Monday, May 22, 2006

The Right Tools

My father has always been a strong believer in the importance of having the right tools for the right job. I was reminded of this on Saturday, when I was taking apart the piano bench so my mother could re-cover it.

First, I used the cordless power drill to take out the eight screws holding the legs on. I love power tools, and this part was fast and painless.
I then encountered a bajillion staples holding the cover on. Isn't this what you use to take out staples?
Apparently not industrial staples blasted into particle board. It didn't work at all. Papa said maybe this type of staple remover would work better.
It definitely did, but it still wasn't really strong enough to pull the staples out all the way. That's where the screwdriver came in.
Unfortunately, the screwdriver wasn't wide enough to pull out more than one side of the staple. Plus, it was ratcheted and kept turning on me. So, Papa brought me a wider, non-ratched screwdriver.
Next, I needed pliers for pulling out the halfway-still-stuck staples all over the place from my previous attempts.
Then, he saw me putting the successfully-removed staples in a little pile on the floor, so he brought a nice yellow cup to put them in. Ours didn't have a smiley face, though.
The staples were finally all out, but then the foam was glued to the board and left behind all kinds of fuzz and lumps. I was picking it off with my fingers when Papa walked up with a fantasic putty knife.
That should be the end of the story, but this project also included the gouging of two of my right hand knuckles when my hand slipped and hit a row of partly-out staples. This required the use of two band-aids. But you don't need a picture of those, do you?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing! I'm going to need all those tools pretty soon when I go to recover the top of a chest in my room. :)

Anonymous said...

I love how you illustrated your story. That was just...brilliant.

Katie said...

Thanks Jessica!

Good luck, Lindsay! I hope you don't need the band-aids. :-)