Tuesday, March 13, 2018

New broom? You'll need someone with a toolbox...


OK B&Q - the yard broom at chez Parker is looking more than little tired. To be honest, it lives outside the back door and the wood has gone rotten. Trying to sweep the recent fluffy snow away before it turned to ice defeated it.

However, the packing for new brooms presents a challenge. The head comes attached to the handle with this plastic bracket.

You can't slide the handle out, the prongs prevent easy movement and when you reach the end of the handle there is either a bit of rope for hanging the broom up, or the plastic thing that screws into the bracket on the head.

Cut that away with some flush wire snippers and you are left with the plastic bracket stapled to the head. A screwdriver won't go in under the staples until all the plastic is cut away with a Stanley style knife. OK, it's pretty soft but so is the wood underneath.

And those staples are long too.

Anyway, the broom is now assembled, plastic bits and staples in the bin, and treated to a coat of varnish ready to go outside. It just seemed to be more of a faff than it ought to be.

2 comments:

cparkstone said...

So it's like Triggers broom, 4 New heads and 3 handles but still the original broom

Andy in Germany said...

That method of attaching head to handle breaks easily too. One of the regular requests at the city farm I worked at was "Andy, could you fix this brush?"
To be fair, soggy horse poo is heavy, but still...
Eventually I found the most effective method was reinforce the head with two screws front to back, then to drill a hole through the head big enough for me the hammer the shaft through. It meant we lost a couple of bristles, but it reduced the brooms breaking at the join.