Home DIY

No worries. I'll ping you a message when I'm done with it. Same email?

Question for the hie mind: I want to hang a heavy mirror on plasterboard. I've used a stud finder, but this suggests there is more of an 'area' than a 'line'. Does this make sense?

It happens a lot, a method I've not used is a strong magnet to find the screws/nails holding the plasterboard to the stud. Try a little pilot hole in the middle of your 'area' to see if you hit wood if you don't have a small strong magnet to hand. My stud finder has a calibration feature, when you turn it on you have to keep it a metre away from any objects, you could just be picking up a faint signal from the stud out to the edge of your area, or you're on a cross piece which would be a result, try going up and down. The stud should be around 2 inches wide.

Probe it with a spike just to make sure.

Yup. Cheers!

+1 for the magnet method for finding studs. I use one of those magnets on a telescopic wand, and you can then feel it twitching a lot more sensitively when it's attracted to the screws.

I've seen the Kohler name around but never fitted them, I assume from the name they're German which usually means quality.

nope, they're usonian, from Kohler, Wisconsin.

nope, they're usonian, from Kohler, Wisconsin.

Hmmm, not sure I want American taps.

I had to remove part of the side of my bath (tiled) to fix a leak under there.

There was, theoretically, an access panel but it was so securely stuck on (sealant and grouting) that it needed a mallet and chisel to remove. I don't want to go back down that route now I'm putting it back on so what are the options?

I was thinking possibly of a ply panel with the tiles stuck on and velcrod to the wooden frame that the bath is on. Any other suggestions?

Magnets?

And for the first time in LFGSS history I'm actually being serious

+1 on magnets, take a look at the sugru magnet pack.
https://sugru.com/magnet-kit

Or you could go down the roller catch route if you wanted something a little stronger.

We're turning our spare single room into a sort of dressing room. I'm looking at storage options as we don't have any really fixed ideas.

We might not be able to keep it as a dressing room forever, so any options would need to be semi permanent / movable / dismantlable.

I was having a look at Fast Clamp and wondering about using steel tubing + Fast Clamps to make rails and possibly simple shelves.

The appeal is that it would be fairly easy to do and could be made to measure, whilst being removable and possibly reusable elsewhere.

As a point of reference making a vanilla clothes rail like the below would be about £35-40 all in.

Has anyone done anything similar?

Thoughts in general?

@hugo7 I made exactly that thing (sans the wheels) for our bedroom. It was ok for a bit, now it looks a fucking mess as there's too many clothes on it. If I did it again I'd just get a wardrobe and keep everything tidy. It looked good for maybe a month when the rail wasn't rammed. I think as a temporary solution its ok and can as you say be dismantled. But, if you're fussed on things looking messy I wouldn't go down that root.

Cheers. That's the sort of feedback I was after.

Also I'm paranoid about moths as well as after having a series of expensive jumpers and some less expensive suits destroyed. Which inevitably takes me on to working out how to cover them.

Fwiw my idea of covering them is to essentially make semi-fitted wardrobes, using the strength of the steel frame to negate the need to make them properly fitted and screwing lots of battons etc.

I was thinking if we make just a frame for the doors then there will just be x4 frame battons plus only those screws which could be filled in and painted over.

Yeah that could definitely work. If you make them with the fast clamps and steel tubing its super super strong, you could easily make something to cover the rail as you say.

Again, if this is temporary go for it. If you think it'll be there for 2+ years I'd look for something that is a little more permanent and has drawers...I really miss having drawers.

Keep me posted on your progress with it though.

The problem I'm having is cost.

Apart from the Fast Clamp + steel every one of my bight ideas spirals rapidly.

Cheap light doors? Scrap wood plus alu / fibre glass / acrylic sheeting? Alu sheets ≠ cheap. Fake Chinese Crabon ≠ cheap.

@hugo7 we considered something similar but ended up going with the Ikea stuff to fill the room. It looks really good. We got pretty much what we wanted without the cost of full custom. Plus, because it's modular, we could easily redistribute it to other rooms if our circumstances changed. Can't find a pic (at work) but can take a snap tonight.

Our builders used these for an access panel in our kitchen which gives access to our extractor for maintenance. Seems to work well, I suspect magnets wouldn't be strong enough for tiled ply.

How do they work?

@Brun search for Friction Latch and you'll see lots of examples. Such as the below. You just have to make sure the male part lines up with the female part (giggles) and when you push them together it'll hold. We have them on our loft hatch and they're solid.

The one we have doesn't have the same screw holes on the female part though. The ones we have, have them on the bottom section rather than the side sections, if that makes sense.

I don't know if anyone recalls my parquet experiment?

The results are in: all three blocks (stripped back/partially covered/totally covered in bitumen) are bonded to a level I'd quantify as "really fucking stuck".

To recap this was the cleaned up brick:

Partially covered:

Edges squared off but otherwise left:

Bonded with Sikabond 5500s they all seem to be stuck equally well - I'll test more vigorously, but I tried quite hard to get the final/most bituminous block to come away (with my hands) and failed totally.

So - I shall square up the rest, but I'm fucked if I'm scraping all the bitumen off now that I've proved it's not needed.

with my hands

Try standing on it and rocking back and forth (mumbling to yourself is optional). That's closer to what it will have to put up with in real life.

Science - 1
Forum experts - 0

Good work.