Buckled up
28 April 2024 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI spent much of the rest of yesterday (when not looking for clocks) going round shops in a vain attempt to find a 50-inch bungee cord to replace the greetings-card holder (a long length of narrow bungee cord with lightweight clips threaded along it) that I have been using as a temporary washing-line. The outer casing of the latter, which was never intended to be exposed to bright sunlight for extended periods, has been disintegrating for some time, and although I have already repaired the ends the middle is now falling apart in a most decided fashion!
Of course I wouldn't be able to thread the existing clips (see photo) onto a new cord, but that wasn't an issue since those were of very limited use for washing anyway --you could just about hang short socks with them-- and only really of use during the brief periods when I would actually hang greetings cards indoors from them :-p
However, while wandering disconsolately around the homewares department of Dunelm it finally occurred to me that I didn't need the entire line to be elastic, and that in fact it was probably better if it wasn't. The only reason I was ever using the old one in the first place was that it just happened to be almost exactly the right size to stretch across the available space between railings while being quick to put up and take down. All I needed was something I could attach to one end of a piece of cord in order to tighten and fasten it securely around the top bar of the railing, assuming that the other end could just hook on as before.
So I went home and started looking through the ancestral workbox with some idea that there might be an old buckle or something in there, or even a duffel-coat toggle that I could simply fit through a loop of thick elastic. I didn't find anything of the sort, but I did find an ancient mock-tortoiseshell slide buckle off some long-gone lady's dress, and some sturdy twill tape that just happened to fit through it very neatly. Experiment showed that I could loop the tape around the metal bar and back through this buckle and yank it really hard without any sign of the tape slipping, assisted by the fact that the bar was pretty flat in cross-section. And of course the absence of prong made it far easier in theory to tighten the line up really stiffly before fastening it off, since like a cleated rope it was held only by friction!
I managed to get one of the hooks off the old bungee cord with the aid of some scissors, and fixed my string in a bowline loop through the shank of a large button (likewise from the workbox) to act as a stopper and spread the strain. I had a job to find one with a big enough hole, but it also happened to be exactly the right size to sit firmly across the coiled end of the hook.
Then I measured out a suitable length of string and sewed the other end to one end of the twill tape, using tough linen thread. I can now hook the improvised extendable washing line around one set of railings and then buckle the tape end around the opposite set and swig it down tight :-)
It feels very eighteenth-century as a solution but should be pretty durable -- more so than the elasticated version, I assume, which was never very satisfactory since you couldn't put any significant weight on it without causing it to sag to a disturbing extent. It was very useful as an overflow line for underwear and lightweight shirts but not much else. And the built-in clips for hanging cards just got in the way most of the time.
I think the string itself is probably the weakest link; the other (permanent) line snapped overnight a few weeks ago after being up for several years, not at any obvious point of strain and without any previously noticeable wear. However, washing lines always do need to be replaced every so often anyway. In this case it should be reasonably practical just to replace the string component, although unpicking the very secure stitching to the tape will be a pain!
The other thing I wonder about is the durability of the buckle, which was obviously intended as an ornamental item -- it doesn't take any real strain as such in this arrangement, simply providing a point of friction for the tape under tension, but is made of some kind of plastic which may well decay with excessive sunlight exposure, like the bungee casing. And finding a replacement in the same style and of the same (doubtless non-metric) dimensions is likely to be tricky.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. At least I found a use for some of those scraps saved by generations of ancestors in the hopes that they might some day become useful :-D
Of course I wouldn't be able to thread the existing clips (see photo) onto a new cord, but that wasn't an issue since those were of very limited use for washing anyway --you could just about hang short socks with them-- and only really of use during the brief periods when I would actually hang greetings cards indoors from them :-p
However, while wandering disconsolately around the homewares department of Dunelm it finally occurred to me that I didn't need the entire line to be elastic, and that in fact it was probably better if it wasn't. The only reason I was ever using the old one in the first place was that it just happened to be almost exactly the right size to stretch across the available space between railings while being quick to put up and take down. All I needed was something I could attach to one end of a piece of cord in order to tighten and fasten it securely around the top bar of the railing, assuming that the other end could just hook on as before.
So I went home and started looking through the ancestral workbox with some idea that there might be an old buckle or something in there, or even a duffel-coat toggle that I could simply fit through a loop of thick elastic. I didn't find anything of the sort, but I did find an ancient mock-tortoiseshell slide buckle off some long-gone lady's dress, and some sturdy twill tape that just happened to fit through it very neatly. Experiment showed that I could loop the tape around the metal bar and back through this buckle and yank it really hard without any sign of the tape slipping, assisted by the fact that the bar was pretty flat in cross-section. And of course the absence of prong made it far easier in theory to tighten the line up really stiffly before fastening it off, since like a cleated rope it was held only by friction!
I managed to get one of the hooks off the old bungee cord with the aid of some scissors, and fixed my string in a bowline loop through the shank of a large button (likewise from the workbox) to act as a stopper and spread the strain. I had a job to find one with a big enough hole, but it also happened to be exactly the right size to sit firmly across the coiled end of the hook.
Then I measured out a suitable length of string and sewed the other end to one end of the twill tape, using tough linen thread. I can now hook the improvised extendable washing line around one set of railings and then buckle the tape end around the opposite set and swig it down tight :-)
It feels very eighteenth-century as a solution but should be pretty durable -- more so than the elasticated version, I assume, which was never very satisfactory since you couldn't put any significant weight on it without causing it to sag to a disturbing extent. It was very useful as an overflow line for underwear and lightweight shirts but not much else. And the built-in clips for hanging cards just got in the way most of the time.
I think the string itself is probably the weakest link; the other (permanent) line snapped overnight a few weeks ago after being up for several years, not at any obvious point of strain and without any previously noticeable wear. However, washing lines always do need to be replaced every so often anyway. In this case it should be reasonably practical just to replace the string component, although unpicking the very secure stitching to the tape will be a pain!
The other thing I wonder about is the durability of the buckle, which was obviously intended as an ornamental item -- it doesn't take any real strain as such in this arrangement, simply providing a point of friction for the tape under tension, but is made of some kind of plastic which may well decay with excessive sunlight exposure, like the bungee casing. And finding a replacement in the same style and of the same (doubtless non-metric) dimensions is likely to be tricky.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. At least I found a use for some of those scraps saved by generations of ancestors in the hopes that they might some day become useful :-D
no subject
Date: 2025-05-30 12:20 pm (UTC)Well, it lasted a year...
https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/394700.html#cutid1