Boys and Girls,

 

Yazall know I like to spin a yarn

so let me tell you about the chilling tale of my Samsung fridge… in particular, its ice maker.

 

We have a fridge that automatically makes ice cubes, 

correction ice half-moons,

While it is a handy feature, we don’t use it often enough and though it’s supposed to self-defrost, I have been informed that if the ice is  not used regularly, the defrost process may not be as efficient as the brochures claim and the ice bucket may freeze in place, or at least hard to remove.

It’s not that I need to take out the ice bucket as there is a built-in dispenser,

 

serving up either crushed or cubed half-mooned ice on demand. 

Unfortunately, if it is not frequently used, the cubes half-moons tend to weld together into a planet, thereby heralding the inefficiency/failure of the ice dispenser… requiring “human terrestrial” intervention, which is in the form of removing the ice dispenser and exploding the newly formed rogue planet.

Sounds good on paper, however, unless you’re into hockey, most mere mortals underestimate the power of ice… fortunately, I don’t,

It was time to manually defrost around the ice maker to extricate it.  I have a steamer with a longish nozzle that on first impressions seemed ideal to melt the resistance,

The problem was that the nozzle couldn’t get into all the crevices due to the steamer body and that same body obstructed the view to park/aim it in the appropriate cervices,

prolonging the defrosting ordeal. Also holding the steamer in that position for several minutes while the steam penetrated that extra foot… now you know why I hate imperial… 304.8mm is nowhere as distant… gets somewhat tiresome especially with a dodgy left arm.
Even after the bucket was extricated, the excessive ice build up had (should) be removed from around the internal freezing mechanism,

 

Gotta be an easier way,

Down to the workshop and looked at my hoses/tubings stock,

and using my dic.... dexterous rabbi impersonation of a snip and tuck, a new appendage was borne,

I wasn’t going to list my tubing dimensions as it depends on the size of the steamer’s nozzle, however, if anyone is to undertake this exercise and need a ball park figure… the black hose is 12mm OD with a 9mm ID, and surprise, surprise the clear hose is 9mm OD and 6mm ID.  

What I had in stock just fit together snugly and comfortably slipped over the steamer's nozzle and provided sufficient resistance when I tried to take it off.

Word of warning… that grey smoke coming out of the hose is not be stuck up your nose as it is 100C° steam and even holding onto the hose with bare fingers can get a tad warm. 

Then it’s a simple matter of resting it on a shelf,

press the ON lever with one hand (or fasten down) and manoeuvre the flexible hose into the nooks and crannies,

 

Why am I so fixated with all this stuffing around and not get NASA to order me a new fridge??? This model, and apparently the only model in the entire universe, has a built in Soda Stream,

for on demand bubbly,

which nearly, repeat nearly, replaces a cask-o-vino.  Unfortunately, the inclusion of Soda Streams into their fridges has been discontinued... another long story.