Paper Towel Holder

Purchased a paper towel holder from Amazon. The installation instructions were a wonder, but actually installing the rack wasn’t that bad.

Not a single installation instruction that wants you to install drywall anchors ever says what size drill bit to use. It must be against the law. I took two tries to find the right size. Drill twice and hammer once.

The inscrutable nature of these particular instructions is that they contain some partial words, and apparently do not include some key instruction sentences, and some of the sentences are detached from actual instruction. Mark what with pencil, and why do you mark it with the holder horizontal, but install with the holder aligned vertically?

I assume the instruction writers wanted to use “expansion anchors”, but why use the verb “put” in that sentence?

Use hammer to put expansion anchors in holes.

Maybe? Seems awkward. The “expansi” (a.k.a. drywall anchors) provided with the towel rack were of inferior material. A few very light taps with a hammer mangled them.

Here’s another missing word or clause.

The instructions mention “inner screw”, which is bizarre, even if you infer that they want you to use a screwdriver. I think they want you to tighten a screw inserted through part of a screw-head cap.

Above, the cap, screw, cup, and drywall anchor, in roughly the sequence used. After you use hammer to put the “expansi” in the hole, you insert the screw through the hole in the cup, then “tighten the inner screws with”. You gently tap the cap over the slightly-smaller-in-diameter cup held in place by snugged-up screws, as per step 5, “Cover the screw cap”.

If you look closely, you can see the cup in the illustration of Step 4. It’s a thin blob magically floating in air aligned with the upper screw and “expansi”.

Step 6 of the instructions mysteriously cuts off part of the installed towel holder. This is rather like one of my aunts, who never took a photograph of anyone without trimming off the upper part of their head. Ordinarily a small flaw like this wouldn’t matter, but the instructions were extremely high contrast and low detail, rendering the illustration for step 6 into something like minimalist abstract art.