Home DIY

A few things to consider there:

• Are the shelves strong enough not to be pulled apart by the weight of stuff on them? As @nefarious said you might not want the whole thing under tension.
  
• How are the shelves actually held onto the wall? Are they split battens with a slope that pushes the shelf to the wall under load or will it be screwed to the them or to the wall elsewhere?
  
• Are the battens secure? I'd be inclined to go deeper onto the brick if you're only using 50mm screws to go through plaster and into brick. My kitchen cupboards are incredibly heavily loaded but are only hanging on 2 frame fixings, which are much deeper.
  

the shelves are glued and screwed with 40mm screws, so should hold together

they are then screwed down on to the battens from above (6 screws in total)

i might add another batten or a couple of brackets at the bottom, for peace of mind as much as anything

Sounds good, but my main concern is that you're using 50mm screws to go through a 20mm batten and then plaster, which means that you're not very far into the brick.

well, they are up now and not coming down. unless they come down.....

Fair enough. Bear in mind that frame fixings can be put in by drilling clean through the batten and into the wall, so you could always add them.

Since @dbr is talking about saw blades, I have my own question. I'm not happy with performance of my freud 260mm 60T in my mitre saw. It's slow to cut and requires more force to to get through even soft woods than I'd like. It was good for like a week but seems to have blunted quickly which has got me thinking it might be the wrong type of blade. It has a positive rake, am I right in thinking that a negative rake blade would work better / cut faster / last longer in a mitre saw?

For reference the freud is this https://www.ffx.co.uk/tools/product/Freud-Lcl6M01051-8025331492227-260-X-2.6-X-30-X-60T-Portable-Saw-Blade

Thinking of replacing it with https://www.keybladesandfixings.com/collections/all-260mm/products/260mm-x-30mm-x-3-0mm-80-tooth-neg-rake-saw-blade-ks120-ks88

Disclaimer, I did cut a 3mm thick aluminium extrusion with it once so its possible I'm just a tool abuser

Negative rake blades are pretty niche tbh. Their main use is for clean cuts on veneers, not sure it'd solve the problem.

Disclaimer, I did cut a 3mm thick aluminium extrusion with it once so its possible I'm just a tool abuser

I mean, if this is in the week when it went blunt, we may have our answer. That being said, ally won't kill a blade completely, a single small cut on ally shouldn't make a drastic difference.

60t seems very high. Our 45t gets through everything and cuts clean on most stuff. Bit of masking tape on the back side if you want to be really clean, but any little breakout on the back is usually hidden or small enough to be hidden when rounding the edge off a bit later in the job.

1 Attachment

Anyone know what this stuff is between the window and the frame (I have a suspicion it’s holding the glass in place?) and the best way to remove/replace or tidy it up a bit?

1 Attachment

Putty?

Glazing putty specifically
https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-multipurpose-glazing-putty-natural-2kg/6462d

t's then just a forstner bit to buy.

If you're North London you borrow a set from me.

North, but not quite London anymore.

But that would be awesome thanks.

Time to get drawing and design sign off from the OH.

Hmm, I just replaced it with same spec as the original Makita blade it came with. I notice your kerf is 2.15mm vs my 3mm, any issues with deflection?

I mean, if this is in the week when it went blunt, we may have our answer. That being said, ally won't kill a blade completely, a single small cut on ally shouldn't make a drastic difference.

@nefarious Hard to say, I feel like it was going dull before I did that cut, but it was only the one and not a big cut by any means so I'd have thought it shouldn't have hurt it.

I’d be very surprised if you could get a chop saw blade to deflect without some super sketchy dangerous setup.

Probably not for 90deg cuts but possibly for bevel cuts? Anyway think I'm sold on fewer teeth and thin kerf for the win.

Nice one. It’s very old and the window is 2x3m made up of 9 panels so f*ck redoing it after the small amount of reading I have done on the subject. will do some sanding/filling and throw some paint on top.

will do some sanding/filling and throw some paint on top.

That's probably the sensible route as the small section pictured looks reasonably neat except for a few marks. Wired glass is fairly fragile, as the wire actually weakens it compared to clear glass. It's not a security feature, but the wire does hold it together if there's a fire.
Unless you were planning to replace the glass with clear, patterned or laminated security glass, leave the putty mostly alone.
If the putty is firm, a sharp blade, or a coarse file if its concrete hard can take off the high spots.

Anyone had a home office built? I know @TW and @Hovis has DIY'ed awesome versions. I was just going to add a desk and stuff to the summerhouse but given that we're likely to be wfh for the foreseeable and there might be building work in the house, I'm wondering if it's worth getting something larger and purpose built I was looking at https://u-build.org/

Now needing some mates..... maybe 6 of us to flip this bugger.

1 Attachment

Yeah, when we were at our last house. Can’t say we used it much unfortunately. Bit of a waste of money

Forgive me if I have this muddled up, but did we have a conversation a while back when I was still designing my shed about heat build up in the summer?

Now that mine is in place and has been through winter and summer, I can confirm that when the sun shines directly through the bifold doors, because it is so well insulated it gets very hot very quickly and rather uncomfortable. Thankfully for us as its north facing this doesn't happen until about 5pm, (a useful reminder to stop working) so not so bad, but if it was south facing and exposed I'm not sure how useable it would be without an air conditioning unit and/or UV glass.

Just something to bare in mind @Tenderloin

Yeah - we might have done. It was definitely a massive issue with ours which was south facing... made it unusable on some days.

It's something we sort of encountered in our current house as the kitchen is south facing and gets really warm.

We've solved it with this stuff. Takes 50% of UV heat out of the room which is enough to make it usable even in the recent 30 degree days.

Sun is one of the things that's concerning me with my build* - It will be West facing, and likeley to become unbearable from early afternoon, if my neighbours' experiences are anything to go by.

One neighbour's office, which isn't has less glass than I'm planning, has already suggested that aircon is a must.

I'm considering a few options:

1. Spending more on glass for the heat reflective options, supposedly cutting 50% of the heat
2. Solar film (much like @soul has recommended)
3. A roller awning to cut our direct sun
4. Air conditioning

Top runners at the moment are 1. and 3. - I can always add 2. later.

Air conditioning is out for a number of reasons - there's not enough space behind / beside the building to have a separate split unit, nor even to have a through-the-wall unit. I probably don't have hefty enough of a cable installed to support the power requirement of an aircon unit either.

*Actually, during the build, it's the constant rain that's concerning me...

I'd go with an awning. If you want to get fancy, make a permanent one with wooden slats that only shade at the right angle of sun. Plus, can you have windows on both (or even 3) sides to maximise airflow?
Shed heat problems aren't just from the window IME, more the small overall space and heat through the roof - you want to get any breeze available flowing through from any direction.

I have a roof window planned, and a small openeable window at the rear - Hopefully there should be a bit of airflow.

I like the idea of a permanent awning though.