Home DIY

Very clean and tidy, nice work.

Anyone in the vicinity of Enfield want about 20 lengths of timber, approx .75"x1.5"x5'?
Ripped out of the loft and probably a few decades old. Will find a local Freecycle group otherwise

Was using a stanley knife to mark a piece of wood yesterday, essentially treating it like a pen.

And, treating it like a pen, I failed to follow any sort of blade safety, and sliced the tip of my left index finger off.

Ouch.

(No pics, because I don't want to look at it, and it's still pissing blood this morning. Because I knocked it against the door. I'm hitting up the superglue in a bit.)

ouch.
https://youtu.be/7WAwuSK36Gw

Thats a sore one to teach you a lesson

Hope you heal up soon. I had a similar experience in the summer but it was a table saw I hurt my hand on and it involved more than one finger - fortunately no nerve damage and I still have all my digits.

Dedicated marking knives are much better for this and not too expensive I have a couple of these and they're great.

WARNING workshop heaven is a dangerous site and if you succumb to its gravity well you will soon be plotting ways of justifying the purchase of very nice but unreasonably pricey tools to your better half.

No pics, but made good progress on skimming the porch. Took forever as my skills are very much of the "get it close enough then do lots of sanding and touching up" variety.

Stupidly tried to do a bit of block sanding before running an errand without using a mask. Now my nose is permanently running.

Random question - as I can’t be bothered to look, are exterior battery operated lights a thing? Preferably ones with a switch.
If they are a thing, it could save me time and thought trying to work out how to light one side of the house.
Have a great weekend all!

They are.

We have used Mr Beams ones in the past and had no complaints.

Brilliant. Thanks v much. Have a good one!

You have no idea what you’ve done, sharing this website…

Oh I know.

I've been lusting after a set of the Ashley isles dovetail chisels for a while now.

Narex chisels got on my radar because of Workshop Heaven. They are pretty decent. I bought my Ashley Isles chisels by calling his grandaughter. That used to be the easiest way of getting them.

We're planning a garden shed/deck/step situation to get down the 1.8m drop into the garden. there is already a deck (on top of the flat below's extension) and metal stairs down into the garden which we'll remove and replace with ample storage under and to the side of the stairs.

Given the price of timber at the moment, it seems like it'll end up costing a fair bit.

Would i be mad to use OSB as cladding and paint it with something? And any tips on where to source stair stringers? I've found some online but they're quite steep and making one out of 10/12x2 is pretty spendy.

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OSB as cladding

It absorbs water and breaks up. So yeah, I wouldn't use it outside. Painting might help but I doubt you'd get a sufficiently good seal. Likely to need replacing pretty soon.

Ashley isles dovetail chisels

unconditionally guaranteed for the duration of the purchaser's life

Do they come and whack you if you complain?

I need to core through our brick external wall to fit a couple of extractors.

I have a decent dewalt combi drill with a hammer function but am presuming it will be insufficient?

Presuming I need one of these (if so,which?):
https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/sds-drills/cat830818#category=cat830818&brand=dewalt&sort_by=price (prefer dewalt to use existing batteries)

and a 150mm bit for the hood - so presume this would be fine: https://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-diamond-core-drill-bit-152mm/68843

This is the hood:
https://ao.com/product/d65ihm1s2b-neff-n50-chimney-cooker-hood-black-84248-5.aspx

Reviews I've read suggest getting the largest ducting to minimise the noise (which on this model appears to be 150mm, though another review on the NEFF site says 10" which would be 250mm - not sure how that works)

I’ve only thought about doing this myself but from what I remember you need either a dedicated core drill or an sds with a clutch so you don’t break your wrists if it grabs. Didn’t seem worth it to me at the time.

Why not hire one, along with a rig / stand?

Something like this? https://www.hss.com/hire/p/diamond-core-drill-dd150

This might be a silly question, but how hard is the brick? The combi would work on our house brick but maybe not yours. A friend has a stone built house and needed specialist equipment to do the job.

You must not use hammer with a core bit.

Probably best to hire the whole kit. Even if the whole job goes well you might well never want to do it again!

Hacked a cheap wireless bell to an old button today. Felt pretty pleased when it was used by the takeaway delivery guy earlier!

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Why not hire one, along with a rig / stand?

No ones specifically said it, but even if you could do the drilling part with a combi you really want a nice neat straight hole.

Even with a chunky SDS there is a lot of skill to freehand drilling a straight core, so you may struggle. Much better to rent something dedicated.