It is something I never gave much thought to until yesterday.
I have been mixing 2 part epoxy for years. Memories of my father squirting together 2 part epoxy at the kitchen table on a piece of cardboard stick out quite vividly. Although, looking back now he probably should have been doing this in the garage or else where. But I digress.
It never occurred to me that this is one of those things that fathers, especially of little boys must learn and must learn fast. The 2 part epoxy has always sat in my tool chest although it is used sparingly. As the boy scouts taught me “Always be prepared”. My son has a Little Tikes T-ball set. While he has not quite grasped the concept of hitting a ball off of it. He enjoys carrying it around the yard and garden with his baseball bat. The stand for the ball has taken some abuse. Admittedly I am at fault for 90 percent of that abuse though. He has a remote controlled Power Wheels jeep which I accidentally drove him over it with. As well as he put it behind me on a seat and I plopped my fat butt down on it (that was not pleasant) . As the wife yelled at me for breaking his toys it occurred to me, much as it had to my father 30+ years ago “I can epoxy it”.
So I set out into the shop. Used my knife to cut off a piece of cardboard from a box, squeezed a little bit of part A and a little bit of part B together and mixed it up. I put it back together with the epoxy only visible from the bottom which no one would notice, smiled at repairing something for my son and went about my day.
Later that night I went back out to the shop and picked it up. The epoxy had hardened and from the top of it you could only see a small crack that did not effect much. Excitedly I went to take it back out to the yard so he could have it back to run around with. As I got to the door heading outside, I fell. BOOM right on top of it. Cracked again. But the spot I epoxied held up.
I went on amazon and looked up the toy I have been repairing. It is really not all that expensive and even less so if I buy it used from a place like Facebook market place. Should I epoxy it again? Probably not. Will I epoxy it again? Probably so. Sometimes as a father you just want to be able to show you can fix these things and pass the knowledge down to the children. Granted he is still too young to comprehend what I am doing to fix it. But I would like to think he is picking up on it slightly.