Household Essential: 3M Book Tape

Photographed to emphasize tape

It's no secret that we love books. Despite our best intentions, sometimes we even love them to pieces.

Before we had kids (okay, even for a while after we had Ranger), I thought we could maintain an organized library of carefully maintained books. I slowly came to realize that, at least for picture books, I could have readers -or- crisp, clean editions, but not both.

Why have books without readers?

I nearly wept the day Ranger ripped a page out of the hardback copy of On the Day You Were Born that I bought him upon request. He loved that book, and although paper kind of grows on trees, changing that paper to books can be an expensive process.

Then Jim reminded me of book tape. At one point, we both worked in an academic library and regularly traversed the catacombs behind the public areas. In one dark corner of cataloging, dedicated bibliophiles maintained and repaired worn and broken volumes. Little red boxes of book tape sat shoulder to shoulder waiting to assist in the ongoing battle against time, entropy, and abuse.

I use book tape to stitch together damaged volumes, but it also works on puzzle pieces and game boxes. Jim even uses it to reinforce the covers of frequently used reference books before damage occurs.

Corner reinforcement by library (interior)

The tape is slightly re-positionable when first applied (unlike clear packaging tape), but bonds firmly once placed. Its thicker and stiffer than packaging tape. The edges may shed a little adhesive, but it rolls off easily (like rubber cement) rather than creating a gummy mess. The tape can be creased easily over the edge of a softback cover or spine. Our local library even adds it to hardback corners to slow cover wear.

Exterior spine & corner reinforcement by library

Even with three young readers, we don't worry about letting our kids handle books.

A roll of book tape costs about $6 for 15 yards of 2" wide tape. That's far less than the replacement value of most books and a downright paltry investment in independence for a young reader. There's even an 8 roll value pack that might prevent the stink eye when someone abducts a roll "for work."

***Baby Toolkit is the periodic chronicle of a couple geeks crawling the dungeons of parenthood. We're Amazon affiliates, so purchases through our links will help us buy more books and book tape and other bits and bobs. Though we may be categorized as 3M enthusiasts, we have no non-imaginary relationship with the company.

Sleeps With the Fishies: When The Swing Motor Dies

The Raptor loves napping in an aquarium swing we borrowed from friends. (Thanks again, Sara and family!)

Visit Parent Hacks to see what we did when the motor stopped.

Clear Unsightly Blemishes: the Case of the Ballpoint Baby Doll

Blogging makes me weirder. My friend told me her son drew all over her childhood baby doll with a pen, and my first response was to excitedly ask "Could I borrow the doll?" I did have a legitimate reason for asking- we're testing a permanent ink remover for review and I had not yet tried it on a doll.

So wee Elizabeth came to visit (I can't say young Elizabeth as she's almost as old as I am). The young artist in residence had tattooed her with a giveaway ballpoint pen. He didn't just doodle a image here or there, we're talking full-pathology facial tattoos including eyelids (seriously, back away slowly from anyone with these), skull tattoos, leg tattoos, and marks on the hands and soles of the feet resembling stigmata.

I figured the inexpensive ink didn't have a chance against my long list of cleaning ideas. My friend's husband had tried a magic eraser which yielded no results.

The permanent ink remover did absolutely nothing against the ink. Across a week, I tried almost everything in my normal stain-removal arsenal (I skipped a couple things that seemed potentially damaging to the plastic/vinyl):

• baking soda paste
• 409
• rubbing alcohol
• vegetable oil
• Murphy's oil soap
  
• Simple Green
• dishsoap
• GoJo handsoap with pumice
• toothpaste
• CarpetAid+
• waterless hand cleaner (works well on grease stains)
• non-acetone nail polish remover
• adhesive remover
  
• evaporated milk (works like a charm lifting recent ink stains out of fabrics)

The ink's dye soaked deeply into the plastic, staining it so that no amount of surface scrubbing would remove it. Prolonged scrubbing with simple green could lighten it about 50-60% but that did little to improve the doll's overall appearance.

I trolled the Internet for answers and came up with one so insane I would normally have passed it up. Next thing I knew I was buying 10% benzyl peroxide acne cream for a doll. A toy collectors' forum suggested that acne cream and sunlight could remove the ink stains without bleaching the doll's skintone or removing painted accents.

On an overcast afternoon, I smeared a tiny bit on a test patch and left Elizabeth on our dining room table for the last hour and a half of sunlight. Having been disappointed by every other test, I didn't expect much from this solution with or without sunlight. When I checked Elizabeth, the test spot was entirely free of ink stains. Her plastic seemed otherwise unaltered by the cream.

Elizabeth spent yesterday sunbathing in the dining room. The darkest stains took around 4 hours of bright sunlight to disappear. Many of the lighter stains were gone in 2 hours.

The top of her head was shadowed by her body, so I used a small regular mirror (don't use a magnifying one for this!) and bounced sunlight to the top of her head while the rest of her graffitied body got full sun. It worked on the same timeline as direct sun exposure. Later, I moved the mirror to give additional illumination to her curving hands. The reflected light could reach some frequently shadowed places.

Elizabeth sat down for a quick photo shoot this morning before returning home.

Moral of the story? Don't leave pens unattended around toddlers -or- be very cautious about wearing acne cream in direct sunlight.

***This is the independent opinion of Baby Toolkit. We have no affiliations with acne cream manufacturers. We are not chemists, skin care experts, nor professional cleaners, so take everything we say here with a grain of salt. (c) Baby Toolkit, 2007- all rights reserved.

Phone It In: Making Complaint Calls When Things Don't Work

When Ranger came home from the hospital, my parents had a new car waiting for him. They had bought Ranger a new, bright yellow and red Little Tikes' Cozy Coupe II (Son of Cozy Coupe?) for Easter, but we had left it unassembled in its box.

Dad, an engineer, had assembled it while we were at the hospital. Ranger was playing in it for about 4 minutes before he pulled the steering wheel loose (and then cried). Jim and I worked to get the steering wheel assembly in well, but to no avail. We could get the steering wheel to stay in as long as no one tried to turn it. Everyone, included Ranger, ended up pretty frustrated.

After a few days of finding the steering wheel parts and returning them to the car, Jim and I started discussing hacks to fix the design problem. After we struck upon one that might have actually worked, we thought to call the company first.

I called Little Tikes' consumer number (1-800-321-0183) and selected the "order replacement parts option" to get to speak with a human being. The customer service representative was aware of the problem (apparently some of the steering wheels' holes were drilled too small) and sent us at no cost a new steering wheel assembly in 2 days.

We also had success resolving our Diaper Champ problems by calling about the heinous smell. Earth's Best Baby Food sent us innumerable coupons in addition to replacement coupons when we found some of their baby food we'd purchased had been recalled.

If you have a problem with a product, call the manufacturer before you condemn the item to the rubbish pile. We've been quite satisfied each time we've called for assistance.

Jim offers these tips:

1. Describe your problem thoroughly.
2. Details help. If you have your purchase date or the approximate date you first noticed the problem that may help. Have this kind of info in mind when you call.
3. Be nice. The customer service person isn't the one who manufactured this problem, and they are one of your few outlets for recourse. Stick with "I statements" rather than "you" statements. Say "frustrated" instead of "angry enough to tear out your still-beating heart," etc.
4. Have a solution in mind. If this problem is new to them, they may not know what course to take. If you most want a refund or a replacement, tell them that.
5. Even if you caused the damage- call about replacement parts if the item may still be salvageable. Repairs are often much cheaper than total replacement. Plus, repairs can extend the life of goods and keep useful items out of the landfill.

Call now (or between 8 & 5 Eastern Time)- operators are standing by...

photo credit: babytoolkit.blogspot.com, 2007

PolyGem, Better than a Dutch Boy: Goodbye Basement Flooding

When we moved into this house in 2004, a small, annoying wet spot would appear on our concrete utility room floor during heavy rains. In November, 2006, things changed drastically. Portions of our recently tornado-damaged gutters pulled free of the house under the hydraulic power of 14 inches of rain in one miserable rain storm. Over 50% of our finished, carpeted basement took hundreds of gallons of water. The emergency cleanup guys remarked as we watched the water flow out our garage doors- "at least it's draining well."

They cleaned and dehumidified for more than a week even with much of the water running out the front of the house. We thought our water problems were solved once we got the gutters reinstated, but we were terribly wrong.

The storm had cut a waterway into our basement. With every significant rainfall, we found ourselves vacuuming up gallons of water off the floor (trying to keep it from the carpeted region of the basement). Our house doesn't have a floor drain, so we couldn't hope for the water to clear itself.

Our already broken and improperly tilted patio had taken much of the water during the deluge, and we suspected that its repair might remedy the basement flooding by diverting the water. We hired concrete contractors to put in a new patio.


BabyGeek liked to supervise their work through the kitchen doors, and I think most of the guys thought of him as a mascot. They did an excellent job, but the flooding continued.

We got back on the proverbial horse and spent a long week last Fall with the incredibly generous assistance and guidance of family and friends digging trenches and laying irrigation tile to drain water around the house which is situated on a steep hill. We built up high banks adjacent to the house to insure drainage away from the foundation. The flooding continued.

We gave up. I whined, pouted, and cursed the day we bought this house. Paralyzed with frustration, Jim stuck his head in the sand (probably to avoid hearing my whining, pouting, and cursing). We spent rainy days and nights vacuuming up gallons of water with a carpet vac. Our basement retained the horrific flooded carpet (now dry, but pretty suspect), so we simply quit using half of our floorspace. The parties we envisioned and the guests we hoped to host all were sidelined until the flooding could be permanently stopped and we could install new carpeting.

So, what did we do? We turned to the Internet with the keyword search "leaky basement." Our favorite tv contractors, the team at "Ask This Old House," recommended on their web site actually looking at the problem area to assess the problem. One afternoon, Jim and my dad pulled down the drywall nearest the water's point of entry and they found a 7 foot long crack in the poured concrete foundation wall.

It kept raining, and now we could watch the water pour in. This small waterfall had quite the opposite effect of a Zen fountain. It left us desolate and bereft. We could now see how quickly we were losing ground in our war against the water. After losing a lot more sleep and getting really irritated with each other and the house, Jim struck upon a jury-rigged solution to collect some of the water into a bucket. [Using science: capillary action rocks!]

His sponge, board, t-shirt, and yarn solution may not have looked like much, but it now meant we only had to get up every 3-5 hours on stormy nights to vacuum and empty the bucket. We were no longer required to leave someone behind to mind the house on stormy days as long as we came back within 3 hours. It wasn't ideal, but it was progress.

And sometimes, a little progress is all it takes for momentum to build. Jim returned to the "Ask This Old House" web site with the new keywords "foundation crack," and there we learned about the incredible epoxy injection liquid concrete repair, LCR by PolyGem. It sounded perfect.

One Internet order and a few days later, I beat the UPS man to the door to receive this miracle leak stopper.

A few days and a couple phone calls to PolyGem later (they have an amazing and helpful staff), we took BabyGeek to Grandma's and started work.

We started on a Friday evening, and rain was predicted for Saturday afternoon. Our calls to PolyGem revealed that we probably needed less than 24 hours before water made contact with the repair.

We cleared the crack of debris and loose concrete with a steel brush. After a quick vacuuming up, we marked the crack at 1 foot intervals, so we would know where to place the injection ports. We marked these spots with sidewalk chalk. Jim, per the "This Old House" LCR instructions (which were so helpful and complete), gently put a 3 inch finishing nail into the crack at these marked points. These nails helped us line up the ports with the crack when cementing them to the wall.



We mixed the two part epoxy cement and attached the injection ports to the wall. After that, we cemented closed the front of the crack and around the ports. Once cement hardened and the ports were secure to the wall, we removed the nails. The cement took about 8 hours to cure (a little longer than it would take in a warmer environment; our basement was on the chilly end of the allowable temperature spectrum). After it cured, we mixed the injection epoxy cartridge, popped it the caulk gun, and filled the ports from the bottom port up. When the port above the one we were filling had epoxy ooze out, we capped the lower port and moved up to the next one. [Note: when moving the caulk gun, release the pressure on the cartridge before changing ports. Otherwise, you will spray a trail of epoxy from one port to the next.]

We bought extra injection epoxy cartridge because we didn't know how much epoxy, if any, would escape out behind the buried foundation wall. In cases were homeowners can access both sides of the wall, it would be advisable to cement the exterior wall before injecting the liquid epoxy. We ended up using all the injection epoxy from the kit and the extra cartridge, so this was money well spent.

On Saturday it rained for 7 hours. We normally would have experienced about a gallon an hour entering our basement with the rate of rainfall. It stayed dry. We're so happy.

We also thought the house would smell strongly of epoxy. The epoxy cement was almost odorless and the liquid epoxy was far more mild than we anticipated. We were able to close off that room for a couple days of curing and there is no residual odor today (4.5 days after application).

This fix won't work for every type of cracking wall, but it's definitely worth investigating if you have a persistent basement leak that won't be stopped by normal measures.

Jake, Your Friendly Virtual Repairman: Appliance Assistance at ApplianceBlog.com's Forums

When our 4 year old front -loading washer got hungry for the sweet, sweet taste of cotton, I was pretty bereft. Not only had a mechanical ally in the ongoing war against household chaos turned traitor, but the laundry piles were also rapidly mounting while decisions had to be made.

We had a repairman visit back in the spring when the clothes were just being nicked by the washer. He told us that it was a common issue with that model when overloaded. The problem was intrinsic to the washer's design, so there was no repair available. We stopped stuffing the washer and found no improvement. It actually cut the clothes more with fewer items in the load.

So, late one night in an appliance decision quagmire, I stumbled, via google, into ApplianceBlog.com's forums and Jake, the real life repairman behind them. This place is a DIYer's dream. Good, well-written, and sound advice offered promptly by a compassionate and seasoned professional.

I posted a "Can this washer be saved?" question and got plenty of useful advice that helped us make a confident decision to replace our fabric-hungry washer with one that we will be more able to repair ourselves. We are planning on getting a washer repair guide (like Chilton's auto guides) for our new washer from Jake's affiliate online parts sales.

Jake also offered us valuable social-engineering advice about working with the retailer where we purchased the item. They offered us a great deal on service (no labor or service call fees, only parts costs), but we decided not to take them up on this offer as 1) we believe the problem to be an irreparable defect in the machine's design- and 2) the only way to test the machine's repair is to feed it more of our wardrobe. The advice however was sound as the retailer did offer us a GREAT repair deal if it hadn't entailed further risk of our clothing.

The affiliated repairclinic.com site has great illustrations of the appliances deconstructed, so it looks like common fixes could be found here as well as in the applianceblog's forum.

His site offers a great hack for people looking to purchase new appliances. Just search the forum the model and brand to see what kinds of problems are common to the appliance being considered. These search results offer a real-life, long-term perspective that a simulation-based tester like Consumer Reports might miss (like the mold that is known to build up on some front-loader seals).

It's nice to have a new ally in the war on household chaos...
Now does anyone have ideas for a slightly hungry Kenmore front loader? Maybe we could turn it into an aquarium....