Possibly not in keeping with the spirit of the QOTW
But I'm an utter spack at anything electromechanical.

I have found, however, that punching your tv in the right spot will restore the picture. And if your photocopier is playing up then standing over it with a hammer does seem to make it behave. However, headbutting a monitor is not recommended.

I invented a thingie to stick drawing pins in the ceiling. Does that count?
(Big D, Sun 23 Aug 2009, 16:32, 3 replies)

TV hitting
"I have found, however, that punching your tv in the right spot will restore the picture."

Whe I worked at our local railway station, the train times were displayed on a bank of large CRT monitors quite high up on a wall. Occasionally one would go out of synch and the times would randomly scroll up or down making it unreadable.

We kept an old walking stick that had been handed into lost property and never reclaimed for the sole purpose of whacking the monitor to make it work again. It was easy to see where to hit it, as there was a large round mark on the side of the case.
( Amos E Wolfe makes vinyl signs and things like that, Sun 23 Aug 2009, 20:43, closed)

There is a technical term for this:
Percussive maintenance.
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Mon 24 Aug 2009, 9:52, closed)

A well known fitters trick
Anyone who works in a workplace that employs a fitter will be familiar with the first tool they pull out of their toolbox. 99% of the time it will be a small hammer that is smacked against a seemingly random point of the machine that has bust, with virtually a 100% success rate. However, try it yourself and nothing will happen. It apparently takes years of studying to know exactly where to twat it depending on what the fault is.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 20:59, closed)