Ghetto Rig
Word for your day…
If there is one thing that I am constantly looking for, it is a guitar pick.
9 times out of 10 I end up making do with something.
This guy has made them out of gift cards, credit cards, hotel room keys, etc. Other materials are cardboard, “Handi Snacks” stick, CD, Toshiba laptop, and plastic packaging.
What is something that you have ghetto rigged or MacGyvered when in a pinch?
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
Our vacuum, I actually blogged about it today. I’ve been taping it together for the last three months, but now I’m on the prowl for a new one!
Don’t have an answer for your question, but just had to give your props for using the word MacGyvered!
I’ve done the ol’ “quarter as a guitar pick” when needed. It actually makes a cool sound.
Other things include my guitar case which used to be held together with duct tape. Also, I put a screw into the side of my dresser at home, and now I can hang my belts on it.
one of our weedeater’s parts always comes off, so i love my friend electrical tape.
and a week or two on wednesday night we did “puppet imitations” and our youth room doesn’t have working lapel mics. i found some carpet wire cover tape and attached a wireless handheld to my shirt so that i could use both hands.
and i’ve prevented myself from having to makeshift a pick by always keeping a couple in my case and my wallet. but i love the handisnacks, wendy’s, and starbucks picks
i’ve been using zip ties for everything of late. bought a vacuum cleaner that was missing screws – zip tie it. lawnmower lost screws – zip tie it. hung a mounted map of south america in my unfinished basement office – yup zip ties baby.
I ghetto rigged my tailpipe up with a two foot piece of wire.
I get better radio reception and four years later my masterpiece still stands.
I win.
Sorry sarah, I think I might win….
My poor Jetta has some issues. One day a friend was trying to fix whatevertheheckwaswrongwithit and we found a cracked hose. He pulled out the hose, but then no one had a replacement in stock…so we used a…. PINK BALLOON! Yep, we used a pink balloon somewhere in my engine so the car would still run. I finally took it to a mechanic, and he cracked up when he opened the hood… but it worked!
Also, while in South Africa, our van ran out of gas, and someone came to tow us home….using a 6 foot long piece of rope!
Back in the day I was a poor single mom. My Olds Delta 88 with a 454 had a hole in the exhaust pipe so I cut the ends off a couple pop cans and wrapped them around the pipe securing them with….duct tape.
Duct Tape Guitar Strap!
who hasn’t used a business card to get some food out of their grill?
my son made me a wallet/card case out of duct tape that I used for some time…
duct taped a microphone to a music stand. thats how we roll in south carolina!
in college i fixed a broken tray inside my dvd player with duct tape. left a little sticking out the sides for good looks.
i also once fixed a busted derailleur on a mountain bike with dict tape on a bike trip. i felt manly.
Last week I used an Albertsons Card to break into a door that was locked. I was actually surprised myself that it worked
When a wallet wore into the ground finally held its last dollar and fell apart, I ghetto-rigged and fashioned red duct tape into a new wallet.
I ended up using it for several months because it looked cool and was a great icebreaker with people.
Dale Best
http://dalebest.blogspot.com
I grew up playing hockey, one time in high school I forgot one of my shin guards. Stuffed the outer sock with some neatly folded extra hockey socks that I had in my bag and played the game! “MacGyvering” was the term we always used for this sort of thing.
I have several guitar picks like those. They had belonged to my uncle, he made them out of big gulp cups and old credit cards mostly.
If I’m at work and I get something wedged between my teeth (Not just on my teeth but really wedged in tight) I will pull out a piece of my hair and double it up and use it as dental floss.
Works great!!
The only thing I had in my pocket was a condom wrapper! It had to be done.
I used one of those plastic square bread bag ties as a pick one time. It sucked. I highly discourage the use of it if possible.
Oh, I’ve got one. Back in his younger years and unbeknownst to me, my creative husband used a LAWN MOWER BLADE to keep the muffler from rattling (it was loose in the bracket, so he just jimmied it between the muffler and the bracket and called the problem solved.) Sometime later, I pulled into a muffler shop to have it repaired because I knew there had been an issue. I almost died as I watched the car hoisted up off the ground. Yeah. The muffler guy walks over and heaves and pries out the lawn blade.
I made the most of it! I went home and told my husband there had been a horrendous wreck behind me on the interstate. It appeared that a lawn mower blade had somehow been thrown up off the road and hit a car, blowing the car’s tire and making the driver swerve and flip into another car. I went on about how terrible the wreck was and how upsetting it was to watch. I had gone back and helped with the victims while we waited on the ambulance. He believed me.
Then I handed him the lawnmower blade that the Meinke man had found ….while I smirked!
So, that’s my rigged up story!
capo..skateboard..plate & silverware.. a bed..
Black People Like to Ghetto Rig everything… Duck tape is the ghetto rigger of choice. “Duck Tape” is a new word for the day… yes “Duck” Like Quack Quack!
Nice Blog, I just ran across it!
I was at my uncle’s house and my contact fell out & I didn’t have a case w/ me, so I took two water glasses
and filled them up w/ cold water & plunked my contacts into them! does that count as a ghetto rig?
Abbracadabbra – I can turn ANYTHING into a poop absorbing baby wipe.
I’ve definitely cut up an old gift card in my wallet. And, I’ve used a quarter…not a good one, and broke a string in the process, but when you need to hammer out some rhythm, you do whatz you gotz to do.
I’ve seen my guitarists use a milk jug tab or a bread bag plastic thingy (not a tie, the hard plastic thing). I’m not good at this but my husband – an engineer – does it all the time….makes life interesting.
I’m not so good at ghetto rigging myself, but during my years as a missionary in Mexico, I’ve seen some amazing feats of MacGyvering. Mexicans are so awesome! They can fix a bus motor with a piece of string and repair a damaged fuse box with a paperclip. My goal is to be Mexican someday.
At my youthgroup’s winter conference, we had some, uh, ‘technical difficulties,’ and ended up with an awesome ghetto-fabulous video setup: Projectors duct-taped to music stands that were duct-taped to tables.