Today's Project
After a few welcome days away in the campervan it was home again to the next job on my never ending list of 'stuff to do', the dratted tap in the toilet. I only renovated the toilet as my Covid project but the tap gave up after under 2 years.
Why on earth would a tap manufacturer make a nice solid chromed brass sink tap and equip it with a cheap nasty plastic support ring where it attaches through the sink? There are no children or anyone here who has strained it or misused it, it's simply rubbish! Without the ring the tap can't be fixed to the sink so just wobbles around and can't be turned on or off.
So Amazon to the rescue and a nice shiny new tap.
The only problem being that I attached the original tap with the tails to the sink before fixing the sink in place, this time I had to remove it and refit the replacement with the sink in place or face having to dismantle the waste which runs through a boxing wedged in behind the toilet.
Fortunately after an epic struggle and a lot of naughty words it's done. But a note to self: If you ever fit another handbasin position it slightly further from the wall so your hand can reach behind it!
Gosh that's bad. Fortunately for me, all the important stuff is okay, the one thing that gives me trouble is poor chrome jobs. Just replaced the towel ring in the loo because after just 3 years the chrome has begun to pit and flake off. I've had this with towel rails and paper holders before, so now I look for 304 stainless but its very hard to source, everything is chromed steel. The towel ring I've just dropped on is stainless but still chromed. This one won't pit, but with stainless I prefer just a mirror polish.
ReplyDeleteWell, when I fitted it it was fully chrome plated and wasn't obvious it was plastic, that was only revealed when it broke. Oddly coincidental, in my youth many years ago I spent some time as a junior in a physics lab, where one of the older chaps was trying to make a business from chroming plastic (he was skilled at making mirrors). I seem to remember he was trying for a contract with a toy manufacturer, someone like Matchbox or Corgi who wanted to have chrome bumpers with a cheap plastic base, but it couldn't be done at the time. I believe he succeeded, so maybe it's all his fault?
ReplyDeleteIts a bad show to use plastic there, if you don't tighten the tap nut until it squeaks, the tap usually turns when you turn it off or on. My taps came with thin plastic shims, which I threw away and replaced with neoprene to give the tap some grip. Either way there needs to be something to pad the tap else there's a risk of over-tightening and cracking the sink and hard chromed plastic or metal won't cut it.
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered how they manage to chrome plastic since it means passing a current through. I won't use chromed plastic unless there is no other option, which is odd, because come to think about it I've very rarely seen chrome flake off plastic, unlike the aluminium engine cases on my bike. Nowadays my #1 choice is natural metal but polished. There's an excellent metal polisher not far from us in Crewe, he used to work for a metal finishing company called Nyphos there but started up on his own. Mushty's polishing.
http://www.mushtyspolishing.co.uk/
Ripper, did you realise you are not far from me? I can see Crewe from our upstairs window.
ReplyDeleteYes I know that we are not far apart, I have heard you mention Newcastle, which I can see from my upstairs window.
DeleteI'm getting to this point of tap replacing now but it's all metal.
ReplyDelete