HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[plaques]

Most sticky labels become less sticky if you warm them up using a hair dryer. If they are stuck on plastic be very careful that you don't over heat the plastic itself. The amount of sticky residue is minimal and can be removed by washing with soapy water.

[Stanley]

What we need is a practical solvent for chewing gum on pavements!

[Tizer]

Perhaps the chewing gum problem will get attacked in the same way that is being developed to counter dog fouling. A company is trying out a DNA test on dog poo which would allow councils to confirm that it was the suspected owner's dog. Perhaps they'll be checking gum for DNA to confirm it's the suspected chewer's gum.

[Stanley]

Always have some cooking salt about in winter for putting down on the garden paths and in the back yard.... Could save you weeks in hospital!

[LizG]

Not so much in this country, but if anyone has a good idea for keeping ducks, and therefore their poo, off the paths and driveway then I would be really pleased to hear them.

[Stanley]

There is only one way Liz. You either cage them or shoot them! Nothing else will have any effect, ducks are shit machines and Muscovies are the worst!

[Tizer]

Not so much in this country, but if anyone has a good idea for keeping ducks, and therefore their poo, off the paths and driveway then I would be really pleased to hear them.

As Confucius say: Buy gun, eat duck.

[Stanley]

I once has a bunch of Muscovy ducks which flew off for the day every morning. I found by accident that they were perching on the roof of Monk House at the bottom of Manchester Road. They didn't half make a mess of the roof! I kept quiet......

[Stanley]

Heavy linen curtains are almost impossible to iron especially if they are lined. I know, I once had a set of Liberty linen curtains.... The trick was to rehang them while they were still wet and allow the weight to drag them back into shape. The same technique works for a genuine woollen kilt which should never be ironed. To wash, hang under a cold shower and leave them with cold water running over them for about 30 minutes. Then hang to drop dry. The weight pulls the pleats back into shape. I learned this one when I served with the Black Watch in Berlin..... It works for other heavy woollen garments.

[Stanley]

Low temperature programmes in washing machines are, quite rightly, popular on the grounds of energy efficiency but can encourage build up of deposits in the machine and the waste pipe. It's a good plan to do the hottest wash you can occasionally to clear these away. I got caught out once by a mixture of soap and dog hairs in the waste pipe.... Bit of a flood in the kitchen!

[Stanley]

I am told (but I have never tried it) that if you are unlucky enough to get chewing gum embedded in a piece of cloth it can be removed by putting the item in the freezer and on taking it out bruise the gum with something like a rolling pin. The theory is that it will shatter and can be brushed out.

[PanBiker]

Freezer spray as commonly used in electronic fault finding is good for gum removal, spray offending blob then chip or lift.

[Tizer]

Freeze shattering is one of the ways scientists break up solid biological samples for analysis. A quick dip in liquid nitrogen and then grind in a mortar and pestle. Best to wear gloves and protective glasses with liquid nitrogen, unlike the technician I saw using liquid nitrogen on the Royal Institution lectures this year - I can't remember if he had the glasses on but he wasn't wearing gloves. You can get nasty burns from it.

[chinatyke]

When I worked at Mullards at Simonstone we used liquid nitrogen for some of our testing. It was stored in a large Dewar flask (like a Thermos) at atmospheric pressure. It was magical stuff to us young tekkies and we had great fun messing about with it. We once froze the section leaders meat pie to -193C and then put it back in the oven just before he came to collect it.
Erasers shattered when frozen to this temperature.
We used tonnes of the stuff every day at the chemical works for padding of tanks and discharge of chlorine tankers. It was delivered by road tanker and the drivers had to reduce the temperature of the vehicle delivery pump to -100C before they could commence offloading.
Liquid oxygen is even more exciting.

[Stanley]

China, liquid hydrogen is even more exciting, especially when you are welding near the tankers.......

[Stanley]

If you are running a wood burning stove be aware that burning at lower temperatures produces wood tars that can build in the flue. At least once a week open the dampers and get the flue temperature up high enough to vaporise the tars and clean the flue.

[Stanley]

One thing often forgotten in households is the benefit you get from occasionally going round and spraying a drop of WD40 on hinges and inside door catches. Window mechanisms as well. Non staining and it makes a world of difference.

[Tizer]

Silicone lubricant is great for many applications around the house and it doesn't smell or stain, e.g. this from Lakeland:
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/8998/Free-n-Easy

[Stanley]

It was commonly used on delicate textile machinery because of its non-staining properties.

[Stanley]

Castor oil is a good lubricant. Besides the well known Castrol 'R' (Name comes from Castor Oil of course) thick castor oil was used on steam engines for large heavily loaded bearings. They used it at Ellenroad on the flywheel pedestals for the 85 ton flywheel. Where it ran down the walls in the cellar it had set into a thick shiny covering and the interesting thing to me was that it was still flowing years after they stopped using it. We proved that when we concreted the floor and six months later the oil was flowing onto the new concrete. Reminded me of Lord Kelvin's famous experiment when he place a piece of seemingly solid pitch in a sloping tube and proved that it was still flowing like a liquid but very slowly.
Do you remember the one about the bloke taking the glass out of all his windows and replacing it upside down because he had read that it behaved like a liquid and flowed downhill?

[Tizer]

Ah, castor oil, the wonderful smell of vintage racing cars at Silverstone, what a memory! And it powered the rotary engined aircraft of the allies in WW1 while Germany had to make do with poor substitutes. It's surprising what other uses have been found for the oil, sometimes more to do with politics and repression than with industry. Try putting `castor oil' into google together with `Mussolini' and then with `Franco'!

[PanBiker]

In my early motorbiking days it was still common to see hand pumps with Castrol R and Redex on the petrol station forecourts. Plenty of two stroke bikes still around, I can still smell the aroma of a hot BSA Bantam.

[Stanley]

My memory of the smell dates back to Belle Vue Speedway after the war......
On a different subject.... Two of the dirtiest things in the kitchen are unrecognised by most people. They are the handles of the taps and the end of the spout off the mixer tap. They both have high concentrations of bacteria, the spout in particular due to dirty water splashing back.
I clean my pint pot out every morning with bleach and boiling water. Before I tip it into the plug hole to do its work down there in the waste pipe I use some to brush the handle of the tap and immerse the spout of the mixer tap in the boiling bleach in the pot. This may sound like overkill but it isn't, attention to details like these can avoid attack by harmful bacteria. Far more effective and rewarding than spending money on antiseptic sprays for relatively clean work surfaces!

[Cathy]

I always spread aluminium foil over my grill tray/top and my oven tray. It saves a lot of cleaning-up

[Stanley]

I once read a news report about a house-proud housewife who had a spare set of brand new grills and pans for her oven so that visitors would only see a pristine oven and grill....