Fixing the Grand Calibur

I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog in a very long time. I'm still making cards and albums, but I have stage four cancer. Between not feeling well at times, and long hospital stays, I haven't posted on here. Anyway, I wanted to post this, for those of you who have a Spellbinders Grand Calibur, which may not be working.

This is not a complaint about the quality of the older raspberry colored Grand Calibur, rather, it shows you just how well made this workhorse really is. I bought mine when they very first came out. It was so long ago, that I have no idea of how many years I have used it, but it has had a real workout from me.

A number of years ago, I heard something fall inside my GC, and it rattled. I was devastated. I couldn't afford a new one, and I couldn't imagine making cards without it, so I decided to take it apart and see if I could fix it. It was really easy, but unfortunately, I didn't take photos, so I couldn't post a tutorial, and I never got around to taking it apart again until tonight.

A few days ago, I heard the dreaded clunk again, and something was rattling around in there again. This time, I wasn't as devastated, since I had high hopes of it being the same problem, and it was. It was a couple of screws which had worked themselves loose over time. Years of use on thousands of cards take their toll.

Here is how to fix it if yours suffered from the same problem. You will need a phillips head screwdriver, and a set of allen wrenches.

Begin by taking out the four rubber plugs near the top of your GC. You can see where mine were by the holes in the photo. Next, unscrew the screws inside the holes.

Turn your GC over, and remove the four screws you will see on the bottom. Place these into a separate container from the top ones, they are a tiny bit smaller.

Now you will be able to separate the two halves of the GC. Do this carefully, because if you are lucky, you may have one or more black allen wrench screws rattling around inside. You don't want to lose those.

Turn your GC over again, and lift up the edges of the suction thing on the bottom, and you will see four more screws. You can remove those without taking off the rubber thing. I kept those separate from the other screws as well, in case there was a difference in size. Those screws hold the roller mechanism in, so be careful not to drop it on your foot!

You will now see the roller mechanism as in the above photo. Now would be a great time to clean any crud that has accumulated on your rollers!

This photo shows the end of the mechanism near where the handle attaches. See the four holes there on the flat black part? That's where the screws came from.

Use a flashlight to see which holes the screws fell out of, and put them back in with the allen wrench. Tighten the others as well. Mine were all loose.

Now just reassemble your GC. It's a bit difficult to line up the holes under the suction thing with the holes in the roller mechanism. I placed the two outside bottom screws back into the side of the GC where the suction adjustment knob is to keep the base from wiggling around while I was trying to line things up.

I was still having problems getting everything lined up, so I also put the two upper screws into the top, lining them up with the the holes in the green part of the roller thing. This made it easier to put the four screws back into the holes under the suction thing. Once those are all in and tightened up, it is pretty easy to put the remaining screws in.

Next, put your rubber plugs back into the holes. There are two which are a tiny bit wider, and two which are narrower, so if they either look too big, or they fall down into the hole, just reverse them until you see where they fit.

I sure hope your Grand Calibur is as easy to fix as mine was!