Oh, how the mighty tumble - Printable Version

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Oh, how the mighty tumble - Richard - 08-26-2024

Let’s start with Rhonda does a pretty good job of keeping my ego in check.. Even with that, I sometimes have to reflect on the stupidity of something I have done to cut me down to size. 

I spent all day yesterday in such an exercise. 

Let’s start with the background. Some years ago I installed a fancy bidet attachment on the rear potty that required the potty seat to be spaced upward another 1/4 or so. I glued some hard rubber to the “feet” on the potty seat, and that worked well for five or more years. Not attractive, but it worked. Time goes by and the potty seat developed cracks that would pinch your behind if you shifted just right while seated. 

Did I say we had the stupidest color of potties ever conceived, black? 

You don’t go to Lowes and get a black potty seat. No it requires an Amazon delivery, which must be carefully coordinated with our travel schedule. Ok, it’s here and the story begins. Sorry about the preamble. 

Rhonda casually mentions the previous spacer design was hard to clean. Ok, got it. I got the bright idea to use some 1 inch diameter rubber chair tips in black of course. I carefully cut them to the right height, used plastic compatible epoxy, and epoxied them to the underside of the seat. It worked great. 

For a while. As you know, it’s hard to glue anything to injection molded plastic. Bride announces that two of the four spacers are missing. Hmmmmmmmm. Holding the flapper open I was able to fish one of them out with some long pliers. But the other one was not to be found. In my pathological optimism, I imagined it flushing all the way into the waste tank. I was soon to discover that was not the case. Rhonda flushed the potty the next day, and water gushed out from under the base of the potty. If you are familiar with the Microphor design, you understand that means the hopper is compromised in some way and the discharge line is blocked. 

Out comes the potty, and I caught a break. The missing spacer is exactly the right diameter to perfectly plug the discharge. At least I don’t have to try to get it out of the discharge line to the waste tank. The large o ring that seals the hopper halves is blown out, and the screws that hold the halves together are stripped out of the plastic. Folks, this is not a tank that has been holding distilled water for the last 25 years. But it has to been cleaned up before reassembly with stainless bolts and nuts. That was my time of reflection on how stupid it was to try to epoxy the spacers on plastic, how stupid it was to use BLACK spacers, and how stupid it was to use a spacer large enough to plug the discharge. 

All is good, reinstalled, and functional. And I have had a nice long hot shower.

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RE: Oh, how the mighty tumble - BusNit - 08-26-2024

Richard, I truly love your descriptive writing skills and utter honesty. You are awesome my friend. Sorry you had to go through what was deemed a simple solution only for it to turn into a project on your travels. "you got this!"

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RE: Oh, how the mighty tumble - [email protected] - 08-26-2024

It’s easy to design something that works, it’s much more difficult to design something that works and will not cause other problems later down the line. I know I have been down this road a few times. 

I spent a while trying to turn a hose fitting the wrong direction the other day, i felt fairly humble after that. Even broke a tool in the process. I think we all need these humbling experiences to bring us back down on our feet.

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