The more complex the mechanism, the more nodes and elements in it that can fail. The automatic umbrella is no exception in this regard. During long-term operation, repeated opening / closing, the product starts to work incorrectly, and sometimes even becomes unusable.
Button breakage, or rather its jamming, is one of the most frequent problems faced by the owners of automatic umbrellas.
At the same time, many believe that a broken umbrella cannot be repaired, so they buy a new one.
In fact, almost any umbrella (unless, of course, it is a cheap one-time copy for 300 rubles) is repairable. Moreover, in order to fix it, you do not need to go to the workshop - most of the problems can be easily eliminated with your own hands.
Before proceeding with the repair of the button, it will not be superfluous to familiarize yourself with the device and the principle of operation of the automatic umbrella.
VIDEO
Attention! If the problem returns over time, you can completely remove the pusher and use the umbrella as a semi-automatic. However, for this, it is necessary to preliminarily weaken the central spring as much as possible (this is done by cutting off a part of the spring) and removing the springs on the beams.
Do-it-yourself machine umbrella repair
During the rainy season, the most relevant accessory is, of course, an umbrella. But everyone knows the eternal problem of even the most expensive umbrellas: they break easily, and even a strong gust of wind can disable them. The biggest nuisance is if the automatic umbrella broke, albeit a simple, but still, mechanism. Knowing the device of the automatic machine's umbrella, the repair is much easier:
The handle itself, with a button mounted in it. Three expandable iron tubes. Lower spoke support, which contains a cord wheel and a thin rail that attaches the support to the handle. The upper support for the spokes, into which a wide pipe is mounted with a screw and a cord is attached to it. Plastic pipe. It is inserted into the top support. In the upper part it has a thickening and a wheel. Cord. With the help of a shuttle, it is attached to the handle, and a button releases it. The weakest point of the umbrella is the knitting needles. If the problem is with them, then you need to take a thin tube three centimeters long, and then straighten the broken knitting needle at the ends, put the tube on them and fasten. Take a metal tube.
If the rivet at the end of the spoke breaks, then it is better to wrap it with soft wire, otherwise the fabric of the umbrella will break. It is very time-consuming to repair the machine's umbrella device, for example, if the tape breaks, then it must be replaced.
We remove the plug that is located at the top, then the fabric, and pull the retaining nail out of the knot. Then we take out the entire assembly and carefully open the tube. Do it carefully, otherwise the spring will pop out, which then cannot be inserted.
We take out the video, change the tape, collect everything in the reverse order. If the rod breaks down, then you need to repair it only after you loosen all the connections and remove them from the hooks.
The repair process is not easy and you need a soldering iron to repair the umbrella device. So, we take tinned tin and make a trough out of it, about 40x12 millimeters in size. It must be installed in place of damage and soldered along its entire length.
A broken latch is repaired as follows: press on the protrusion that blocks the mechanism and slide it towards the handle. We take it out of the tube, straighten it and mount it back.
Often, the product does not allow you to repair the device of the automatic umbrella, since a circuit is needed. But if you managed to get it (and this is not a problem in the information age), then you will succeed, because the process, although long, is not particularly difficult. In general, if you handle the umbrella carefully, you won't have to repair it. And also you can see Repair of a semi-automatic umbrella with your own hands
Shows the step-by-step repair of the automatic umbrella with your own hands. How to repair an automatic umbrella (semi-automatic) with your own hands? The main reason for the breakage of the umbrella ... Video Rating: 4/5
Thanks for the good educational program. I only put rivets and crimps, change the needles, sometimes twist the needles on the crown. And what kind of lace can be used as a "thread" ??
The umbrella opens after applying force to close, but does not fold when the button is pressed. How is the repair done in this case ??
I don’t know how to whom, but thanks for that. If someone does not like the "ideality" of teaching this, then let him either create something similar in the best quality of explanations, or let him stand silently aside. Thanks to him, I figured out how to fix my umbrella. There were jokes - then it would fly out, then it would get stuck there. And the design of my pen is completely different. I looked where I was interested - I did the rest myself. In general, I had a problem - an external metal axis clung to the white button in the handle. The whole whole - had to be finalized - by melting the slot. My umbrella cannot be closed like that - in the open state after pressing the button - this is probably already your wisdom. Mine needs to be pulled to close. In short - for THANKS! Not everything was given, but quite a lot !?
A good umbrella is indispensable during the rainy season, but strong winds or careless handling can damage it. Do not rush to throw away the broken automatic umbrella, it is quite possible to fix it yourself.
- metal tube with a diameter of 6 mm; - tin plate; - finished parts from another umbrella; - soldering iron; - pliers. Instructions: Most often, flute needles break in any umbrella.
To repair them, find a metal tube with a diameter of 6 mm and cut a piece 3 cm long. For this purpose, you can use the antenna from a portable TV or radio.
Straighten the ends of the broken knitting needle, slide on the tubing and squeeze the ends with pliers. If the tubular rivets at the ends of the knitting needles are damaged, insert a small piece of soft stainless wire into the hole and tighten the ends. Not paying attention to this problem, you run the risk of finding damaged umbrella fabric. The design of the automatic umbrella provides for work with a tape, if it breaks, replace it.
To do this, unscrew the top plug, remove the panel, remove the nail-fixer from the top unit. Then remove the entire assembly, place your hand over the open tube and very gently open it. Be careful - there is a powerful spring inside that can fly out.
Take out the roller and replace the tape. Very often, in automatic umbrellas, the rod breaks at the point of their hinge. It is necessary to start repairing the rod only when all connections are loosened and removed from the hooks.
Cut a small 40x12 mm plate from a piece of tinned 0.2-0.3 mm tin and bend it lengthwise, turning it into a trough. If one of the halves of the broken rod is deformed, straighten it.
Tin the ends and install the cover, solder the repair site along the entire length. In children's umbrellas with automatic opening, the lock that holds the mechanism closed sometimes stops working. You can eliminate such a malfunction of the automatic umbrella as follows: press the locking tab and slide it towards the handle.
Pull the bent retainer out of the stem tube and straighten, then reinstall. If the metal is of poor quality, such measures will not help for long, so it is better to replace the retainer with a new one.
Miscellanea. May 29, 2012. Nikolay
It starts to rain, I press the button of the umbrella, it pops up, but the dome does not open. I hold an umbrella with one hand, with the other I open the dome and run to work. The umbrella does not fold completely, then I notice that the cord that opens the dome is dangling, not tied to anything.
I started googling and found a bunch of similar articles on completely different mmm. bad sites. Articles are moronic, like "gavriliad" of 12 chairs.
About repairing anything, from rubber boots to a "gamepad" with the same recommendations: is it worth repairing, and not look for a repair shop and search the internet for repair recommendations (and they have the same nonsense). The creators of such rubbish must understand that their creations are analogous to garbage on the side of roads, broken bottles in forests and along river banks, filthy elevators.
Unfortunately, they make up 90% of the search, but you can identify them by the first words. And now - closer to the body! My umbrella consists of the following parts: - three sliding iron tubes; - the lower spoke support, it has a wheel for the cord and a hook to the handle; - the upper spoke support, the end of the cord is attached to it, the extreme (thick) pipe is inserted into it and fastened a transverse nail; - two springs (thick-short and thin-long); - a plastic tube.
Its upper part is thickened, with a wheel and is inserted into the upper support; - a cord, at one end there is a plastic shuttle that hooks to the handle, and is released with a button. The other end goes through a plastic tube, a wheel in it, through the wheel of the lower support and is attached somewhere in the upper support. Since the end of the cord with a knot popped out of the wheel on the lower support and got stuck in the upper support, we had to disassemble it.
He opened the dome, put it on the table with the dome down and slightly pressing down with the thick pipe, pulled the nail out of the upper support. Hold tight, disassemble slowly, there are long and strong springs. Memorize or write down what was collected and how.
It is important to remember the rotation of the handle relative to the lower support, because the support goes into the handle and is fixed with a button. I untied the knot at the end of the cord (otherwise it would not go into the wheels), using a thin needle and thread, pulled the cord as described above.
I still don't know how to attach the end of the cord, I just found a similar cord and tied it to the old one.Now the assembly is in the reverse order: - check that the wheel and its axle are "recessed" in the thickening of the plastic tube, otherwise the thick iron pipe will not go beyond the wheel axis; - insert the thickened plastic tube into the upper support, pull the cord so that the shuttle is close to the tube ; - put a thick spring on a plastic pipe, then a thin one.
A thin spring must go through a thick one. It is better to do this with an assistant; - now the most difficult thing is to put the pipes on the spring and, compressing it, insert the thick pipe into the upper support. Orient the cutout in the pipe to the wheel, and the latch on the handle to the bracket in the lower support.
Use the fifth hand 🙂 to secure the iron pipe in the upper support with a nail. Exhalation. I did it alone, but after 24:00: (There is a hole in the upper support on top, to get to it you will have to slightly perforate the fabric in the center of the dome.
Find a suitable screw or self-tapping screw and screw into the hole. Bring the end of the cord to the top of the dome to the screw and tie it temporarily.
Now carefully try to close / open the umbrella and select the length of the cord, then tie it up completely and somehow disguise our "collective farm tuning". This is not a general guide, but a particular case. To paraphrase AN Tolstoy, "All serviceable umbrellas are alike, each broken umbrella is broken in its own way."
Shows the step-by-step repair of the automatic umbrella with your own hands. How to repair an automatic umbrella (semi-automatic) with your own hands? The main reason for the breakdown of the automatic umbrella is the use of force to close the umbrella, as in conventional umbrellas. In this case, the thread that opens the umbrella breaks or a fragment of the part to which this thread is tied breaks. after that, the umbrella fires, but does not open. Attention! The nylon thread used in is not suitable for repairing an umbrella. It is too thin and ripped almost immediately. After replacing the thread with a stronger one (the thread from the blinds), the umbrella works safely. Subscribe to the HotSEM channel! Find out what's next!
With the onset of autumn, more and more often, leaving the house, we take an umbrella with us. And if we use a reliable cane umbrella, if it is raining or storm clouds appear on the horizon, then the automatic umbrella is in our purse “just in case”.
And this case comes often: an unexpected rain with a gusty wind - and our compact "magic wand" is broken. Prices for repairing umbrellas are considerable, and the workshop is often located at a decent distance from the house.
Is it possible to repair the automatic umbrella with your own hands? Let's figure it out! If the umbrella is cheap, then it's probably better to buy a new one. After all, a repaired flimsy and low-quality mechanism will not last long - it will break again.
However, if the product is expensive, you can try to do it yourself at home. Grooved knitting needles are the most vulnerable part of the umbrella mechanism. In the old days, they were made of steel; now, economical manufacturers use cheap aluminum and plastic.
A knitting needle broken by the wind can be replaced with a similar part from an old Soviet umbrella (do not throw them away, leave them for spare parts). If you cannot pick up a knitting needle, any metal tube 5-6 millimeters thick will do.
Do-it-yourself repair of an automatic umbrella in this case is simple - straighten the needle from the end with pliers, put a tube on it and squeeze it again. The second common cause of breakage is loose rivets. Now they are made thin, of copper or brass, so they often fall out.
If you do not repair the automatic umbrella with your own hands right away, it is better not to use an umbrella at all - a loose knitting needle will easily tear the fabric. It is quite easy to fix this problem - take a small piece of wire and fasten the loose ends together. The simplest breakage is broken or frayed threads.
Take a steel or regular strong thread or fishing line, restore the broken seam.Everyone can do this do-it-yourself automatic umbrella repair. If you notice traces of rust on the fabric from a poor-quality alloy of the umbrella parts, it doesn't matter, they can be easily removed.
Wipe the rusty stain with lemon juice and run it under cold running water. If the umbrella is heavily soiled, ammonia will help, or rather, its solution (half a glass per liter of water). Sometimes, even on high-quality umbrellas, scuffs appear over time - this is also easy to eliminate.
Do-it-yourself umbrella repair here consists in applying transparent nail polish to the scuffs. After that, the umbrella is dried in a half-closed state - the fabric should not be too stretched. If the automatic mechanism itself has become unusable, you will have to carry the umbrella to the workshop. Even if you are well versed in technology and understand how to fix this breakdown, you still cannot close the spring of the mechanism - this can only be done with a special device that the craftsmen have.
If the handle or the tip of the umbrella is broken, look at your friends for the same, but old umbrella and ask for a spare part, or simply take it to the workshop where a new part will be made for you. or cane umbrellas. Women's umbrellas are capricious and fragile!
The weather is often unpredictable, and small rain can turn into torrential rain with strong gusts of wind. If during such a natural storm your automatic umbrella broke, do not rush to carry it to the workshop or throw it away. Our tips will help you repair it at home. By the way, see if you already have broken umbrellas in your house, the details of which you can use during the repair process.
Diagram of the construction of a standard automatic umbrella
The structure of umbrellas can be very different, but in general, several main parts of the structure can be distinguished. The main elements are a handle with a button, sliding tubes (there are 6 or 8 of them in the device), lower and upper supports for the needles, a plastic pipe. The upper part of the latter is thickened, a wheel is attached to it, which is inserted into the upper spoke support. In turn, short and long springs are attached to the support.
This is interesting: The most common today are semi-automatic umbrellas. They open when you press a button, close - manually. In a fully automatic umbrella, pressing a button both opens and closes the umbrella.
There are enough parts in automatic and semi-automatic umbrellas that could theoretically break. But, as practice shows, there are 5 most common breakdowns. We invite you to learn about the methods of eliminating them.
An antenna from an old TV or radio can be useful for repairing a spoke.
As it turns out in practice, it is the grooved knitting needles that break most often. In order to eliminate the malfunction, take a metal tube with a diameter of 6 mm and cut a small piece 3 cm long from it. The tube can be a spoke from another umbrella, an antenna from a receiver or TV. Straighten the broken knitting needle of your umbrella, put the prepared element on top of it and clamp it with pliers on both sides. Then put on the umbrella cover and try to open and close it several times. If the spoke doesn't fall out, you've done everything right. Feel free to continue using your favorite umbrella.
Useful information: Modern models of automatic umbrellas use from 8 to 16 spokes. The more needles a particular model has, the smoother the dome will look: the fabric will not sag. Also, an umbrella with more needles resists the wind better. Even with strong gusts, it will not bend in the opposite direction.
It also happens that the tips themselves break on the knitting needles. Then the fabric material ceases to hold and the spoke is exposed.This can harm both you and those around you, as the needles are sharp enough. They can scratch the body, rip clothing, etc. You will need stainless steel wire for repairs. Thread it into the knitting needle, roll the other edge in the form of a small sphere. Then stretch the fabric and insert it into the resulting ball. The most important thing is to twist the wire tighter so that after repair the spoke does not jump out in a strong gust of wind.
The design of automatic umbrellas provides for the presence of a special tape, which may break during operation. But this is easy to fix. Unscrew the upper part (umbrella plug), remove the canvas and take out the nail-fixer, which is located in the upper assembly. Then disassemble the entire assembly. To do this, place your hand over the open tube and remove it very carefully. This must be done carefully and carefully, as there is a tight spring inside the assembly, which can rebound and injure you. Then replace the torn tape with a new one, reassemble the assembly and reinstall the retainer.
Quite often, the rod located at the point of the articulated joint fails. It is important to remember that such a part can be repaired only after loosening the connections on the umbrella and removing the hooks - otherwise you may be injured. To do this, cut a small 4 x 1.2 cm plate out of a piece of tinned tin and bend it lengthwise. You should get a trough-shaped mold. Check if it is deformed from the link halves. Straighten it if necessary. Then, tin the ends along the length and fit the overlay. Finally, solder the entire length of the repaired section.
If you cannot fix the retainer, you may need to replace it.
It happens that in modern umbrellas the retainer fails. Because of this, it is not held open. But such a breakdown is easy to fix.
Press down on the locking tab and with a sharp movement of your hand slide it to the side. Then remove the bent retainer, gently straighten it and put it back.
However, if the retainer is made of low-quality metal, then straightening it will help for a short while. Then it's better to just replace it. Find the old umbrella, remove the retainer from it and place it in the new umbrella. Assemble the design and test. If done correctly, the mechanism will work as it should.
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Many people do not want to waste time fixing a broken umbrella and are looking for a replacement. But it is quite difficult to choose a product that will not break after several exits in rainy and windy weather. Yes, and it will not be cheap. Therefore, it will be better to save time and money by renovating your old umbrella. We hope our tips will help you do this.
Here's what to do if your umbrella is broken. The most detailed do-it-yourself umbrella repair master class (video)
Usually, many throw away umbrellas due to minor breakdowns, which are generally easy to fix even for an inexperienced craftsman. Basically, the rods break at the point of their articulation, carried out using the axle. More often this happens with a large thrust at node “A” (Fig. 1), since this thrust in the open umbrella carries the main load, and even a slight lateral pressure on it leads to the breakage of the thrust, as a result of which the compression hook of the power spring is usually lost.
When starting to repair the traction, first of all, you should relieve the stress in the elements of the umbrella frame created by the power spring.For this, the upper end of the umbrella is abutted against some surface, for example, a door, and the power spring is compressed with the folded umbrella fixing sleeve so that all the hooks holding the spring in a compressed state can be freely detached from the rods. When releasing the hooks, the compression of the spring must not be loosened, otherwise other rods may break.
To repair a broken rod, you will have to make a connecting pad. To do this, a 45 × 13 mm plate should be cut out of 0.2 ... 0.3 mm tinned sheet (the width is given in excess, since it is not always possible to symmetrically bend the plate exactly along the longitudinal axis), turn the plate into a "trough" so that the latter was tightly put on the traction being repaired, to give the lining the desired shape (Fig. 2, a).
The broken and whole rods are freed from the fabric, if the first is deformed, it is straightened. The sections of the connecting rod ends, which will be located under the pad, must be tinned with excess. If the axle on the attached (whole) rod has no defects, the rod with the axle is installed in place, as shown in Fig. 2, b, the axle on both sides is tied to the rod by soldering, a connecting plate is installed (Fig. 2, c). Having fixed in the desired position the end of the rod and the pad using a squeezing clamp, the pad is soldered to the rod, without disturbing the axle soldering. The other half of the rod is firmly inserted into the pad (Fig. 2, d), after which the rod is fixed and the pad is soldered along its entire length. The joint is brought into proper form, checking the functionality of the articulated joint.
If the axle on the connecting rod is strongly bent and has any other defect, it is removed, a hole with a diameter of 1.5 mm is drilled in the lining, which coincides with the hole on the repaired rod, a wire is inserted into the hole, which will act as an axle. Further, the same operations for connecting the rods are carried out, which were described above. It remains to take out the wire, make an axis of the desired length out of it and connect it with the thrust axis. So that the axle does not fall out of the rods and does not catch the fabric, it is soldered to the pad on both sides (Fig. 2, e). The fastening of the fabric to the rods is restored. If there is easy access to the soldering point of the traction, it is better not to disconnect the fabric from the frame, but in order to avoid hot drops of tin from getting on the fabric, it is necessary to first put a gasket between the fabric and the soldering point. The breakdown in node B is eliminated in a similar way (see Fig. 1).
There are times when, after repair, umbrellas of this type do not fully fold. One of the reasons for this is the displacement of the lug inserts in the repaired nodes (especially in the A node), usually due to poor-quality crimping by the sidewalls of the rods. To eliminate such a defect, you will have to move the eyelet to the right place with light blows of a small hammer on the part of the eyelet protruding from the traction and again tightly squeeze the insert with the sidewalls of the traction. I draw your attention to the fact that grooves are made on the ear inserts for a more reliable connection with the rods (see Fig. 3, a).
In fact, broken rods are repaired only in the absence of intact rods from some other umbrella that cannot be repaired. It is not difficult to separate the required traction from the umbrella frame. It is enough to cut off the flaring of the axles on a suitable rod from the samokal with a knife and disconnect it from other rods and assemblies. And the axles for the "new" thrust can be easily made of wire (or a stud) of the required diameter, not forgetting to solder the ends of the axle to the sides of the thrust.
In umbrellas with an extended power spring, along with the above breakdowns, the bushing of the power spring often cracks.Note that all the failed bushings that I dealt with could not be repaired, so to replace them I had to use suitable bushings from umbrellas of other designs. The new bushing can be installed both through the upper and lower parts of the umbrella shaft. It is only necessary to determine which pin is easier to knock out: either the pin that secures the handle, or the pin that holds the upper rod attachment point. First of all, of course, you need to free the rods from the broken bushing and remove the last one. The installation of the bushing through the upper part of the rod is carried out in the following sequence: the damping spring is shifted down (see Fig. 1), the pin is knocked out of the upper linkage attachment of the rods, this unit is removed and a new bushing is installed. The assembly of the umbrella, of course, is carried out in the reverse order.
All of the above repairs are performed with the power spring compression hooks removed. At the end of the repair, the presence of these hooks is checked, the missing number is made according to the shape of the existing ones, the sleeve for fixing the umbrella is folded down so that the cavity (slot) of the hook on it is in line with the protrusion of the retainer, hooks are hooked onto the sleeve, squeeze the power spring and hooks are inserted into the traction holes.
Opening and folding the umbrella, they check the correctness of its repair and assembly.
You can repair the mechanism in another way. It is a little simpler and takes less time to repair, but the ears are less durable. In this case, take a small piece of plywood (or a strip) with a thickness of about 5 mm and insert it into the slot of the fixing mechanism between the broken ears. On the remaining part of the lug in the plywood, mark and drill a hole for the axis, insert a stud of the appropriate diameter into the hole, install the plywood on the axis in the slots, weld on the mechanism body from the fragments of the ears or other suitable material or glue the missing parts of the ears to it. Next, from tin (stainless steel, copper, brass), cut out two strips half the width of the ear, bend them with a half-collar. Putting one half-collar on the ear, as shown in fig. 6, the semi-collar is heated with a soldering iron, gradually pressing it into the ear. We also press the second semi-collar into the other ear. It remains to take out the carnation-axle, remove the plywood, process the ears, and then assemble the mechanism. Do not forget to check the welding quality for strength. (For those who have not worked with plastic parts, I advise that this work is done in a well-ventilated area.)
For children's umbrellas with automatic opening, it happens that the hook protrusion at the retainer holding the umbrella in a folded state stops returning to its original position. This is due to the fact that the retainer is made of low-quality metal, and simply bends under load. You can quickly fix this problem. To do this, you have to press the locking lug (Fig. 7), move the lug towards the handle, pull the retainer out of the rod tube, bend the retainer at the bend point, and then insert the retainer into place. True, after a while the retainer will lose its shape again, so it is better to immediately replace it with a new retainer made of high-quality steel. If there is none, it is not difficult to make the retainer yourself from elastic metal.
For those who decide to do repairing umbrellas , I recommend making the devices shown in Fig. 8 and 9. Although they are primitive, they greatly simplify the repair process. So to form the linings (see Fig. 2, a), you will have to make a simple stamp. The die matrix (Fig.8, a) is bent from sheet steel with a thickness of 1.5 mm. In the center of the bottom, a "trough" is formed with a beard or other suitable tool, a depression. The punch (Fig. 8, b), which has a protrusion in the center, is made from a strip of steel with a thickness of 3 ... 4 mm. When forming an overlay, a plate with a size of 45 ... 50 × 13 mm is placed on the matrix so that there is a depression under the center of the plate, a punch is placed on top and hit with a hammer. Everything. The cover is ready, you just have to work on it a little. By the way, the matrix described above is also useful for editing the rods, but the punch will have to be made a new one (Fig. 8, c). The deformed rod is placed in the recess of the matrix, after which it is straightened with a punch.
VIDEO
It is also necessary to make devices for compressing the power spring (Fig. 9). The principle of operation of this device is similar to the principle of operation of a simple screw press. Here, two crossbars "walk" along two guides (Fig. 10), one of which acts as a base, and the other acts as a slider, which can be moved by turning or unscrewing the thumbs on the guides where the M6 thread is cut. Each cross member consists of two halves (Fig. 10, a).
We will tell you a little how to compress a spring using this device. First, on each pin (guide), two halves of the jumper are put on and screwed onto a lamb. The complete assembly of the device is carried out directly on the umbrella. The halves are connected with screws, as a result of which the resulting jumpers clasp the umbrella handle shaft. The fixture is now ready to compress the spring. You just need to spin the lambs. This simplifies the process of removing and installing the spring compression hooks described at the beginning of the text.
A little about the fabric. Broken ends of the rods tend to tear the fabric of the umbrella. Small holes can be sealed with the same cloth using BF-6 glue, which is sold in pharmacies, but it is easier to stick, as my friends do, a transparent self-adhesive film to the damaged area.
Umbrella Is a mechanical device, which is a metal or plastic frame made of spokes on a tubular rod equipped with a handle, on which a synthetic waterproof material is stretched. The umbrella is designed to protect people from sunlight and rainfall.
An umbrella was invented in China 300 centuries ago for protection from the sun. In those days, the umbrella was considered a symbol of power, and only the emperor and those close to him were allowed to use it.
A lot of time has passed since then, and now the umbrella has become a constant companion of any person in everyday life. The airy design of the umbrella makes it foldable and lightweight, but not resistant to strong gusts of wind. Therefore, over time, everyone is faced with a breakdown of the umbrella, after which many simply throw them away.
But in vain, because you can save money and time, since usually the breakdowns of the umbrella are simple and are associated with the loss of a rivet or breakage of one of the spokes. Therefore, you can repair an umbrella with your own hands using a standard tool and improvised materials in half an hour.
The most common failure of an umbrella is a tubular rivet falling out of the articulated connection of the rods and spokes. From mechanical load in the wind, the edges of the rivet are unbent, it falls out and is lost.
If the breakage of the umbrella consists in a tubular rivet falling out of the hinge, and there are no conditions for repair, then it can be repaired with a paper clip.
To do this, it is enough to pass the bent end of the paper clip through the holes of the knitting needle and the rod, then bend the end of the paper clip, as shown in the photo.
If you have pliers with the function of nippers at hand, then you can take a piece of wire from a paper clip, bend it into a loop on one side, insert it into the holes and form a loop on the other side. Thus, the wire will reliably function as a rivet and will not tear the fabric of the umbrella canopy.
This is the most reliable repair method that I have been using lately. The repaired swivel in the umbrella did not have to be repaired.
A copper wire for electrical wiring with a diameter of about 1 mm is used as the material for the rivet. The wire is selected depending on the diameter of the holes in the rod and spoke.
Before making a rivet, you need to pass the wire through the hole in the rod and check that it runs easily. If it's tight, then you need to slightly reduce the diameter using sandpaper.
Next, you need to form the head of the rivet. To do this, the wire is clamped in a vice and with a small hammer blows along the edges, they are riveted, as shown in the photo. If the end of the wire is not flat, then file it with a fine notch.
When repairing an automatic umbrella, to be able to install a rivet, it must be kept in a half-open position, which is prevented by the spring trying to open the dome. In this case, you need to use a rope to tie the movable lower frame of the umbrella to the handle, as shown in the photo.
In the next step, you need to put the spoke into the slot of the rod and insert the prepared wire with the head. Bite off the excess wire with side cutters so that the protruding part of it is about a millimeter.
At the last step, you need to press the created head of the wire to the anvil (any massive metal object will do) and flatten the wire with light blows along the edges until the head is formed. Here is the umbrella hinge and refurbished.
As practice has shown, although the umbrella is used in wet weather, the copper rivet does not oxidize. If desired, it can be coated, for example, with manicure varnish.
Instead of copper wire, zip nails of the required diameter can be successfully used. Nails are made from soft iron and therefore rivet well too.
You can repair the swivel joint of the umbrella frame using a screw with a nut with a diameter of 1-2 mm of a suitable length.
To do this, you need to align the holes of the parts coaxially, thread a screw through them and screw a nut onto it. If the screw is too long, then after screwing in the nut, remove the protruding part using side cutters.
Usually, when a screw is biting, the thread will deform and the screw will not be able to unscrew itself. But for reliability, it is better to rest the screw head on the anvil and rivet its protruding part from the nut with a hammer.
If there is only a screw, and there is no nut, then you need to shorten its threaded part to the desired length and slightly rivet the protruding part.
If at least one rivet has fallen out of the hinge, then most likely others have also weakened. Therefore, in order not to repair the umbrella again in the near future, you need to knock with a hammer, resting on the anvil, all the other rivets.
The second reason for the frequency of breakage of umbrellas is the breakage of fiberglass spokes or lugs on the rods.
In this umbrella, the end of the needle tip broke off at the passage of the hole for attaching the fabric of the dome. Most likely from the impact of the umbrella on a hard surface.
The entire tip is shown on the left in the photo, and a broken one on the right. If you have a new spoke or tip, the easiest way is to replace it. But there was no spare spoke available and therefore had to be repaired.
For repairs, a hole with a diameter of about 1 mm was drilled in the tip and with a file sharpened sharp edges in the place of its breakage. To prevent chafing of the thread at the points of exit from the hole, it is necessary to chamfer with a larger diameter drill or a knife blade.
Then, using a sewing needle and nylon thread, the umbrella dome was sewn to the knitting needle.The umbrella is now self-repaired and looks just like it did before.
As a rule, the knitting needles and rods in the umbrellas are made of metal, but recently umbrellas with plastic rods and fiberglass knitting needles have begun to appear.
Just such an umbrella got into the repair, in which one of the spokes broke off at the place where it entered the hinge rocker. The remainder of the spoke remained inside the hinge.
In the rocker, the spoke is fixed with the help of its bent edges. To remove the remainder of the spoke, bend the petals slightly with a thin blade of a flat screwdriver to the sides.
The broken end of the spoke fluffed up a little, so before fixing it in the rocker, it was smeared with Moment quickly drying waterproof glue.
After pressing the knitting needle with the petals in the rocker, the umbrella began to look like new. The same technology is used for repairs in the event of a broken spoke at the tip.
After the repair, the spoke became a little shorter, but visually, when the umbrella dome was open, it was invisible.
If the fiberglass spoke breaks in the middle, then you can restore its integrity using a piece of thin-walled metal tube taken from the telescopic antenna of an old radio receiver. The broken ends of the spoke are greased with glue and inserted into the tube so that the joint is in the middle of the tube.
If the eyelet in the pull rod breaks off, it seems that it is impossible to repair the umbrella without replacing the entire rod. But this is not the case. Using a metal knitting needle from an old umbrella, you can successfully restore the eyelet.
The photo on the left shows a working articulated joint, and on the right with a broken eyelet at the rod.
For repairs, you need to take a metal knitting needle about ten centimeters long with a hole at the end from an old umbrella and tin it along the entire length with solder using an electric soldering iron.
Next, you need to remove the rivet from the rod and cover the inner surface of the groove of the rod with solder, as shown in the photo. When working with a soldering iron, it is necessary to exclude the contact of the heated parts and its tip with the fabric of the umbrella dome, since the synthetic material may melt.
In the next step, you need to place a spoke in the groove of the rod and warm it up with a soldering iron along its entire length until the solder melts both on the spoke and in the groove of the rod. In this case, one must not forget and correctly orient the hole on the spoke. This technology can be used to successfully repair broken rods in the middle.
After installing rivets using one of the technologies described above, the repair of the umbrella can be considered complete.
Rarely, but it happens that the decorative cap, installed on the top of the umbrella dome, breaks off or twists off and is lost.
A cap that has broken off from the threaded part, if present, can be easily repaired, restoring its integrity.
To do this, you need to drill a hole in the center of the threaded part of the cap remaining in the umbrella reed, with a diameter equal to the inner diameter of the thread of the self-tapping screw.
In the center of the cap, you also need to drill a hole with a diameter equal to the external thread of the self-tapping screw. Pass a self-tapping screw through the cap and lubricate it so that it does not unscrew with any waterproof glue and screw it into an umbrella.
The photo shows an assembled umbrella, repaired by hand using the technology described above. The fabric of the dome is now securely fixed and water will not enter the frame parts.
If the cap is unscrewed and lost, then you can restore it using a self-tapping screw with a large press washer.
To do this, you need to make a cork from wood. A shortened furniture dowel may fit in diameter, as shown in the photo.
Further, the wooden cork is flush driven into the hole in which the umbrella head was previously screwed in.
In the next step, a hole is drilled in the center of the plug with a diameter equal to the inner diameter of the self-tapping screw.
It remains only to lubricate the thread of the self-tapping screw with waterproof glue and screw it into the cork. As you can see, it turned out beautifully.
If a self-tapping screw with a wide head is not available, then you can cut a round washer from a sheet of plastic of a suitable color and fix it on the dome.The washer can be made from any cork from a plastic bottle by removing the threaded part.
Video (click to play).
Repair of automatic umbrellas is not considered in the article, since it is very laborious and a home craftsman without repair experience is beyond his powers. It is necessary to completely disconnect the dome material from the metal structure, remove the upper clip, reach the roller and replace the tape. When assembling, a special device is required to compress a rather powerful spring. Therefore, if the opening mechanism in the automatic umbrella is out of order, it is better to go to a workshop or buy a new umbrella, leaving the broken one for spare parts.
