- [Jared] Window blinds are one of the things
that you probably use every day.
The mechanism is hidden up here at the top.
Today, I wanna solve a few mysteries such as
what happens when you twist the wand
or what happens when you pull on the strings.
And why does it matter that you have to pull the strings
to the left or to the right?
I'm gonna go over all of this in detail.
(electricity zapping)
This video is sponsored by FixMyBlinds.com.
(upbeat music)
Horizontal blinds are one of the
most common types of blinds.
The slats here are usually made of materials
such as wood, aluminum, vinyl, PVC, or plastic.
These strings are called the lift strings.
They go up and come back down through holes in each slat.
Pull these strings to lift the blinds.
Over here is the wand.
If you twist it, then the slats will rotate.
These slats rest on support rungs,
which helps to rotate them and to space them evenly apart.
Let's see what's going on up at the very top here.
This front board is called the valance.
Here's the valance clips, two end stiffeners,
and this piece is the headrail.
It houses the inner-workings of the window blinds.
The two lift strings go right through the bottom,
along the inside and one string goes down here,
and the other goes down here.
For larger blinds, we might even have
three or more lift strings.
These strings each go through the holes in the slats
and then they're tied off at the very bottom.
When the lift strings are pulled,
the slats start to rise.
It's important to pull all the strings at the same time.
If you miss a string, you'll end up with lopsided blinds.
If we want our blind to stay up,
we pull the cords to the side and then let go.
If the cords are over here and we let go,
the blinds will come right back down.
So why does moving the cord
to the left or the right even matter?
The secret is in this piece here.
It's called a cord lock.
Both strings go up through the hole in the bottom.
There's two rollers.
The large one is fixed in place.
It spins as the strings go over it.
The small roller can slide up and down.
Notice how this roller has a rough texture on it.
Okay, so first we pull the strings and the blinds go up.
When we're done pulling,
we move the strings away from the blinds
and then release the cord.
As we do this, the friction of the strings
against the roller causes the roller to slide up,
which will then pinch the strings.
Now it's stuck, which is why our blinds are held up.
When we wanna let the blinds down,
move the cord to the center of the blinds,
pull the string just a little,
the small roller comes down,
and then release the string and watch
as the blinds go all the way down.
Some blinds will have the lift strings and the cord lock
on the other side of the headrail,
which means the mechanism would then be reversed.
So how about the tilting of the blinds?
By turning the wand, the string ladders
are pulled to tilt the blinds.
Let's get a closer look here.
The wand is attached to the wand tilt mechanism.
As the wand turns, so does this tiny rod,
which has a worm gear at the end of it.
You can see that this slowly turns the center gear.
In the middle of this is the tilt rod,
which rotates along with the gear.
You can see that the rod extends
through the entire headrail.
The tilt rod goes through the two drums.
The string ladders are attached to the drums.
As the drum turns, the string is pulled either way.
So just by turning the wand,
that motion is moved all the way through to tilt the blinds.
Now some blinds will replace the wand tilt mechanism
with a cord tilt mechanism.
The tilting of the blinds are now replaced
with two strings that are wrapped around the spool here.
So when you pull one of the strings it rotates it.
It's very similar to what we've seen before.
The spool turns the gears, the rod, the drums,
and pulls the strings to tilt the blinds.
If the blinds in your home ever break,
you might be tempted to just replace the whole thing.
That might not be the best choice, though.
Whatever part is broken might be easily fixed or replaced.
The folks at FixMyBlinds.com
are ready and willing to help you out.
Their website helps determine what type of blinds you have
and then figure out what the problem is
to help you identify the part you need to fix
or replace, and then they help you do it yourself
with easy-to-understand videos right on their website.
I'll leave a link to their website
in the video description down below.
My name is Jared and I create 3D animations
to show you how things work.
I have lots of other videos just like this one,
so stick around and I hope you enjoy.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)