This article summarises tried and tested online resources, useful for Share & Repair projects.  It also includes a recording of an online session featuring contributions from Zero Waste Scotland, The Restart Project and Repair What You Wear.

Repair skills & techniques

  • Restarters Wiki – A great starting point for those with a curiosity for repair.  Managed by a community with experience and skills in mending small electrical appliances and gadgets to share with those who are starting out, or whose own knowledge lies in different areas.
  • Restart’s skillshare sessions on Youtube – recording of skill share sessions focusing on small electricals/electronics.
  • Sharepair Guidance Simple step-by-step guides for diagnosing problems for small electricals/electronics.
  • eSpares Advice Centre  Guidance for diagnosis and repair for large electricals.

Repair guides for specific product models

  • iFixit  – a huge resource for repair advice and instruction, mostly for small electronics & electricals but also covering numerous other household items.

Finding user manuals

Two websites with a huge resource of manuals and instructions for electronic items.  If it’s not on either of these websites it’s unlikely to be on the internet.

Support from the wider repair community

Opportunities to chat and share questions with other repairers across the UK, Europe and the world.

Garment Repair

Repair What You Wear.  A wonderful resource for garment repair using hand sewing techniques, featuring downloadable how-to sheets, videos and advice.  There is also highly recommended content for how to teach hand sewing repair skills.

This video from a session in 2023 gives more detail about the techniques and resources available.

Safety Checklists

The Revolve Resource Library on Zero Waste Scotland’s Knowledge Hub is a wealth of information for running any project that involves product reuse.

Their product safety articles feature a range of different topics including DIY Tools and Gardening Equipment, Household Electricals and IT equipment.  Each section includes safety and quality check procedures for popular items and downloadable check lists that are handy for Tool Libraries.

This is a sample check list.  Electric Power Tools – procedures and check list – sample..  Download documents direct from the Revolve website to ensure documents are up to date.  To find the  product safety articles, filter by product safety.

Recording of live advice session

This recorded session and the links below examine how you can go “beyond google” to find tried and trusted online resources to support your project.

  • 02:21 – 8:12 Linda Branter, Zero Waste Scotland
  • 12.08 – 25:52. James Pickstone, The Restart Project
  • 27:08 – 31:43 Ros, Repair What You Wear