It's alive!!!! (But for how long?)

Well, it sort of works. It's a bit of a process, getting it closed, but it does close, and it does hold itself open. In short, my laptop now works in much the way a laptop is intended to work. Hooray for me!

I'm sure you've seen the hinges before, but here they are again, broken as can be.



And here are the hinges I bought to replace those broken old hinges. I know, they're not the same size at all. How on Earth is this going to work?



With JB Weld of course!

The first step is attaching the hinge plates to the bottom of the laptop. The hinge manufacturer actually intends that this part of the hinge will be attached to the lid of whatever it is you're hinging, but in this case it made more sense to do it the other way. I didn't want to be throwing JB Weld around on the screen itself to get these things to stick.
And of course the real first step was cleaning up the old hinge area, using a steel file to roughen up the surfaces of the hinge plates and the laptop bottom (sort of a giddy thrill, filing down your laptop...), but I didn't take pictures of that.



I let that bit dry most of the day, and then in the evening I attached the rotating screw jobbers (otherwise known as thingamajigs) to the lid and let that set up overnight. So this morning, I was left with this. Of course all night the lid had been supported by a bottle of wine and a Yankee Candle. But in the morning I removed those, and voila! It holds itself up!



And check it out! The lid closes!



Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! Suck it, Service Net!



Of course, this may only last another month, if that, and it won't fit in its little carrying case any more. Sniff. But what other option was there? I mean apart from buying a new one... and if the only other option is to buy a new one, why wouldn't you mess with the old one? Worse comes to worst, I'll.... have to buy a new one. Oh yeah.

But for now I have a normal computer. I can even put it on my lap. It's great!