Did you ever have one of those back-scrubber brushes from that popular store that transcends the bathroom and the bedroom—or so it claims? You know, the one with the hardwood handle and the loofah scrubber? I’m not sure what type of wood they use, perhaps it’s ash, but it’s heavily coated with varnish. The problem is that the loofah can come loose from the scrubber head, and the head can come unglued from the handle. Both have happened to me. Well, I hate to throw anything away that costs more than twenty-nine cents, especially if I can repair it.
Reattaching the loofah was easy. A hobby glue gun does the trick, but you have to be quick. Also make sure you use the plastic glue and not the glue for wood, because that might tend to melt in the shower. Reattaching the head assembly is a little more difficult. I didn’t rely solely on glue because it seemed to be a high-stress joint. The handle will slide into a slot in the head, but without something to anchor it, it just won’t stay together.
Here’s how I solved it: I found a couple of brass pan head screws in the glass coffee jars I keep my spare screws in. The glass what did you say? Yes, kids, coffee, especially instant coffee, used to come in glass jars with metal lids. You tack the metal lid to the underside of a board, fill the jar up with hardware, and then screw the jar onto the lid. Those are a bit hard to come by these days, so I’m really careful with mine. Anyway, as I was saying, you take the pan head screws and find a drill bit just a tad smaller than the screw diameter. Use an ice pick or a punch to start a hole in the handle after you decide the best places for the screws, then drill completely through the handle, once for each screw. Slide the head onto the handle, and then use the screw holes in the handle to either make marks in the head, or to go ahead and drill through these holes into the head. My preference is to drill one, put in the screw, then drill the other, and put in that screw. You might even want to back off the screws and put some of the hot glue into the joint before tightening down the screws.
Once you have the screws in place, you may think to yourself, why, those screws are nothing more than an opportunity to get scratched in the shower! All too true, but we aren’t done yet. Here we have two options. If you have one of those rotary power tools or an electric grinder, take down the heads of the screws until they are flat and only stick up a tiny bit. Otherwise, put some masking tape or duck tape on the scrubber all around the screw head so you don’t scratch the wood, and get out your flat bastard file and work on those suckers until you get the job done. In a case like that, it’s best to clamp your work in a vice, clamping work table, etc., and get both hands on the file. Just make sure that if you’re using a metal vice you put something softer than metal between the scrubber head and the vice jaws. Strips of wood should do nicely.
Mine has been working fine in the shower longer than it did before it broke. I chose brass screws because they don’t rust the way iron screws do, and once you get them filed down, I think they even make the scrubber into a more attractive bath accessory.
Dr. Dubois should be returning soon with more fin stuff, but he said he needed to find some materials and take some photos first. He’ll get back to you in a jiffy, I’m sure.
The queen taketh a bath once a month, and she expecteth her subjects to do likewise.
