving work again, but not before I raided the Server room of cable ties and gaffer tape and set to bodging the bodge i'd bodged earlier after the bodge that was bodged by the AA guy didn't work quite right. A month and a half later and I keep reminding myself that I really need to call and order the new part.
(Bushcricket, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 15:29, Reply)

I have a friend
who absolutely LOVES mashed potato.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 15:28, 5 replies)

Student story 22c)
As a poor student in Brighton, at the height of student poverty, any damage to our flat was very worrying as we needed every penny to spend on strongbow, rage against the machine CD's, directions hair dye, and *extremely* wide jeans. Any deduction of rental deposit could be a minor catastrophe.

I managed to fix a futon (broken by approximately 6 fun-loving and drunken guys having a whale of a time* on a saturday night...) by inserting a broom handle into the back of it (the futon) and use of 2 keyrings (again, the futon).

We moved out a few months later and got our full deposit back, which is pretty rare in itself.

Good bodge job that was.

*reinacting Wrestlemania, actually.
(Pat_Gash, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 15:05, Reply)

The only thing that has ever defeated me...
...is an aluminium bike headset and stem seemingly fused into a vintage steel bike frame. I've tried yanking, WD40, bathing it in Cola for a week, sticking it in a vice.

Last ditch is to break out the hacksaw blades, chop the top off and spend a merry few hours slowly cutting through the aluminium stem from the inside.

Unless any of you have a better solution?
(Monchberter Can't go wrong with Doom, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 14:03, 20 replies)

Gaffer Tape..
Not Duck Tape, not Duct Tape, not Fucked Tape - it's gaffer tape. Beware inferior rip-offs.

Proper gaffer tape, holds the entire professional music businesses together. Without it, live performances simply couldn't happen. I've seen or used it to:

Hold a mic-stand together
Tape a $20 000 special effects light to a vertical brick wall when no mounting points were available.
A, frequent, use is to use gaffer tape on the stage floor to mark cue-spots. Other tapes, chalk or whatever may be scuffed off or fail. Gaffer tape never fails.
Numerous: Use gaffer tape to hem trousers, gather slack cloth and, in one lovely instance, provide uplift and a cleavage to a less-than-well-endowed backing singer.

However, the ultimate gaffer tape award goes to the genius who taped a promoters Porsche, 90 degrees to the vertical - or in layman's terms, taped the fucker to a wall. It did involve an entire crew, a forklift and, unbelievably, TWO rolls of gaffer tape, but they got it done.

Wimps. I could have done it with one roll.....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 13:50, 30 replies)

My dad is a warchild, and thus resents having to replace absolutely anything.
He's a keen and celebrated scientist, and his office at the university when he was there was an original professor's combination of a desk surrounded by piles of books, batterered armchairs, and mechanical devices that no doubt today would have him surrounded by an army of health and safety experts every time he operated them. Some of my first toys as a child were jigsaws for the undergraduates of the current knowledge of DNA structures, and animal skulls, with which I'd play when he'd bring me into work with him. He made his coffee in a beaker on a tripod & gauze, over a bunsen burner on a blue flame. It took all of a minute and a half to make, as a result.

His current single bedroom flat is like a Heath Robinson cartoon designed by a graphophile: books line all the walls to the high ceilings, and everything nearly works. The cooker has a wedge with which to close the door, the fridge is leaning backwards slightly so that the door doesn't fly open when you open it, and the chest of drawers in the hallway fits so into the alcove so well it's supported by the skirting board.

That high ceiling has an increasing amount of dents in it - he regularly drives to France to stock up on booze, and has a taste for champagne. Thus whenever he opens a bottle he likes to pop the cork with aplomb, and wherever it falls it stays, for another visitor to find, that he can regale them with the story of who that bottle was drunk with and what was discussed.

Without doubt my favourite mechanism is for the shower door, which requires the "magic paperclip" as the door does not quite fit flush to the bath. This is a clip bent in a manner just so, that, when hooked over there and then tucked into there, holds the door shut.

Bodgers? He's the King.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 13:18, 2 replies)

third bike
I needed a new bike. I was 9 or 10, it was the mid eighties. We were out walking one day and my dad spied a bike in a ditch. Yessiree a bike. In a ditch.

Dad could/can fix anything with a roll of wide black electrical insulation tape and unlimited profanity, so he set about refurbing this bike. It was in the old racer style, so it was stripped down, resprayed and sorted, even had some comedy hand grips at the end of the handlebars.

I loved that bike; this was before the days of brand-snobbery and as long as it enabled me to cycle to the other side of town or to perform some great skids on damp grass I was well happy.

So where is the bodge? Our school insisted on getting the filth in to do a cycling proficiency course. My bike failed on so many points the rozzer overlooking the whole thing needed to continue on the back of the form. He even made me promise that I would walk it home that evening.

Upon reading the long list of misdemeanours presented to him, Dad toiled on Sunday to ready it for inspection the next week. It passed. Just.
(mersault, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:58, 1 reply)

When cars were simpler than they are now
I used to do most of my own repairs and servicing. Nowadays cars bristle with ECUs and electrickery everywhere; you can't even disconnect the battery on my Land Rover Defender without the alarm springing into life courtesy of a back-up battery (apparently there is a way around this that involves inserting the ignition key and hopping on your left leg whilst reciting the Haynes manual backwards)

I currently tend to leave anything more complex than topping up the oil to a garage.

Anyway in 1988 some scrote stole the cassette/radio out of my Austin 1300 GT (it was ancient then and if it is still around it will be an antique). After replacing part of the dashboard with bits from the local scrapyard I fitted a new cassette radio and a rather posh graphic equaliser. Whilst I wired the radio in properly, the graphic equaliser wiring was temporary as I had run out of the proper connectors - when I say temporary it amounted to a live wire being connected direct to the battery without a fuse!

I bought all the right connectors and set off on the short drive home. Suddenly the inside of the car was lit up by a wire glowing like a 250 watt bulb, at the same time the car filled up with choking black smoke as the insulation on the wire fried and burned. I stopped and retired to a safe distance. The smoke died down and I assessed the damage: most of the instruments including temperature gauge and fuel gauge were not working, the new graphic equaliser had a nice burn mark on the casing.

The car did start though and as it burst into life my attention was attracted by a gurgling noise. I leaned forward with interest and was rewarded by a shower of warm oil in my face from the nylon oil pressure pipe that had been neatly severed. I tied a knot in the pipe and drove home.

Over the next few days I found out that so many wires behind the dash had been burned that the only real option was a replacement front loom. This was purchased from the scrappy and I spent the next week slowly rewiring the dash and also the entire ignition system!
( Vambo, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:42, 4 replies)

Bodged Driving
I've got this old pile of junk that I love. Seriously adore, I mean, every trip I take in it is an adventure and I wouldn't change it for the world. But it's constantly needing repairs and it make a horrendous screeching noise when I start her up or pull up to park. It's not that bad, I'm quite handy and virtually everything that goes wrong can be fixed with a bit of lateral thinking or my handy pocket screwdriver. Apart from that noise, I never solved that. Oh, and the time it blew up actually, THAT was a bit of a bitch, but she's up and running again now. Still making that bloody noise though. I got used to it I suppose, so it came as a bit of a shock when some bloody know it all acquantaince pointed out it was just because I left the hanbreak on. Mind you, i still do.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:30, 6 replies)

My mate at Uni*
wanted a system to deter people to stop walking in on him whilst in the middle of relaxing in a gentleman's way. So he rigged up a large Tesla coil in the hallway which he finely calibrated to arc across to the front door handle if anyone touched it from outside.

Oh how we laughed when he was jailed for manslaughter by gross negligence.

*Not true, I never went to Uni. Or have any mates.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:28, Reply)

Job?
I knew a farmer, he was a good man, happy, had a large family and a successful farm. Loads of livestock and on the surface he had pretty much all you could ask for. But he was never happy, he lived in fear of something going wrong. Quite wisely as it turns out, as he had an explosion on his farm, blew the whole building down, killed his kids. Every single on of them. Blew a hole in the side of his barn too, so all his livestock escaped. I mean, how fucking awful is that? He never really recovered, the stress was horrendous as you’d imagine and he came out in hives and skin disorders and all sorts.

He did rebuild eventually, but the stupidest thing was that none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for God deciding to bodge Job.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:13, Reply)

My station for a paper clip
100 TeraByte storage array in a TV station hanging off a single "boss" PC running a database, without which the station might transmit porn on the kids channels.
And no backup of the database...
The all-too-thinkable happens and the box goes down.
As it has no external power switch, but a custom (read "crap") control unit inside, it won't turn on.
One phone call from me: "Get the lid off, grab cable x, stick a paperclip in the loose header end on the red pin and tap it against the case."
Back on, and normal service is resumed.

And that is how I saved a TV station from running out of porn, by fixing their 100TB storage array with a paperclip.
(CatsAgainstTheBomb, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:09, Reply)

Testing bulbs
My mate's brother-in-law (tenuous but I did know him) was going through a stage in the 90s whereby he'd buy stuff from auctions, mainly bankrupt stock, tart them up and flog them on. One time, he bought a box of assorted lightbulbs from the bankruptcy of a smallish electrical suppliers.

He set about testing them. About 400 of the fuckers. He very quickly realised (after about 7) that fitting them to the ceiling wasn't going to do his back and neck any favours, so he got a basic bayonet light fitting, screwed it to a plank and added a flex and a plug.

He soon got fed up of pushing them into the bayonet after about 50 bulbs and sought an even easier way to test them. So he took apart the light fitting, cut away the metal bayonet part and thus was left with just the bare metal pins which he could touch the bulb on to. It worked a treat, apart from being extremely dangerous.

Halfway through, he fancied a drink, so went to put the kettle on. Rather than switching it off for obvious reasons, he decided it'd be ok plugged in as nobody else was home.

He went back out to the shed after 10 minutes to carry on just in time to see a snail slithering up one side and then connect the terminals. He said it went very rigid and straight, protruding spectacularly far out of the shell, before the shell cracked and steam puffed out like a tiny kettle, followed by smoke and a nasty smell of burning gastropod. It then went black, shrivelled up and fell off. All within the space of 5-6 seconds.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:07, 1 reply)

I once attempted to build a brick barbeque in the garden
It turned out a total mess, however it got spotted by an arty guy walking past and ended up being hailed as a modern-art masterpiece!

I also tried to make the wife a spice rack but that's another story.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 11:50, 4 replies)

My dad
So not so much me but my Dad. Dad was a funny sort, dead now unfortunately. He was always in his little workshop, tinkering around with things. He was pretty happy with just my older brother, but, decided one day that brother dear was a bit of a cock and so soon enough along I came. Except the twat fucked up in the process and I was made without emotions. Still see my brother every now and then - when he is not trying to destroy the galaxy with his crystalline mate!

Oh bugger, time to get back on shift - end log
Lt.Cmdr. Data
(Brighton RAWK at the tone, the time will be:, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 11:48, Reply)

Vauxhall Chevette
My older brother had a Vauxhall Chevette back in the early eighties. It was a heap. He once washed the car using a yard broom as it was so encrusted with shit. The drivers seat mount had rusted away so the seat was balanced on an old paint tin. The Exhaust silencer completely rusted off, so it was replaced with a length of scaffold pipe cut down and stuck on with "Gun Gumm". Needless to say it eventually failed the MOT and became razor blades and dog food cans.
(urgle-splurgle molesting small goats since, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 11:41, Reply)

Can't believe this one worked!
The jooster-molloy on my TC-895 came loose after an extended period of hoknoying. I had a look on freb-stuff.com and jooster-molloys were going for °132.80. Fortunately I had a spare treaknubbler from a SSSSSA4982 floating about, so I warbled it down with a mate's tremwozner (a story in itself!) and it fitted perfectly. The TC-895 is as good as new, but it does occasionally hiss like a Peruvian diplomat.
( krang, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 11:35, 5 replies)

Used to own an ancient bullnosed Tranny tipper truck converted to a camper van.
It was crap but fun. One time, in the wilds of Wales, the exhaust grew a big hole. I sent the kids to forage in a ditch for a Pepsi can and I cut that up, exhaust-pasted it round the pipe and wrapped it all up with strips cut from an old curtain.

It stayed put for nearly a year, until I finally got round to buying a new exhaust, and it never leaked.

When I took the camper for the exhaust they quoted me the regular Tranny price. Turned out that the 'modifications' meant that it needed a specially-built longer exhaust than usual However, instead of charging me a fortune, the boss set two apprentices on it towards their City and Guilds or whatever. I paid the flat fee and they passed. Winner!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 11:15, Reply)