I actually did get back to sleep, but then there was all this meowing outside... Plus, then I discovered our other cat had torn the foil off the leftovers I left out to cool, ate part of them, and then (he’s getting old) peed on the floor instead of going to (the just refreshed) litter box. Sheesh.
Hi, All! I’ve run into an interesting little problem that may, in fact likely does, turn up in other gardening and outdoor places / situations.
The problem is that some plastics are hygroscopic, that is, they absorb water molecules, and when they do, they expand slightly. This can cause problems if, say, a plastic part expands inside a steel part. In my case, it is the plastic body of a Zebco 33 “Authentic” Series fishing reel. The front cover comes off, but, the rear cover refuses to turn, even after employing several tricks suggested by Zebco: (WD-40 “soak”, freezing the reel and then trying to get the cover off (the plastic should shrink more than the steel), etc. ) There’s not enough room to get a strap wrench on it - at least none I have: They grip with a thick “belt”.
If it can’t be turned, the cover pretty much can’t come off without destroying the reel, but if the rear cover won’t come off, there is no way to get inside to service / maintain the reel. This is a shame, as the reel otherwise functions quite nicely, after a little cleanup of the front end, even with slightly old line on it.
A good guess would be that this reel was left in a hot car on humid days.
I have a similar Zebco 33 “Titanium” series reel, from the same source: On it, it was the front cover that would not come off. However, I can get a better grip on it: Between that and WD-40, I was able to free up and pull off the front cover from that reel.
One other possibility would be to leave the “stuck” reel at an elevated temperature in low humidity, for an extended period, to try to drive some of the H2O molecules out, thereby hopefully shrinking the plastic a bit, but I don’t know if that would make the plastic brittle.
I’ve run into a couple other instances of such problems with outdoor / gardening equipment that have plastic-to-metal connections or interfaces, and I expect other FReeper gardeners have also. If anyone has further ideas or experiences, please fire away!
Info. on hygroscopic plastics: