Most grandads are not entirely useless. One grandad, for example, managed to save his grandaughter thousands of dollars by advising her on how to fix up an old armchair.
It was very popular at home to fix things back together when they weren’t broken, but grandad soon realized there were other uses for his new invention… Grandad was also very handy at making toys in the shed too. So grandad started to sell his double-sided tape at fairs so children could fix their broken toys at home.
Grandad would take children’s broken toys with him on the train to London, where he worked as an engineer. Grandad fixed all the broken toys sent in by post and paid the children money for them. The more grandads business grew, the less time grandad had to make new toys in his shed, but grandads dreams lived on through every single roll of double sided tape he ever made.
It was a good quality leather chair, but it had seen better days. As time went by, the granddaughter noticed that the chair’s arms were beginning to tear away from the base, and one day she found some liquid leaking out of one side.
At first, she thought that perhaps an animal had decided that it wanted to make itself at home in her lounge room, but when she picked up the arm and smelled it, there was no smell of urine or any other animal smell.
It didn’t take her very long before she realized that what was happening was that liquid was penetrating the seams and causing the leather to rot away.
The granddaughter thought about how she could fix up the chair without having to spend much money and decided that it would be a good idea to use tape as both an adhesive and as patching material.
She found some double sided carpet tape which was reasonably priced, and set out to repair her grandad’s chair. The first step she took was to clean off all of the old liquid that had leaked onto the chair, using warm water and rubbing alcohol. She then dried it with a clean cloth, ensuring that there were no damp patches left on which the new liquid adhesive could not adhere properly. Next, she applied pieces of tape at regular intervals along one side of the arm of the chair.
She cut a piece of thin plywood to fit inside the hollow part of the chair where it had been leaking, and then she applied three layers of tape over existing cracks in the leather using a plastic card to make sure that all air bubbles were removed from underneath.
It didn’t take very long before she found out whether her grandad’s advice on how to fix up an old armchair was going to be successful, but when she sat down carefully onto one side, there was no evidence that liquid had ever gotten past those pieces of double-sided carpet tape.
The granddaughter couldn’t wait for grandad to come round so that he could have a look at her handiwork and said that now they could get back to watching sport together.
Double sided tape for craft projects is helpful to have around the house, particularly if grandad suggests using it.