Small Frying pan handle remedy

Our smaller stainless steel frying pan is used daily - the reason why its handle gave in earlier.  There was no heat-resistant stub that remained as it all crumbled to tiny bits.  Anyway it is not being used for prolonged cooking and mostly for heating food or frying eggs.

When I made or fixed the handle, I still had an oxy-acetylene torch set.  Instead of doing a full metal weld, I did a bronze weld to preserve the properties of stainless steel.  The extended  handle was fashioned from a piece of flat stainless steel "folded" to wrap around the original handle stub.  This resulted to a handle that does not get heated too much for normal handling.


Do this only if you are familiar with the process as bronze welding require the use of flux for proper adherence of the bronze to the surfaces involved.

Large Frying Pan broken handle

Cook wares outlast their handles most of the time.  Like our good large stainless steel frying pan, it would have been outright dumb to dispose of it just because of a broken handle.  Fortunately, the stub handle was long enough to do some remedy to attach something to it.


So even with an aluminum square tube, that fits exactly to the heat resistant handle stub, it was just a matter of how to fix it to the stub.  As the stub has also lost its stainless steel rivet, I replaced it with aluminum rivets to size.  Then I drilled a hole on through the aluminum tube and stub then bonding them with a single rivet.  It's been more than 10 years now and the frying pan still is in good use for us at home.

How to use Box Wrench as extension

Open-wrenches are often shorter than Box or Closed-Wrenches.  The reason is to prevent over forcing the open-wrench in either tightening or loosening bolts and nuts.  Doing so could make corners of bolts and nuts rounded and more difficult to work on.


On some occasions, it is impossible to use a box-wrench in tight spots where only open-wrench can only be inserted but does not have enough length for leverage.  A suitable box-wrench of the same size can be used as extension for the open-wrench for more leverage.  This can be used to either loosen stubborn bolts and nuts or tighten them.  Make sure to use insert the box-wrench properly as shown on the photo.

Home Repair Tips : How to Use a Rivet Gun

Please refer to my first post here on what you can do with aluminum rivets and the wire cut from it.  View the YouTube video on how to properly use a Rivet gun.  There are sizes and lengths of rivets that are appropriate rivets for the thickness of what you have to bind or fasten together.




http://youtu.be/0bGAiC0_i_k?hd=1

Tips on screwing & tightening bolts

Problems with loose or worn out threads with screws, bolts and nuts come at a time when you're about done with a job.  It often happens when using metal or aluminum screws on plastic and wood because of over tightening.  To avoid this, stop tightening when twisting the screwdriver or wrench finally resists from turning any further.   Forcing it will either damage the wood or plastic thread pattern.  It also happens when tightening metal-to-metal or aluminum-to-aluminum screws, bolts and nuts.

Never force tighten screws, bolts and nuts beyond reasonable strength.  Always bear in mind that only heavy duty equipment and machines would require extra effort in tightening bolts and nuts with the use of a torque wrench.  Hexagonal bolts with a cross slot for a Philipps screwdriver do not require extra torque. For this, it is still best to tighten with a screwdriver than a wrench.  Avoid using tools like pliers, vise-grip or forcing wrong size wrench for loosening them up unless utterly necessary.