He presented his speech on JB Weld. I was just beaming with pride over what a good job he did. He is funny, poised, a good communicator. It was awesome and I was happy to be there to see it. Here's the speech for you to read. It's not as good as hearing it in person but I know you'll enjoy it. And for the record, I only occasionally break things (or maybe every week, boo). Good thing I married a handy man.
Project 3 - J.B. Weld
Thank you Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, and our welcome guests. I have a little problem I’d like to share with you tonight. Two little problems, actually. Nearly every night when I get home I am greeted with big hugs and kisses from my two wonderfully curious and rambunctious children. But, before I even get a chance to say hello to my wife, my children have zipped away and returned with a bevy of items they have broken that day, wondering if I can fix them. Sometimes, my wife will add an item to the heap, mumbling something about how the kids got tangled up in her legs, tripped her and she dropped the now broken item.
They say you only need two items in your toolbox, WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, WD-40. It if does move and it shouldn’t, duct tape. While the duct tape would be an excellent way to contain my children for a little while, their steady diet of chicken nuggets and goldfish crackers provide them more than sufficient energy to gnaw through that duct tape and they would quickly return to their shenanigans. Fortunately, I have a third tool in my tool box, J.B. Weld. For the broken things, not the kids.
J.B. Weld is a two part epoxy that has saved me more time and money than I can count. To use it, one simply squeezes out equal amounts from each tube onto something you can throw away when you are done, like a note card. One tube contains the black colored glue, and the second tube is filled with white colored “magic”. You mix up the epoxy with a toothpick or cotton swab until you have a uniform gray mix and apply to whatever it is that needs repair. A little masking tape works great to hold parts together while the epoxy cures and a day later everything is right as rain.
The toys I have been able to save from the landfill are numerous. Endless matchbox cars that are crashed into each other, pieces of train track that are snapped by little hands still developing in dexterity, dolls that are inadvertently shut in car doors, and toy tools that do not have the same strength as the grown up versions.
Around my home you will find numerous glass beads and ornaments made by my artistic wife, and cracked in two by my inquisitive children. Those fine glass pieces are able to be rejoined with only the slightest evidence of previous traumas. One of J.B. Weld’s great strengths is that it can be cleaned up with just a wet paper towel. This means that I can keep squeezing those pieces of glass together and quickly wiping off the extra epoxy that squishes out until the crack is nearly imperceptible. This is a tremendous improvement over items that I have attempted to repair with super glue. Those items either got stuck to my fingers in the way that only super glue can achieve, or have big globs of glue highlighting the areas I clumsily tried to clean with nail polish remover.
The brand new kiddie pool that my children excitedly jumped into and cracked holds water again. The galvanized steel watering can that broke my wife’s fall when a toddler tried to dart between her legs, continues to deliver water to our garden without an errant drop.
When my wife and I announced that we were expecting our first child my father, with a lifetime of experience as an architect, built for us a robust and handsome crib. That crib survived my first child, then a cross county move, and then another cross county move, but not my sweet little red headed daughter, who is actively trying to prove the line from Anne of Green Gables that “her temper matches her hair”. There is no force it seems, like that of a red headed toddler who does not want to take a nap. My daughter has twice thrown herself against the ends of the crib with such force that the screws that hold it together have stripped clean out of the wood, knocking the ends of the crib right off. A little J.B. Weld however has ensured that that crib can survive even more children, even if my wife and I aren’t quite sure we could.
J.B. Weld is fantastic stuff. It has kept toys and household items out of the trash, is fine enough to repair delicate glass, and strong enough to contain a fiery red head. There is nothing that can’t be repaired with God’s gray glue, even my wife’s 1996 Saturn SL1.
My wife’s Saturn was a wonderful car. It got 40 miles to the gallon and you could repair anything on that car with just three screw drivers and a basic 10 piece wrench set. The car was incredibly simple to repair, which was both a blessing, and a curse because there was always something that needed to be repaired. One day my wife came to me and said that the car was acting sluggish. It just didn’t have the power it normally had and she was filling up the tank more frequently than usual. Poking around under the hood I discovered the cause, a leak where one of the fuel injectors attached to the engine block. I removed the fuel injector and found a pair of worn rubber O-rings that allowed the fuel to leak out. I ran over to the parts store plopped down 50 cents for a new pair of O-rings and quickly had the old ones replaced. After driving the car around for another week my wife informed me that the car still didn’t seem quite right. Another inspection showed there was still a little fuel leaking from that same fuel injector. So I bought and installed a whole new fuel injector, but still my wife informed me it just wasn’t right. Dejected that I had been beaten by a mere Saturn I took the car to a mechanic who quoted me $600 to repair the leak on a car that was worth about $1,200. I thanked him for his time, shoved his quote in the glove box and drove to the hardware store to pick up a package of J.B. Weld. That afternoon I glued my wife’s car back together. I smeared copious amounts of J.B. Weld all round that fuel injector until it was firmly sealed in place. Lest you think I was putting my wife in danger, J.B. Weld has a temperature rating of 500 degrees and I knew it was tough. My wife drove that car for several more months without any issue before we decided it was time for something slightly newer and I listed it on Craigslist for $1200. Soon a potential buyer came around for a test drive. He drove it around with great interest but I told him there was something I had to show him before we talked seriously about the sale. I lifted the hood and explained the work I had done. He looked over at me and offered me $1000 for the car. He handed me cash, I handed him the title, and as we shook hands our eyes met briefly. In that quick moment he and I both realized he was getting a great deal. Someday he and I would be gone, that car abandoned in a field somewhere. The tires would have long since rotted away, the frame and body rusted away too, but there would remain the engine block, with one fuel injector still firmly in place.
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