DIY - do it yourself

Do it yourself - DIY, has been part of my everyday living since we moved to New Zealand in 1992. Not only because I am passionate with it, but also because I need to. When your mere income is the sole support of the whole family, you can become a DIY man more easily.

So as I recount now about what projects or repairs I have done in the past 17 years, I feel great, pride and awesomeness in me.

Compared to other giant DIYers who are able to build their own garden shed; construct their own BBQ area; lift the car engine, fix it and put it back, my DIY projects are nothing, but the passion of doing it myself is the same considering I can only do it after work and have to spend time with my small children.

As far as I can remember, the list covers: leaking taps, burnt light bulbs, leaking toilet flush tank, washing machine blocked, broken gutter, TV antenna connection gone loose, interior wall painting, motorized window of the car stuck, tire gone flat, repairing children's toys, repairing lawn mower, making working bench, felling a tree, and the list goes on.

The one among the repaired list that brought me the most self-satisfaction is this Ryobi brand petrol powered edge trimmer.

A few years ago, I convinced my wife that we needed a petrol powered edge trimmer as our previous one, a Ryobi brand also, an electric model powered by a rechargeable battery was not powerful enough to do a good job. She nodded.

I went to the garden tool section of a big hardware shop. Dear me! The cheapest model of the petrol powered range was from 300 mark. The electric range was much cheaper, around 150 mark, but my friend commented it as wasting money. Ryobi was priced at the low end and its design looked smart to me, so I selected it, made payment and came home excitedly.

The next day was a weekend. I unpacked it, read the manual, filled the fuel tank with the right petrol mixture and walked to the garden anticipating an easy start-up and a good job done.

Unfortunately it didn't respond to the first pull. "Never mind, this is normal." I thought to myself. Second pull, no response. I made sure I primed the carburetor, and set the choke fully closed. Third pull, no. Fourth pull, no! I began to be anxious. Fifth, sixth, no, no. I began to pant, I began to feel frustration. It ended up with a frustrated day.

The next day I returned the machine to the dealer. The person on duty that day was a senior staff. He seemed quite experienced. Having heard of my complaint, he rolled up his sleeves and had a try himself. One, two, three, four, I could see sweat started wetting his face, oooops! the string would not retract after the last pull.

He agreed something was wrong with it and gave me a replacement of the same model. He tested on the new one. Within four or five pulls, the machine roared. That was normal. I thanked his assistance and went home.

What happened after the new one arrived home? Not an enjoyable trimming experience! It stopped before the whole round was completed, and could not be started again. The second and third time of using it were nightmare, too. And the fourth time was the last time I failed in getting it work and decided to give it up.

Why I didn't return it to the dealer for another replacement this time? Well, when I recalled how that technician sweated and panted in trying to get it started, I felt sorry for him. And I thought my DIY talent might sort it out myself one day.

Every time I mowed the lawn, my mind went to that trimmer. Now and then, I took it out to try my luck to revive it, and it remained no hope at all. So I had been dealing with the messy tall grass along the fence with my bare hands since then.

Once I chanced upon a garden tool dealer in a shopping centre. I told him my trimmer's problem. He said it was a very common problem to trimmers and suggested a service to it for 100 bucks. I was reluctant to accept his offer having had the start-up problem ingrained in my memory.

The other time, I passed by another garden equipment shop in Mairangi Bay. I asked the shop keeper if they repaired engine trimmer. He asked what brand was my machine. I gave the name. He smiled mysteriously and said "we only service those serviceable brands...".

One day, I had this idea of servicing this machine myself, DIY! I searched on the web for information about repairing trimmers and luckily landed on the page which carried this savoir video. This video gave me detailed knowledge about the trimmer, most of all it reminded me of my DIY spirit.

On the next day, I set out to remove the carburetor from the machine and dismantled the whole thing according to what I had learned from the video. Soon all the parts were laid out on the working bench. The main body of the carburetor is like a bee hive having many tiny holes on all sides of the cube. A rubber cap, a membrane made from plastic film, a diaphragm attached to the bottom of the unit. I imagined how the petrol was pumped into the cube by the dome shaped rubber cap, how it then flew to the bottom part in the small reservoir, and how the movement of the piston of the engine sucked the fuel through the tiny hole from which the liquid fuel turns into mass of droplets like mist and finally into the combustion chamber of the engine.

Wow! the design is really amazing. Any part in this small mechanism fails will simply make the user frustrated. My trimmer had only been used three or four times since purchased, so why it just could not be fired no matter how I hard I tried?

I bought a can of WD40, a solvent based cleaner spray, to cleanse all the tunnels in the cube till I was sure not any dirt blocking in the veins. Then, I assembled the unit and attached it back to the machine carefully after thorough study on this important mechanism.

I couldn't wait to go a test. I filled up the tank with petro, manually pour about 20cc of petro through the carb into the engine. And pulled. One pull, two pull, urmmmm. It roared beautifully. A big smile came up my face and my heart beats hiked. But it stopped after two or three seconds. I supposed the fuel I manually poured in had run out and the supply from the carb was not immediately followed.

I repeated the same process a few times and saw the same problem persistent.Then I guessed the ratio of fresh air and the petrol droplets could be too low and caused the stop. So I turned the choke lever to the middle setting which would reduce the fresh air flow by half the volume. Then, one pull, two pulls, third pull, Urmmm---, hurray! it worked continually. Dreading it might stop at any time, I used it to trim the edges of the whole garden and it still ran.

So this was how I revived my edge trimmer through DIY. And this one is ranked the top one of my most unforgettable DIY accomplishment.

A memorable Transistor Radio

The fine music from Concert FM is in the background while I am writing this post. This red portable Panasonic transistor radio has been with us, the Chen family, since 1982. It is very old to a radio and yet it is still working nicely.

It is very memorable to me because it has witnessed quite a few important events in the Chen family since the day it was 'adopted' by my father in 1982.

In an early morning walk in the summer, my father and mother heard some sound from the roadside where they were passing by on the way home. Tracing where was the sound from, they found this lovely red radio lying on the roadside like a crying baby. My father picked it up, tenderly dusted off the dirts and then 'adopted' it.

It brought news, music and other entertainments to my father and mother while they sewed umbrellas for the factory as a passing time job. The sound quality was perfect. It loyally accompanied dad and mum when we were away at works.

In September 1982, not long after it was 'adopted', my daughter was born. This was the first baby that Chen family had longed for since Jean and I married 5 years earlier. My father sometimes used his 'adopted' radio to entertain his beloved grand daughter by turning to the right volum and placing it by Tessie's pillow to accompany her through a sound nap.

In October 1987, this radio witnessed the most joyful event of this old couple, the birth of our son Chenny. This boy baby of Chen family was one of the wishes they had been prayed for since our marriage 10 years earlier. Having a boy born to the family is a very important thing according to Chinese tradition. Mum and dad ever commented that this 'adopted' radio did bring the family luckiness.

In September 1988, dad was sent to hospital due to a serious stroke. The attendant whom I employed to look after my father during the wrok days in the hospital complained that it was boring in the ward. I thought of this radio and lent it to him. Thus, he got some form of entertainment and my father could see his 'adopted' radio sitting on his bedside. During the weekend, it was my turn to look after father at the hospital, and I could experience the importance of this radio to both the patient and the attendant.

Father died of some complications after 5 month hospitalization. In February 1989, his doctor discharged him from hospital so that he could pass away in his own home. This is a tradition held by my parent's generation. So this radio followed father to our home and was kept silent for some time after father's death.

It must be such a memorable item that when we were packing up for immigration to New Zealand, we put it carefully in the seafreight parcels. And here this lovely radio has been with us in New Zealand.

In the last 3 years, I have been working from home as Programme Advisor for an organization called Kiwi Ora. Working from home can make one feel quite isolated, so I unconciously found this radio from the cabinet and set it up. Ah! it is still sounding perfect, and it has accompanied me through the days working as a Kiwi Ora PA.

Recently, my son showed off his high tech i-pod to me in my home office. Without hesitation, I pulled him to the desk side where this radio sit and told him the history of this red machine. He remained silence for quite a while, looked as if he had relized the value of time and caring.