Shredding Advice

[scheherazade_79]

Does anyone in here know anything about shredders?

Picture this - I'm in my room waiting for some fake tan to dry, listening to really camp music (Steps -"It's the Way You Make Me Feel"), shredding old bank statements and phone bills.

After a while of hand-feeding them into the machine, I think "Zade, why are you wasting time putting pieces of paper in one by one, when you could get a whole great wad of them and push them in the direction of the metal teeth?"

Now picture this - the shredder starts making this horrible noise... It's so bad that the dog sprints away from the room as quickly as he can, and it takes all my control not to follow him.

So I panic and hit the reverse button. The bundle of papers shoots out of the top, half-shredded, and showers confetti over me. Despite being free of paper, the noise from the shredder is getting worse and worse.

So I turn it off. It turns out that there are lots of pieces of half-shredded paper lodged in the teeth, so I turn it off at the socket and start pulling them out with a pair of tweezers. It takes me about ten minutes. Then I turn the shredder on, stick a piece of paper into it... and it chews up about 3cm, before the noise from hell starts again.

Guys... I need to fix this. It's my mum's shredder, and I'm going to have hell if it's permanently broken. I buggered up her stereo / alarm once when one of the buttons slipped inside it, and telling her about that was probably a lot harder than it would be to tell her I'm gay.

I need a shredding expert - urgently. I've turned it off in the hope that after a while it might have this miraculous recovery and start working again. I have my doubts, though

HELP!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The little shreader I have will groan and moan if I try to shove too many sheets into at one time. Five pages is about the max. And they all kinda make a great deal of noise the longer they run.

Anything else may depend on how old it is and how often it is used.

 

[scheherazade_79]

The little shreader I have will groan and moan if I try to shove too many sheets into at one time. Five pages is about the max. And they all kinda make a great deal of noise the longer they run.

Anything else may depend on how old it is and how often it is used.

It's not so much moaning and groaning as screaming blue murder - when it only has one sheet to deal wtih.

It's had a good thirty minutes to recover, so I'm going to try again.

Wish me luck...

 

[scheherazade_79]

Fuck

 

[scheherazade_79]

And it's not just the noise - it refuses to shred when it gets about 2-3cm into the piece of paper. It just stops and screams at me

 

[R. Richard]

If you can take the cover off, you might be able to see where some widget has slipped off its track due to the wad of paper you put in. If may be that you can figure out haw to put the widget back on track.

If you can't find an easy fix, try calling the local store that carries shredders and find out if someone with experience has advice.

 

[scheherazade_79]

If you can take the cover off, you might be able to see where some widget has slipped off its track due to the wad of paper you put in. If may be that you can figure out haw to put the widget back on track.

If you can't find an easy fix, try calling the local store that carries shredders and find out if someone with experience has advice.

What's a widget?

 

[R. Richard]

The little thingie in the corner that seems to have run off its track, thats a widget.

 

[Weird Harold]

After a while of hand-feeding them into the machine, I think "Zade, why are you wasting time putting pieces of paper in one by one, when you could get a whole great wad of them and push them in the direction of the metal teeth?"
...
So I turn it off. It turns out that there are lots of pieces of half-shredded paper lodged in the teeth, so I turn it off at the socket and start pulling them out with a pair of tweezers. It takes me about ten minutes. Then I turn the shredder on, stick a piece of paper into it... and it chews up about 3cm, before the noise from hell starts again.

Shredders are rate by the number of pages they can shred at one time and whether they cut the paper into strips or pieces. It sounds like you exceeded the "sheets" rating of he shredder (most household shredders are five-sheet or seven-sheet shredders.)

It's possible that the continued noise and jamming is from "confetti" that was forced inside the housing where you can't reach it with the tweezers and you just might be able to open the case up and clean them out to solve the problem.

However, it sounds more like you've damaged the gear-box that drives the cutting head or bent a cutter. Your best solution in that case is to run down to OfficeMax, Office Depot or Wal-Mart to buy a replacement before your mom gets home.

I just recently had to replace my old shredder -- a cheap five sheet single cut model -- because of symptoms very similar to yours.

I replaced it with a $50 twleve-sheet crosscut shredder from Walmart -- a Champion WQ120D -- that has a credit card slot and a separate CD cutter mechanism. Walmart did have several lesser shredders, including a $35, five-sheet cross-cut, version of mine without the credit card slot and CD cutter.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I wish someone would follow you around with a camera.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I wish someone would follow you around with a camera.

She does have the most amusing problems, doesn't she?

 

[Liar]

Buy a goat. End of excess paper problem.

Although, beginning of excess goat problem.

 

[R. Richard]

However, it sounds more like you've damaged the gear-box that drives the cutting head or bent a cutter. Your best solution in that case is to run down to OfficeMax, Office Depot or Wal-Mart to buy a replacement before your mom gets home.

In some cases, feeding too much paper at any one time will cause the gears to disengage. This is what I was referring to as a widget. It might be possible to just refit the gears. This last is [alas!] very unlikely.

 

[Weird Harold]

In some cases, feeding too much paper at any one time will cause the gears to disengage. This is what I was referring to as a widget. It might be possible to just refit the gears. This last is [alas!] very unlikely.

My old shredder had very substantial supports for the plastic gear train. I don't think it had enough power to dislodge the gears, although it did have enough power to break one of the teeth off the gears.

From the description of symptoms, this case sounds more like a bent cutting wheel or two -- which means professional repair or replacement.

 

[Weird Harold]

Buy a goat. End of excess paper problem.

Although, beginning of excess goat problem.

The end of the shredding problem, but the "paper problem" would just get odiferous.

 

[matriarch]

Give in.
Just buy her a new one.
And don't ever touch it again.

I have a small hand-cranked one, I can only put in a couple of pages at a time, it takes a while, but it certainly passes the time.

 

[E's Toy]

Burn them

 

[kendo1]

The goats?

Ken