But [Matthias Wandel] may be on to something. Here he’s using nichrome wire to reinforce the broken plastic part. The repair process is demonstrated in full in the video after the break.

There’s everything from a table of design requirements to quick but thorough explanations of nichrome wire and basic electronic theory. And then there’s the material consideration.

When a length of copper or nichrome is heated, it lengthens due to thermal expansion. The wire is suspended between two posts and heated by a variac. A small weighted hook is placed in the middle of ...