General Life/Home/Work Tips

James M Sandbrook of
Wairakei Place, Tokoroa, New Zealand.

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Helpful Tips & Tricks.

Here are some general tips that I have found or thought of over the years.

I hope you find them useful.

Tablespoon End Used as Lemon Squeezer. In an emergency, the ordinary tablespoon can be used as a lemon squeezer by turning the lemon around the end of the spoon. This produces the same result as obtained with the regular squeezers, which act on the principle of extracting the juice by turning and crushing the lemon over a rough projection which approximately matches the shape of a half lemon.- L. E. Turner, New York, N. Y.

Furniture Polish for Fine Woods. Boiled olive oil, to which a few drops of vinegar has been added, makes an excellent furniture polish for very fine woods. It will be found to work nicely on highly polished surfaces, and also for automobile bodies. It is applied in moderate quantities, and rubbed to a luster with a flannel cloth.

When you buy a new electrical item that uses a charger, such as a cell phone, weed trimmer, and so on, it is a good idea to take a photo of the charger taking in the panel on it with the details of the charger, such as Output volts and such. The reason I mention this is that I bought an expensive weed trimmer and then lost the charger and had not used it all through most of Winter and when Spring came I couldn’t find the charger or any documentation of the charger so I couldn’t charge the battery of the weed trimmer. In the end I bought another exact weed trimmer and once I knew what the charger looked like I found the old one. So take the photo and keep the technical details.

To Clean Painted or Frescoed Walls. Use a paste made of vinegar and baking soda with a small amount of salt added. The ingredients should be mixed in a large dish and applied to the wall with a cloth. The grease and fly specks as well as the carbon deposits from kitchen smoke are quickly removed. The mixture is harmless. After the wall is thoroughly cleaned, it should be washed with warm water and soap, then dried with a cloth. The mixture works equally well on enamelled baths and glass or white porcelain.

Painted a few cars with a 4 inch brush years ago secret was to put the paint tin in hot water to warm the paint. , Paint would then go on smooth with a good finish. - Bob Evans. New Zelaand.

When two thin glasses are put one into the other they often become stuck and cannot be removed. To separate them with ease, set the lower glass in warm (not hot) water and pour cold water in the upper one. The expansion of the lower and the contraction of the upper will make release an easy matter. - Maurice Baudier.

A good way to keep a bed from becoming damp, if left for any length of time, is to place a blanket on the top after it is made up. Take the blanket off before using and the bed covers will be quite dry, as the blanket absorbs the moisture. - G. Nordyke, Lexington, Oregon.

To sharpen a carving knife draw the edge through and against the open edge of a pair of shears.

Where mechanical drying is not in use it takes considerable time to hang out a number of handkerchiefs, laces, collars, etc, and very often the wind will blow away many of them. The task of drying these articles is made light by using a bag of mosquito netting with the articles placed in it and hung on a line. The air can pass through the netting and when the articles are dry it does not take long to take them out.- Edward P. Braun, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

If you buy a lot of items over the Internet it can pay to have a spare ruler or measuring tape by your computer at all times so that you can quickly work out sizes, because on auction sites the images don’t show the true size of what the item is. It pays to go by the measurements than the photos.

When wiping something up on the kitchen floor or scrubbing the floor because something was spilled on the floor and the like, please don’t use the same cloth or scrubbing brush/scrubber, that you use for the dishes and for plates. I have witnessed people doing this and they have not yet realized that people walk on the floor and they have been outside or in other places and the floor is not a clean place, thats why we wash it often. Keep all the cleaning gear for the dishwashing and sink separate from whats used for cleaning/scrubbing the floor and rooms to avoid transferring germs.

Before you take “anything” to pieces take photos of the whole object, then at different important stages of the process, so that when you put it back together you have visual aids of the important steps to help you find out where everything goes.

Before you work on a machine, or with grease, oil, etc, and you are not wearing gloves, to help keep your hands clean you can rub some sort of covering over your hands like vegetable oil, Vaseline, and the like - this protective covering makes cleaning your hands much easier. This would also help protect your skin from toxic materials and liquids.

Whatever you do, don’t eat green potatoes. Green potatoes contain high levels of a toxin, called solanine, which can cause nausea, headaches and neurological problems, this is a reaction if the potatoes are exposed for a long periods of time to light and warm temperatures. Some friends of mine had left about 10 potatoes out in the sun and they had become green. They gave them to me and I cooked some that night and became very ill. I thought I would have to go to the hospital. I googled it and found out that green potatoes can make a person very sick and possibly can cause a coma and even death.

I was told that when boiling peas to only take them to the boil and then take them off the element. The reason for this was to cook the peas to boiling point, but if they kept boiling then the natural goodness in the peas would go into the water which you threw away.

Since the water that we boil our food in has natural goodness in the water from the food I often pour the boiled water into a safe container and then when it has cooled down I pour it over the vegetables in the gardens.

According to Luke B

8 months ago (edited)

Protip for mixing epoxy that i discovered this week:

1) put it in some clingwrap

2) twist the clingwrap into a bag

3) massage it around to mix

4) cut a hole to squirt out the mixed epoxy

Its cheap, disposable, easy cleanup, and its a built in dispenser!

According to sources I have read that white rice after being cooked and in the fridge lasts about 4 to 7 days. I have read variations of when to refrigerate white rice. One source stated 4 hours after being cooked and another 2 hours after being cooked. After the rice has cooled down you can put the rice in a sealed container and then put it in the fridge. It I noted that rice should be refrigerated 2 hours after being cooked because of the possibility of bacteria growing in the rice at room temperature.

Dry white, basmati, Jasmine, rice has an indefinite shelf life, as long as the rice is kept dry - a sealed container would be a good idea. Brown rice only lasts 3 to 6 months when stored in the pantry.

I personally don’t like wallpaper. So what I did was remove the wallpaper and paint the walls. In some places added 4-5 mm boards for extra warmth and painted them, making the walls look new. Every 6 or so years I repaint the walls making them all look fresh and new - mostly I use white for this purpose or a creamy colour.

If you tape or paint your ladder in the middle then you will always know where to pick it up immediately so it will be well balanced in your hands.

If you have a tool in the garage that its hard to see and you lose it from time to time, paint a part of it bright white or yellow, or apply some yellow or white tape on it somewhere. The next time you look for this tool you will look for the colour - and if you paint on it a number you can look for that number, and number colour your other hard to find tools in the garage.

You can use lemon juice to clean old coins. Just soak the coin in the lemon juice. I have read that you can also soak an old coin in Coca-Cola overnight to clean the coin.

You can clean the end of a ball point pen (Biro) with a cigarette filter. Just stick the ball point into the filter and turn the pen a few times to clean it off.

If a dress or skirts hem has come undone you can stick the hem back up using sticky tape. You can use this idea in an emergency and when you get back home you can then sew the hem back up.

Baking Soda is helpful for removing smell from your carpet and mats etc.

If you have draws, cupboards, sliding door runners or doors that are sticking then you can rub wax against the surfaces that are sticking and this should help greatly. You can use a candle for this purpose, just rub the candle wax against the surface.

To make soft mashed potatoes you can use a electric egg beater to mash the potatoes.

If a fuse blows in a car, the silver metallic cigarette paper can be used in an emergency. All you need to do is tear off a piece of this cigarette paper and then put it across the fuse terminals and crimp it down at the side with your fingers or you can use the old blown fuse to hold the cigarette paper in place. This should only be used in an emergency until you get to the service station..

When cutting diseased tree, shrub and plant branches and flowers do not put them in your compost bin. If you do put diseased foliage in your compost all your compose will become infected with the disease.

If you wear glasses or sunglasses and the little screws that hold the frame together keep unscrewing themselves you can use nail polish painted over the screws to hold them in place. You shouldn't need much nail polish to achieve this.

If you have chewing gum on clothes you can put the clothes in a plastic bag and then put it in the freezer until the gum goes hard or freezes and then you can pull off the gum.

To stop snails getting at your vegetables you can use crushed egg shells spread around the plant. It appears that the snails do not like to travel over the sharp and rough area that the crushed egg shells are on.

Another way to stop snails and the like getting at your seedlings you can use an old toilet roll core which is the center cardboard piece and fill the core with dirt then lay it on its side and then cut a hole in the middle of the core and plant the seed in the hole. Keep the seedlings in a place that meets their environmental requirements. When you are ready to plant the seedling simply drop the whole thing in and the cardboard will break down into compost.

And yet another way you can stop snails etc. getting at your plants is to use crumpled up tin foil around the trunk of the plant or spread in a circle around the base of the plant.

Another idea is you can put a steep trench around your vegetable garden and the snails dont like traveling down the trench to get to the other side. I have tried this and it does work.

If your child gets chewing gum in their hair, instead of cutting the offending mess off simply rub the strands and gum with an oil-based mixture. This can be cooking oil, butter, and if you really want to impress your kids - peanut butter. Its messy but it supposed like a dream.

If you need to keep curtains down so they don't blow upwards in the wind you can sew into the hem something metal like a small steel rode (not sharp) or an old key etc. You could possibly do this with the hem of a dress or skirt as well.

You can keep a few gas welding rods in your car tool kit to hold up your cars exhaust pipe if it ever breaks. These rods can be helpful for other car on-the-road repairs as well.

You can use a woman's panty hose to replace a broken fan belt in a car.

You can use a lemon cut in half and rub it on the bottom of a cooking pot to help 'cut' off the grime. I have read the acid in the lemon helps do this.

A cotton swab is helpful for painting small chips in the paintwork inside and outside of your house.

Fireplace glass can be wiped with a crumpled up piece of newspaper, just rub hard and most of the black soot will disappear.

If you have a pair of shoes or boots that are to small for your feet I have been told you can fill the shoes up with seeds and then add some water. Leave overnight. In theory the seeds will expand and the shoes will expand.

For slippery concrete steps you can paint the steps and as soon as you have finished painting sprinkle sand over the steps. When the paint dries the steps should have plenty of grip. This could be done on other surfaces as well.

If you are painting the legs of a table or a chair you can put jar lids under the legs so that paint does not drip onto the floor.

When using a steel handsaw for cutting wood you can use a candle to stop the saw from jamming or sticking by rubbing the steel side of the blade on both sides.

I had a roll of carpet that I had cut and it was long but only around 25 cm (10 inches) and needed it to stay in place rolled up.
I was wondering how to do this when I decided to ue a 50 mm Brad nail with my nail gun and it worked perfectly.
I was also considering using a staple from the same nail gun if the 50 mm Brad nail didn’t work.

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