Repairing a broken dishwasher plate rack (Bauknecht GSF PL 961 A+)

We love our dishwasher, but it has a weakness: the plastic caps that hold the plate racks. They break easily and seem irreparable. After two broke, we used 1 plate rack instead of 2. When the third out of 4 broke, I had to do something... otherwise, how do we get our plates clean?! I thought I finally found a case where it would be better to replace than to repair. So, I visited the Bauknecht website to look for new plastic caps. They cost 22 Euros. Each! Making Bauknecht 66 euros richer for 3 of them! Forget it! Repair rescue on the way.
















In the picture above they were glued with superstrong cyanoacrylate-based glue. It did not hold under the forces of clipping them back...I did not like the idea of trying all my different special glues for their strength and subsequent test for temperature stability and waterproofness...

There is an other solution to this!

I used isolated iron wire to fixate the holding cap to the plate holder (one of the 4).

Pay attention to the details: the underside of the cape remains wire-free.

Also the back remains wire-free. Strength and stability are guaranteed by: the one tight bond over the front (in the photo),  a tight connection between the two rack parts, a horizontal wire between at least 4 vertical spikes, and a stabilizing crossing in the upper center of the cap (in the photo) which fixates in the gaps and fixates the bond over the front.

I hope this helps to repair yours as well!

Making a snowflake-star from tree leaves

If you like to work with natural materials, you will probably enjoy this idea to make a snowflake or star from tree leaves. For this project I used leaves from the silverleaf poplar which already have a white satin surface.

First dry the leaves. You can use any method for flat drying; e.g. put them between soft kitchen paper, put those between layers of newspaper, put some heavy books on it and let it dry for some days. The fresher the leaves and the slower the drying the better your leaves will look. I used older leaves picked in December which fell off weeks before, and dried them fast by putting the paper layers on the heater, with a less than perfect result, but still satisfying. For a snowflake you need 6 larger leaves and three (or six) smaller ones, each set having leaves of similar size and shape.




Arrange the six lager leaves in 'two layers'; a lower triangle and an upper triangle with the side points of the leaves touching as in the picture, giving a snowflake with 6 large peaks and 6 small peaks. Note that some leaves are bending left or right, and you need to try till the composition is making a nice star. Glue the overlapping parts together. I used white glue for wood, which does not leave visible spots.



In the next step I used yarn to stabilize the leaf stems, create a central point and find a balance point to have the structure later hanging on (with the yarn thread going up in the picture).

















Use the three remaining leaves to make another symmetrical structure (break off the stems and use glue), preferably with three large and three small spikes. In this case I chose to 'split the lower small spike', breaking radial symmetry but retaining mirror symmetry. It just did not fit nicely otherwise. Since I already decided what is the top (in the step finding balance point), this does not attract attention when put right.

Now put the parts together with glue. You can see here that when put right it does not immediately stand out that they have different symmetry. Note the loop of the yarn, that will disappear behind the top when hung.

A small hint on hanging the structure; taping the yarn to something may result in falling of the snowflake. You can use one of the broken off leave stems and tape it to the window or other surface. Now hang the loop over the stem.

 

 

 

 

Update: here is an illustrated PDF in German for printing.

Happy holidays!