Horizontal Cordless Blinds - Fix Broken Spring Cord

Update: This broke a week later. The cartridge won’t hold tension. I suggest rethreading to mod it into a corded blind. There are more than a few tutorials on how to do that out on the interwebs already.

My advice: just don’t. That’s right. I did it. I fixed my Home Depot Cordless Blinds, and I saved $45 doing so, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it again. I got so frustrated and it took so long that I forgot to take instructional pictures.  And I love to take that kind of stuff. If the blinds no longer retract at all, it’s because all three cords have been severed. And if the fact that it happens all the time hasn’t lead you to seek alternative blinds, you might be able to repair them, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

If you’re still determined to do so, you need to:

1. Pull the blind from the window completely.
2. Pull out the cassette with springs and spools.
3. Wind on three new cables onto the spools.
4. Thread them back through all the other pulleys, obstacles, and slats.
5. Replace them in the window.

Pulling the blinds from the window when they won’t retract is a pain in your arse. You’ll probably need a helper and a flat-head screwdriver to pry them loose from the bracket. The slats, which are no longer retained by means of a central cord, will try to fall out everywhere. Be careful, our use this opportunity to throw them away completely. You can still do that.

Obtaining cord is a pain. You should grab the 1-2mm kind, but it only comes in 100 yard spools from Amazon. Pull the cassette with razor sharp springs and a baffling spool-and-gear mechanism from underneath the tilt cams by unseating the cams along the whole length of the blinds. Remove the retaining clips (don’t lose them!). Clean out the busted cord from the slats, blind body, and all pulleys. Examine the cassette, and reseat the spring if it’s come loose. Which it will if you play with the mechanism for more than two seconds trying to understand how it works.

 The cassette winding was the part that broke me. Play with the spools and you’ll see there are 4 in total. They counter-rotate. Without any tension on the spools, the spring is fully retracted on one spool and hooks into a cleat on the other. Play with the two thread spools, and you’ll find a slot where you can thread your cord. You’re ready to wind.

Measure out two cords, one at least 18ft long, one 9ft. Make a knot in the center of the long one and a figure 8 on a bight on the short one.  With no tension on the spools, thread the center knot into the spool slot of the outside spool, and slip the bight into the slot of the inside spool. This was the biggest pain: Wind the cords around the spools, keeping your 3 dainty cords consistently on the same side of the spool, around spools within the cassette. I did this by using a blunt tapestry needle and a long and sharp upholstery needle. Avoid tangles, twists, and misthreading. You’ll know your winding properly when you pull both cables and the they both come off at the same rate.  Then they should retract neatly as you let go. I have not tried this, you might be able to thread one side, pull it out, then just slip the other side on and wind it back as you retract the other. Leave enough leader cord out the run it from the cassette, through the body of the blinds, and down through every slat. More is always better. You can trim excess once you’re done. This would have been better with pictures. When it breaks again, I’ll add some. 

Once you have wound the spools, thread the remaining cord onto the tiny pulleys in the cassette. They should all end up on the same side, the front of the main body where the tilt mechanism comes out to attach to the wand. Then pass them through the gaps in the cam supports in the main body, around the wide pulleys and back across the metal corner posts and down the pulleys which lead down to the slats. Thread each of the three cables through every slat and down through the main bottom body. Tie off the cord with a big knot, a button, or some other means of making sure it doesn’t just pull out and unthread all your hard work. Learn from me! With each cable pulled taught and knotted, you’re ready to test.

Even if you do everything right, your test could end in disaster and you might need to start over. Don’t! Just give up! Even if you do it right, it could end up tangled in a month. It could wear out just as fast. Because this design is heinous, prone to failure, and predispositioned to these kinds of shenanigans. Turn back now!

Thought I haven’t done it myself, I would recommend the truly frustrated and also thrifty find a tutorial on how to add cords back to your cordless blinds by forgoing the silly mechanism of the cassette and spring and just attaching a cleat to the wall to hold the tension. If you can make sure the strangulation risks are minimal in your house, it’s a way to fix them without replacing the blinds themselves.

Bad iframe-resizer Attribute Effects

 I have a site that uses iframe-resizer.  After some code clean-up, every iframe on the app broke in seven different ways. Practically, this was the worst on pages that had infinite scroll or similar events triggered as the page moved. The resizer was triggering a scroll event which was triggering loading which was triggering more scrolling! To make matters worse, the scroll event handle was either non-existent or it was from jquery, and it was absolutely no help.

In the end, we had configured the attributes on the iframe tag incorrectly.  The clean-up had caused them all to be null when compiled into the app, so they never got rendered properly. This didn't show up as null in the final HTML, and there were no helpful errors to guide us. It took a long time to root out.

As you modify a system with iframe-resizer and everything goes to hell, make sure any changes to the iframe tag attributes or configuration is actually getting compiled down properly still. It can save a world of headache.

Tools for Painting Miniatures

I post a lot about painting, but choosing and collecting the tools behind the craft can be just as interesting.  Here is a run-down of the tools that make my miniatures look less dull. For those looking for help building miniatures, I'll do a separate post about assembly tools and decals.

Brushes

Brushes are the vehicle for all your artistic endeavor with miniatures.  They can also be really expensive! Most guides focus on what to do (and not do) with your brushes, so let me focus on how to buy them.

For starting painters, don't worry about having all the right brushes, and especially don't buy the expensive ones! Take your starter kit brushes, maybe a bigger one for dry brushing, and learn on them. Learn to draw the brush away from the point instead of stubbing it into corners. Learn to load up the brush less than halfway. Above all, wash it thoroughly and prevent paint from drying in the ferrule. You will screw it up eventually, and your beloved companion will split, and then you can bury them. Keep a few of these starter brushes around for applying washes. Here's a picture of some of my first brushes that have bent and split over time due to abuse. Time to retire them from detail work.

Time for retirement, old friends

Keep your old crappy watercolor brushes for applying shades and washes

You will hit your stride with the next set of brushes. Having graduated from the $10 twelve-pack of watercolor brushes, the world splits into synthetic and sable. Synthetic are just that: plastic bristles.  And they wear over time mush faster than natural hair. Citadel just released their latest STC set, but The Army Painter brush set is probably the best value for your money. It comes with enough variety that you can learn what brushes are your favorite (and some editions come with a free sable brush, neat!).  If you already have strong opinions or lack options at your local store, you may be able to find quality synthetics like this Princeton Velvetouch Round 2 for a reasonable price at art stores that aren't expressly for nerds. Expect to pay about $6-8 per brush. And don't stress about getting the tiniest of brushes for the detail. The important part of detail work is holding a point and not how big the brush is! Even with better synthetics, you will gradually see bent tips as you use the brush.  This is how synthetics wear, and it is totally normal. If you treat them right, your first synthetic should last a squad or 10 figures. You will know your brush skills are maturing when a fresh brush lasts a whole army.

My standard kit

Curling bristles are normal, and they can get into tight corners!

 

Standard drybrush kit

Finally we come to the joyous pinnacle of your painting kit, the sable hair brushes. Yes, these brushes are made with actual animal hair.  And they are superior in almost every way to synthetics, but their price also puts them out of reach for most people.  They hold their shape better when loaded up with paint, and their hairs hold more paint so you can cover more area without going back to the palette. You probably only need one sable brush to start.  Grow your collection slowly, and they will last you forever. A note that the Kolinsky Sable is endangered in Siberia and import is difficult at best. So you're probably not getting real Kolinsky sable for under $25 a brush. Here again, Army Painter wins for having the right brushes for hobbyists. I inherited my Regiment brush, and it is still going strong after a decade of use by my father. By the time you're ready for your next sable brush, you will have enough experience to know if you want to go all-in on the Winsor & Newtons.

A few notes on storage: Try to keep the plastic tip covers for all your brushes.  It's the easiest way to protect them from accidental damage in transit.  If you find your collection growing and cannot bear to part with your new friends, make or buy a brush case in hard plastic (if you don't need to travel and know they will always be sitting up) or fabric like the one pictured below.  I threw it together from duck cloth in about an hour on a sewing machine with basic measurements. Your local art supply or fabric store has something similar for sale.

Citadel Colours App

Available for both iOS and Android, The Citadel Colour app helps me create and remember my color schemes.  I can create projects, track my color inventory, and keep a shopping list of paints for the next time I hit the local game store.  It comes loaded with a diverse palette, but it only offers the Citadel range from Games Workshop. If you use dropper bottles from Vallejo or the new Two Thin Coats range from Duncan Rhodes, you're out of luck. It also doesn't have cloud storage, so switching phones means transferring your inventory, projects, and history as well (my scheme images come from doing CYA in case I lose my phone). Notwithstanding, it has worked to keep me organized.  I would love to know if there were some non-GW options available out there to cover the various paint brands I might use.

  

Storage for Paint

I paint at both my house and my SO's, so this 48-bottle nail polish organizer is perfect for carrying almost my entire collection of paint pots or droppers when I'm being indecisive.  The important part of storage is being able to see the shade without having to look at the label.  Having a clear storage system that can corral a large collection while keeping them visible is ideal. Injection-molded two-sided plastic carrying cases for nail polish go by many brand names on Amazon, and they'll all run you about twenty-five bucks. I haven't found a better mobile solution than this, but I would also suggest similar nail polish storage for a workbench installation.  Both tiered shelves and wall-mount nail polish racks are going to be way more affordable, and see-through, than any miniature-specific laser cut racks you might find at your local game store.

Painting Handle

Whether you buy the Citadel handle or print your own, These little contraptions keep your mitts off the details until they are sufficiently primed sealed.  This is doubly important with Contrast Paints as it can almost be rubbed off like chalk when applied in thin coats and handled with your bare hands. You can even temporarily glue a base to a larger miniature like a vehicle so it can be mounted on the painting handle. Get one.  It's worth it.

 

The Wet Palette

I have used ceramic tiles and even tried Citadel's Palette Paper, but I will never go back now that I've started using a wet palette. The idea is simple: parchment floated atop a spongey pad allows water to pass from the wet pad, through the parchment, and into the paint. The paint doesn't bleed down into the pad, and instead stays hydrated as it dries from the top down. This flow retains water in your paint longer so it remains workable. But it also keeps your blends around longer without drying out, and it speeds up the "always thin your paints" advice that was key to so many of us making the leap from gloopy to gorgeous. Simply put, a wet palette will make getting paint onto models easier. Even if you have your doubts, you should give it a shot. And I'm going to show you how to do that as cheaply as possible. 

This is one area where I have not graduated to a professional solution because I'm so satisfied with how my DIY palette is working. The key is getting a truly air tight container like this now-discontinued Snapware. All it needs is a shallow depth into which you can lay something absorbent (like paper towels) and top that with a layer of parchment. The shallow depth allows you to have a low angle of attack with your brush.  You want this when rolling your brush or mixing paint around. The one I bought is deep, but the two-well insert can be removed with one well used as a wet palette and another used to hold the wiping cloth. The deep well is handy for transporting the paint itself.

On sale, it was cheapest of my options

All layers visible (palette, folded paper towel pad, and parchment)

All soaked up; you can see the water beading on the surface

If you don't want to DIY it, there is a $10 wet palette on Amazon right now that couldn't be any worse than what you're painting on. The Army Painter palette is possibly the most widely known.  It comes with a pad, sheets of their "special paper" that looks and feels like parchment, and brush storage.

Note: Since first publishing this, I obtained the Red Grass Games palette and have been loving it. Whatever you choose, get to it! It will change how you paint forever.

Photos

Susan Sontag once wrote, “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” And the pandemic has only heightened the importance of good pictures to show your friends why you can't come out hiking on a Sunday morning.

My main photo rig is a photo tent lined with white polyester and a selection of backdrops that drape down the back in a long curve to remove seams from the finished picture.  In the past, I have built photo tents out of PVC and cotton, or vellum pasted to a rough frame of furring strips.  What really matters is the next part: I point as much direct light as possible at the walls of the tent in the hopes that it will diffuse through and evenly light my miniature from all possible angles.

For the camera, I will use a smartphone camera in a pinch, but I prefer a DLSR with a macro lens.  This combo gives ultra-detailed shots for individual minis. Remove the macro for group shots, and make sure you are lining everyone up in your depth of field. There are packs of lenses available for smartphones too.  They work, and they are a whole lot cheaper than a new DSLR just so you can take pretty pictures of your knick knacks, but you do you!

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Oddments

Stop struggling with a yellow overhead light.  Get a portable or installable full-spectrum lamp or bulb like an Ott Light or LED strip.  If you haven't received your baby book update since Middle School, your grandmother's scrapbooking light is probably up for grabs! They are cheaper now than ever before, so buy one of your own rather than stealing hers. I combine the LED strip pictured below with a Costco-bought Ott Lite that even has wireless charging built in.

Applying technical paints like snow and muck is 10x easier with a sculpting tool.  These also work with green stuff, so get a big pack of them and find just the right tool for those nooks and crannies. Moving around muck is also a good use for those small brushes you can no longer use but cannot bear to throw away.

Paint cups wit ribbed bottoms can be hell on your bristles, so go easy, Bob Ross. The wide bottom on the Citadel pot can help keep it from spilling pink paint onto the carpet of your room.  Do that too much and your partner/landlord might get stabby.

Even if you aren't painting regularly on a tile anymore, a ceramic well palette can help mix larger batches of Contrast or Washes. Cover the palette with saran wrap and it will retain water like a wet palette. 

Militarum Tempestus Start Collecting: Reliquary Squad and Taurox

I bought a Tempestus Scions Start Collecting box from Games Workshop, part of their Adeptus Militarum line, with the intention of painting them in memoriam for my father who passed in 2017. After four years and some tribulation, I completely painted the entire box.

The initial plan for the Scions was a true-to-life Reliquary Guard: I wanted to display them with my father's urn, but it seemed like a little much after ruminating on it for a while. I took several runs at the squad, but my painting was very inconsistent as well. Did I know enought to do them justice? After a move to Washington and the start of the pandemic, I had no more excuses.  I worked a color at a time and taught myself highlighting, wet blending, and how to use a wet palette. I also started managing my paints and color schemes with the Citadel Colour app. I seriously skilled up on these minis. I finished the squad in March of 2020. Or so I thought.

After the highlights and before 'ard Coat for the lenses, I needed to seal the minis with matte spray. So on April 1, 2020, I lined them up and hit them with Testors Dullcote. Except something was wrong. It wasn't Dullcote; it was white primer in that tiny can. Some had it worse than others, but all were at least speckled with the brightest of white dots where perfect highlights had shown through only moments earlier. In my desperation, I tried washing them. I tried brushing the primer away with a toothbrush.  I almost tossed them in the trash can. But I couldn't, after buying them in mourning, throw them away in despair. So they sat, dusty white, for the rest of 2020.

It took a year to pull myself together and get the courage to face them again.  Normally, I paint one color at a time from base to highlights. But I knew that looking at the dusty white splotches would demotivate me. So I first blocked in all the colors and eradicated the evidence of my carelessness. Laying down base colors first allowed me to get most borders clean and crisp and clean up any mistakes almost immediately.  If I happened to stray, I did not need to redo the base, layer, and highlights. This worked so well that I would try it again on the Taurox with great success. Another delight was that, in spite of the minis bearing two complete paint jobs, the detail remains crisp on most surfaces. Praise the Lord of Layers, Duncan Rhodes! To remember the mishap in as good a spirit as possible, I added snow to all the bases. They were reborn after almost going in the trash, and I could not have been happier.

As the first vehicle under my brush since my Techmarine army, the Taurox taught me about the mechanics of painting vehicles. It is a ghastly beast of an impractical APC with serious OSHA concerns (laser cannons with a fire line that shoots across the side doors, 4 tracks instead of wheels, brilliant!). I applied all I learned on the squad to their new ride.  I painted and repainted until I could get that perfect pop from highlighting the deep blue-green tones into a brilliant and sharp white corner.  There are no painting handles for these big boys unless you glue one on, so I also learned to be careful with the corners lest you rub off all your hard work flipping the tank every which way in your hands. And I learned to block in the major color on vehicles including the first layer.  Building up the true and main color of the hull before the rest of the base coats allows you to get those most-prevalent colors out of the way fast, and without too much muss or fuss over stray paint. My understanding of how light plays across a geometric surface also improved. I am finally looking forward to painting my Knights and any vehicles I need for my Adeptus Mechanicus force that is taking shape.

Yes, painting miniatures can sometimes be relaxing, but mistakes like mine bring up the possibility for therapy in the creative process of building and painting these miniatures. I took a terrible time in my life and turned out a touchstone for future me. And I have tangible evidence of my stubbornness in the face of things going awry. I would rather not have had it happen, but I'm glad the salvage operation netted a good-looking squad as well as some soul-searching in high-definition.

And so, without further ado, and with the minis safely primed SEALED this time, here are my repainted Tempestus Scions in all their glory.

Taurox Prime

 

Squad Detail

Citadel Colours Palette 

PAYEE! at the Disco

Note: This post is a part of a series detailing my family's fight with dementia and elder abuse.

Navigating the patchwork of pensions and benefits systems available to my grandfather is a challenge, but it’s necessary to help him live comfortably now that he’s safe. If a relation or friend of yours needs help managing their finances, you may be able to help them with most financial transactions through a Power of Attorney, but the US Social Security Administration does not recognize such documents.  Instead, SSA has a separate process for helping someone administer their benefits by being named as a representative payee. It is fairly straightforward for something that feels like it was designed in 1940, but it can take time and be hard to navigate.  Your experience may be more or less complicated depending on the nature of your relationship and who the payee is, but the process to get started should be the same.

When someone you care for needs help with their benefits, you need to be named by SSA as their representative payee.  You can become a payee for a partner, spouse, child, parent, or close friend, and the only power you have is to help this person administer their Social Security Benefits. This means the money is sent to you, but you are merely an administrator for it. You spend it on behalf of the recipient, and it must be used for their care and upkeep. Everyone with a Social Security Number can pick a designated representative payee by logging on to their Social Security Account at ssa.gov and naming them. This might ease the process should something go wrong that prevents you from administrating your own benefits, but the person you name will still have to go through the verification steps that follow.

The payee appointment process starts with an interview (in-person or over the phone, depending on the current pandemic threat level) with the SSA itself.  Your local office should be able to help you directly. At the appointment, they ask you questions about your eligibility, relationship with the beneficiary, and try to tease out if you are taking advantage of the person you want to represent.  Be honest, and if it comes out during the interview that you may not be the best person to take care of them, you and the SSA rep will know. The SSA rep will ask for documentation (sent via fax or mail, blech) of why this person needs a payee due to their disability or incapacitation.  Afterwards, the rep may solicit more documentation from doctors or care facility staff about your relationship with the person receiving benefits.  They will ensure this person is being taken care of now, and that you, as the payee, are working with skilled providers in the patient’s best interest.  The collection/submittal period for this documentation has a strict deadline of 30 days.  You will need to start all over again with another interview if something goes awry.  In my case, the payee appointment coincided with the beginning of the pandemic. Doctors were slow to respond, and the first attempt expired with no decision, so stay on top of it!  If you have any doubts, reach out to the SSA rep that interviewed you.

After a nerve-wracking 30 days, you should receive paperwork in the mail from the SSA that you have been appointed as as representative payee.  It should also explain how much the benefits are, how they will be paid, and where they will be sent. The booklet that comes with this details your responsibilities, so read it, memorize it, and prepare to follow its guidance. It is also possible that you will receive a letter after appointment but before the payment has been sorted out.  It may say something panic-inducing like, "We have chosen you to be NNN's representative payee. However, we cannot pay you benefits at this time." After calling around and finding some threads after the fact, this letter is nothing to panic about.  It is automatically generated by the system, and it indicates that you, personally, are not receiving benefits, even if your payee will be.  This thread helped a lot to assuage my fears. The benefit information pertaining to the person for which you are responsible will be in the letter about your appointment as a payee.

If your are the payee for a relative or friend (not a spouse, child, or institutional relation), the next step is to create a separate bank account for the payee.  This will make managing the flow of money as easy as possible without mingling your funds with theirs. It also gives you is an account for direct deposit so you don’t need to handle paper checks..  Talk to your bank or credit union. Most will understand what you mean when you say you want to open up a "payee account", and the guidebook on payees includes specific language for titling the account.  Talk with your banker to ensure you have chosen an account type with no fees. Having direct deposit means you can usually get one for free, so shop around, and don’t be afraid to take your business elsewhere if the big banks want to charge you a monthly fee. I was able to set up an account and direct deposit the same day. You will need to call the SSA National Line at (800)772-1213 once you have the routing and account numbers. Once this is set up, another letter with a panic-inducing first sentence may arrive.  It may say, "We cannot pay you NNN's regular monthly benefit at this time..." followed by the fact that they are instead sending them to a financial institution.  This is just to warn you that you will no longer be getting paper checks. At this point, the benefits should be flowing securely and with minimal overhead for you.

Your main paperwork duty is the annual Representative Payee Report detailing that funds were spent in the interests of the person receiving the benefits.  Start keeping receipts in a central place, write expenses down in a log book, make copies, and familiarize yourself with the forms ahead of time.  You don't want to panic at the last minute and have to assemble documentation from scraps or jeopardize your appointment as payee. While I haven't had to do the yearly accounting just yet, I have had to do similar steps for trustee paperwork. I'll be sure to update this once I have gone through the process.

Having the payee designation allows me a lot more peace of mind when interacting with SSA on my grandfather's behalf. It's parallel to a Power of Attorney process, and its procedures are a little arcane. I hope this brought you some clarity when doing it for your own loved ones.