I’m on a roll!

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I’m going through a bit of a ‘make do and mend’ phase here at the moment. Not that I don’t normally mend things, it’s just that sometimes they have to wait a while before I get around to fixing the problem. First on my list was my little filing cabinet. I bought this as a flat-pack about 20 years ago and it’s been doing a pretty good job keeping tidy all that annoying but important (and heavy!) paperwork that you have to have. But last year the top drawer started to drop down and I would have to hoik it up each time I wanted to pull it out because it kept dropping down on one side. And when I pushed it in or out it made a nasty grating noise. I just put up with this for ages but eventually decided to investigate. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong at first but then found some mysterious bits of crumpled plastic and grey dust in the bottom of the cabinet - turned out the runners originally contained plastic sliders with ball bearings inside. These had got so worn (creating the metal ‘dust’ at the bottom of the cabinet) due to all the weight that the ball bearings eventually were small enough to fall through the holes that originally held them in position, the plastic sliders then fell out as well and all that remained were the metal parts grinding over each other. Luckily a quick search of eBay turned up the exact type of ball bearing drawer runners for £3.49 a pair, with free delivery. So a few days later, and after a few minutes with a screw driver, my filing cabinet is now as good as new again! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2022.