Grandad story no. 2
The Resident Loon's story about redneck engineering reminded me of my grandad's methods of fixing things.

In the spare bedroom of my grandparents' house, the ceiling light was one of these three-bulbs-at-120-degrees-from-each-other affairs. Each bulb had a wee cloth lampshade with tassels. Those of you who remember the '70s will know the type (even though this particular shade was there well into the late '80s!)

Anyway, one of these lampshades got a dirty mark on it. Just how this happened when it was 8 feet from the floor I don't know, but anyway my grandad, who was tighter than a duck's arse, decided that he would fix it. The mark proved impossible to remove by normal cleaning methods, so rather than do what any normal person would do, and buy new ones, he decided to effect a repair.

He painted them.

With emulsion paint.

They were made of cloth remember.

Actually, he made rather a good job of them, and the project was entirely successful until the lights were switched on, at which point the light shone through, revealing not only the original dirty mark, but also all the runs and patchy bits in the paint job.

My gran was delighted, as she got to buy a new set of lampshades, and the rest of the family were also highly amused as we all got to go in and turn on the lights for a laugh.

There's also the time when my gran complained that she didn't have anywhere to hang her dishtowels in the kitchen. My grandad fixed this too. He hammered a row of 6-inch nails into the end of the kitchen table!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 6 Jul 2007, 10:05, Reply)