rubber buttons

[Susan Kline]

At 10:10 AM 10/10/1999 -0500, Ron wrote:

>It's immensely more satisfying to fish the sucker out and look it in the eye
>than to admit defeat and try to modify the next closest replacement to
>nearly work. Then again, you might not find it, so have replacement
>alternatives with you, just in case, when you return.

Whichever route you take, the glue trick will get the sucker in to stay. 
My version is: dry fit to see it it's loose or tight or in between. If it's 
loose, make a strip of business card to line the hole, then smear a little 
white glue to the outside edge and press into the hole. If it's tight, you 
may need a little scraping of the hole. Once it's right, take a little white 
glue on a small screwdriver, and smear it around the inside of the hole. 
(Doesn't take much.) Then carefully place a drop of CA glue on the side 
and bottom of the rubber button, trying not to let it touch the visible 
area, since it dries shiny. You then have a very short time to insert 
the button into the hole, but it will stay there! As someone else who 
tried the glue combination on rubber buttons wrote me, "It stuck like 
a hot damn."

If you use too much glue, it will squeeze out of the hole when you put in the 
button, and you must clean it up very carefully. It will smear a finish quite 
nicely, and is hard to remove. 

Susan