Kitchen Garden Forum

You're such a cheerful lot, cheerful and generally positive so I feel a humbug raising issues.

I have a number of issues about the way underhanded marketing is dealt out to hobby-ists of all kinds, I'll just mention this one as a starter.

A stainless steel pouring bucket with an inner sieve, handle for carrying and clamps around the lid to hold it down, it's for comfrey juice making and a nice idea for small gardens or gardens with mostly pots.

This stainless steel bucket is held together with steel fixings so it lasts about a season before things start falling apart. It was a gift by a well meaning friend and I do use it around the pots outside our conservatory, very useful but now failing and when the lid clips go it'll be useless and though I can fix it (In due-course) many might struggle.

Quite frankly, it's a piece of poo because of the cost of a few stainless fixings.

The best way to make comfrey juice is with a netting sack and a bucket, a posh stainless steel looks nice but it still stinks. But only for a year.

Shame on them.

How about a chimney cowl that lasted less than 12 months. Response : Not suitable for smokeless fuel. Mentioned on website : no chance. Changed description since my complaint : no chance.

Dear Richard,
if you can borrow or have a pop riveter those joints can be drilled out and replaced fairly easily and the bonus is that the pop rivets are aluminium and will last for a long time. The general cost for one of these and some rivets to get you started is under £20 and you will be surprised just how many jobs you can find to use it on. You will need to get some drill bits to match the diameter of the rivets as well.
Regards Sally Wright.

Thanks for that advise Sally, the clips that hold the lid on are fixed with what appears to be just what you're describing. An aluminium-alloy pop-rivet.

Aluminium and stainless steel are well known to react with each other, should not have been used. Better to replace with small brass bolts and nuts.

I was wondering about that, and we live on the coast with the sea on three sides, we always have salt on the windows after windy days.

To be honest, cheap stainless steel doesn't last long here either.

I have found some 4mm SS screws and nuts, I'll retire that poorly comfrey bucket until a rainy day arrives for repairs.

In the meantime I'm making comfrey in 100 gallon lots plus whatever a dustbin holds. One is stewing whilst the other is on-use, in the meantime my next crop is growing and so-on. It's an ongoing process and another example of the fantastic advise I got from this forum.