Fix It: A "Quick" Repair with Heavy-Duty Double Sided Tape

When I fixed the broken vanity mirror hinge , Sweetie sweetly reminded me that I'd forgotten / never gotten around to fix the magnetic latch plate that had fallen off,... last week

(Truthfully it was more like 2007, before the birth of our youngest child, but that's immaterial to this tale isn't it?)

The latch is one of those spring loaded plunger things with a magnet tip. It holds in closed position magnetically to a metal plate mounted on the back of the door. The cabinet opens by pressing the door in in and letting go. Our problem was that the magnetic plate fell off.

It had originally been held in place by a foam-ish double sided tape. I guess the magnet slowly won the tug of war and eventually kept the plate in its death grip, leaving only crud residue on the door.

Crudicus-back-door-icus

With the plate retaining the lion's share of the crud residue, I saved a trip out to the garage for mineral spirits, WD-40, or whatever solvent could clean it off. I deftly raided the very cabinet I was working on and absconded with some of Sweetie's nail polish remover. Shhhhhhhhh...

My blade and my spoils of piracy.

After some scraping and scrubbing with a Q-tip and an X-Acto knife (and a significant, accidental spill of nail polish remover, .... seriously, Shhhhhhhhhh!!!),

I was left with the fresh gleaming latch plate. It's nice that there was a nice screw mounting hole, just to tease me. It's my personal belief that running a screw through a 1/8" sheet of press board into a bevel-edge, glass mirror would be a technique that would precede the necessity of purchasing a new vanity. It's a technique I call unwise. No screw.

It gleams like gold!

Nor will I use more cheap, failing foam tape, for our cheap, failing vanity. My friends, I am the proud curator of one of the finest collections of rolled stickiness on this side of the planet. ECHOtape had sent me an assortment to play with. I would use their

Ultra Bond Indoor / Outdoor Double Sided Tape.

Over kill? Heck yeah!!! ...and loving it.

"Extreme Stick & Weather Resistant. Holds up to .5 lbs per sq inch, as strong as screws and fasteners. Ideal for bonding metal, plastic, glass and wood"

- ECHOtape

I could tell this tape exhibited stick-ta-tude of Herculean levels as soon as I peeled it from the roll and stuck it to the latch plate. I trimmed the excess with an X-Acto as before peeling the secondary backing off.

I could have been a surgeon, right?

Here's the patented AZ DIY Guy tip! I added some paper towels in between the magnet and the latch plate when I connected the two lovers with their ever attracting embrace. I wanted to reduce the strength of their bond a little as I peeled the backing...

... and closed the door, allowing the tape to grab the back of the mirror.

Note: Obviously,AZ DIY Guy does not do manicures.

I need not have bothered. The aggressive tape grabbed hard. Immediately. Permanently.

A little low, but it's not noticeable, and it's NOT coming off again.

It's on there tight. It's one of those things I just know by wiggling it. It's tight. Yep, I think I'm going to sell my framing nailer and tape my next construction projects together.

There you have it, a super quick fix. I'm challenge you to try to beat my time. There's no way you can do it any faster than I did (less than 8 years from broken to fixed!!!).