A Use For Used Dryer Fabric Softener Sheets

[MIflyer]

Some small number of y'all may be acquainted with washing laundry, although I am sure most of you leave such details to your domestic staff so you can focus on playing polo. But some of us are not encumbered with excessive wealth and therefore perform such menial work on a fairly frequent basis.

When you put wet laundry in a clothes dryer you usually add a "Fabric Softener Dryer Sheet" which magically leaves the clothes softer than they would be without it. After the drying is done the fabric softener sheet is rather limper than before. Usually it is discarded, but on occasion I find them in my underwear after I get dressed.

Now, those familiar with doing laundry are also acquainted with yard maintenance activities. Lawn mowers powered by internal combustion engines require clean air to run. In the delightful days of yesteryear such mowers used oil soaked hunks of foam rubber to filter the air to the engine. Modern mowers tend to use pleated paper filters. My mower would not start a few weeks back and I decided to check the air filter for the first time in the several years I have owned it. The filter was all but packed with dirt, and after banging in on the ground while screaming and cursing at it, I put it back in the mower and it ran fine.

A visit to the local Sears store revealed that such filters are priced at $15.00, a situation up with which I shall not put. A new air filter for my Ercoupe is only $23 and it uses, believe it or not, an OIL SOAKED HUNK OF FOAM RUBBER.

So here is what you do. Remove the air filter from your mower. Bang it on the ground, hit it with the hose, use laser hair removal treatments, shoot neutrons at it, or whatever is required to get it clean enough for the mower to run. Then take a used dryer sheet or six and put it over the outside of the filter when you reinstall it in the mower. The used dryer sheets, which feature a very low acquisition cost, will filter the air before it goes through the $15.00 air filter and avoid the associated expense.

In closing I attach a vintage Erco advertisement that is a remarkably accurate recreation of one of my typical Sunday afternoons, after I have done the laundry and cut the grass - both of which I need to go see to at this time.

 

[at6]

Interesting idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[mikewint]

Can go you one very much better. My big $13,000 115hp Mercury outboard motor uses a dry foam air filter that costs $90 or more. Now the genius part: the great engineers at Mercury use a type of foam that dissolves in gasoline and/or oil. Sooo unless replaced every year the foam part slowly breaks up and gets sucked into the running engine where it does wonderful things to the cylinders and valves

 

[MIflyer]

So basically the Merc folks are to be commended for coming up with a foolproof method of ensuring their dunderheaded customers change the air filter! It's a stirling example of planned obsolecence at its finest! They must have taught Microsoft the tricks of their trade.

About 20 years ago I bought a flash unit for use with my SLR cameras. It came with instructions in German, French, and Spanish. I sent them an e-mail asking if I might get some in English. The reply was, "Nope."

A gentleman man I worked originally was from Poland and had spent the majority of WWII as a guest of the Germans. He escaped late in the war, made it to Amercian lines and volunteered to be a guide and translator for the US Army, since he knew Polish, English, Russian, and German. They encountered Soviet troops driving a US Jeep. He asked a Russian soldier how he liked that American vehicle. The Russian replied that it was Soviet made. My friend pointed out that all of the markings were in a English. The Russian said that was because they exported the Jeeps to the US, and Russians were smart enough to not need all those instructions and instrumentation, but the dumb Americans needed it.

I take heart in that the flash maker considered English speakers to be too smart to need instructions.

 

[T Bolt]

This is an oil bath air filter from a 1950 Chevy pickup (I pulled it off the internet but mine is the same only looks much nicer). You put oil in the bottom and the top part which containes the filter element (which looks like excelsior) sits in the oil which is drawn up into the element by capillary action. I've had the truck since 1988 and I've only had to change the oil and rinse out the element with kerosene twice.
I'm pretty sure the filter is the original one so that's 68 years and still going strong.
Why can't they design stuff like that anymore?

 

[MIflyer]

Ya got me there! And I'm a mechanical engineer who has both fixed airplanes and directed space launch missions.

The old lawnmower air filters were foam rubber that you removed, cleaned in dishwashing soap, and reoiled. People usually forgot about them. Eventually you'd have to buy a new one, when they started disintegrating; they cost about $1.00. When my mower would not start earlier this year, I finally decided to check the air filter and realized I did not even know where it was. The old ones were so obvious that it took no technical knowledge to figure out what to do.

 

[Tieleader]

Can go you one very much better. My big $13,000 115hp Mercury outboard motor uses a dry foam air filter that costs $90 or more. Now the genius part: the great engineers at Mercury use a type of foam that dissolves in gasoline and/or oil. Sooo unless replaced every year the foam part slowly breaks up and gets sucked into the running engine where it does wonderful things to the cylinders and valves

"designed obsolesce" in manufacturing jargon!

 

[Zipper730]

Tieleader ,

I'm curious if you could articulate why this is bad?

I don't think it's good by the way

 

[Tieleader]

Tieleader ,

I'm curious if you could articulate why this is bad?

I don't think it's good by the way

By way of personal example I had a '73 F-100 pickup that I drove for 15 years until it finally rusted out to the point of being unsafe to drive due to the New England winters. The engine still ran like a champ. The S-10 I bought to replace it had a cracked engine OFF THE ASSEMBLY LINE! The dealer fixed all that but still... My point is that companys of past years gave a rat's a$$ about their products. Now it's all about replacing stuff with stuff that can be replaced at the earliest opportunity whether the consumer wants it or not.
Now if you'll excuse I have to go and yell at the young whippersnappers to get off my lawn...

 

[Zipper730]

By way of personal example I had a '73 F-100 pickup that I drove for 15 years until it finally rusted out to the point of being unsafe to drive due to the New England winters. The engine still ran like a champ. The S-10 I bought to replace it had a cracked engine OFF THE ASSEMBLY LINE! The dealer fixed all that but still... My point is that companys of past years gave a rat's a$$ about their products. Now it's all about replacing stuff with stuff that can be replaced at the earliest opportunity whether the consumer wants it or not.

In the old days it was "built to last", in the modern day it's "built to break".

That could be a good meme right?

 

[Tieleader]

agreed.

 

[GrauGeist]

A typical example of obsolescence:
Computer flatscreen monitors typically have a short life. The primary reason for this, is because the manufacturer uses the cheapest electrolytic capacitors in the power supply possible.
They count on the consumer to toss the failed monitor and purchase a new one. Except in my case, I'll purchase 5 new caps (at .15 cents each) and replace the failed caps (that cost the manufacturer .02 cents each) and it operates like a champ.

 

[Zipper730]

I'm too lazy to make memes right now, but I've found these