What were they thinking? Part 1

Actually, it was me - What was I thinking?

Rather than refrigerators depending on being a bit off-level to close the door, as the world was when I was a child, our present one has a three-lobed cam which uses gravity to close the door.

The plastic cam that mated with this little white gem broke into little bits, not only letting the door down a tiny bit, but losing the door's tendency to close on its own.

I went to our local service and parts shop across town, only to find that they were on holiday, so my contraptioneer ego not wanting to be deterred, I started with a block of good solid walnut and started drilling, sawing and grinding it down, well past what you see in this photo. When finished, it actually looked pretty close to what I imagined the white plastic original looked like before it crumbled under pressure.

Too excited to photograph the finished product, I took the door off and installed my creation.

It closed the door once before crumbling.

Even the best walnut, lovingly shaped with over an hour of the best contraptioneerly efforts will not substitute for a mass-produced piece of white plastic. Boo!

The happy ending (I hope) is that I went back to the shop, and their order should come in on the 29th.

Lesson learned.