How to glue

I have posted more than once about my total ineptitude with all things mechanical. A repairman once told me that it was OK to be as bad at doing “Manly” repair stuff as I was. he rationalized it thusly for me:

“Some people are good at this shit, some aren’t. You can write and I can fix plumbing without burning down the house,” was how he put it.

Of course my inability to fix, well, just about anything, means he gets money from me. So it is to his advantage to make me feel OK about shirking my manly duty to try, screw things up almost beyond repair, and call in the cavalry.

But even a blind acorn finds a pig. Or something like that.

This is what greeted me the other day when I got in the old family truckster:

That would be the rear view mirror, which was swinging merrily from the wire which connects it to whatever sensors tell it which way I am headed and how hot it is there. It had fallen off overnight.

Google told me that there is a solution, specially a solution of glue:

It’s readily available at most auto parts stores so A chugged on over to

and picked up this: for under $4.00 including tax.

The helpful guy behind the counter showed the best way was to remove the mounting deal, called a button in the instructions on the glue, and affix that, then slide the mirror down on that. Easy. Except that this required a hex screwdriver which I have not. But helpful guy behind the counter loaned me his.

The process is to prepare the surface with this wipe, like a face washing nap you get at the KFC, let that dry for 2 minutes, then put one drop (!) of the glue on the button. Press, hold for two minutes and then let set for 15.

I did this all in the A&A stores parking lot. The one I chose was in downtown Wilkes-Barre, across from the main post office and in the section of town where I lived in 1980 when we first put WKRZ on the air. It was an interesting place then, and is even more so today. Suffice to say I people watched with my doors shut, locked.

But amazingly it all turned out. I gave the helpful guy behind the counter his tool back. The mirror is still in it’s right palce today as I write, several days later. Mission Accomplished!

Here is the good news. I did not glue myself or anything other than the mirror. I did not spill the glue. I put the button for the mirror on the right way. Upside down would have been No fun. In fact the instructions on the Rear View Mirror Adhesive kit strongly suggest that removing a button is next to impossible and your best fix if you are that stupid (well it doesn’t say stupid) is to mount another button on the other one.

I can see me with a stack of buttons a foot thick.

But this did not happen.

Even more important I have discovered a very cheap and really strong glue that might work for me in some way in the future. If I ever need to affix something to something pretty permanently.

How about a statue to the goofy neighbors mailbox?