We were working on building the fence for the vegetable gardens yesterday when The Duke needed some more of the long screws that he was using.  This necessitated a trip to Bunnings which is about a 50km round trip.  It is not a trip we make every week so we try to combine more than one reason to make it worthwhile.  As well as buying the screws, we needed fuel for the ute, bought more salmon at the fish shop and took the 2 empty CO2 canisters from the Soda Stream to be replaced.

We do not use the Soda Stream every week so the canisters last quite a while.  I took them to KMart and the attendant at the service desk stated that my canisters were 40 litre ones (enough to carbonate 40 litres of drink) but that they were no longer available and they had 60 litre replacements.  She also assured me that they fitted all models except the first one.  I accepted this and handed over my $38 in exchange for 2 new 60 litre canisters of CO2.

I arrived home and checked them, and of course, I discovered that they did not fit.  I rang KMart and said I would be returning them since the 40 litre ones were not available.  I then rang Coles and Harvey Norman to check the validity of the the story and it seemed that I was definitely out of luck.  The girl at Harvey Norman flippantly said, “Well its obviously over 10 years old, you’ll just have to buy a new one”.  I did not want to buy a new Soda Stream as the one I have is in perfect condition and works well.

So, I was up for the challenge to modify the device to accept the larger canister.  The connections are identical as the staff in KMart had advised that the 2 sizes were interchangeable.  The problem was the size of the opening that the base of the canister fits through.  The Duke and I decided that we had nothing to lose by attempting the modification as we could no longer use our Soda Stream as it was.

The equipment:  A jigsaw, wire cutters, Stanley knife and sandpaper.

The jigsaw was perfect to enlarge the opening, however, on one side there was not enough room to manouvre the saw.  We use the wire cutters to cut small notches to weaken the edge of the plastic then expanded the diameter of the opening using the Stanley knife and finally smoothed the rough edges with the sandpaper.

We were too busy being creative to take any photos of the actual process but here is the end result with the canister in place.

It is impossible to see our handiwork with the back cover replaced.  I even made a bottle of soda water to test it out and celebrate our success.

What have you refashioned or modified lately?  Does the expectation that you will buy a new item irritate you?