Home DIY

Cheers! Had a professional round to do some other bits and he said the same and said if I ever fancied switching career I should give him a shout (fairly in jest, but still).
I used this stuff, pretty easy to work with and sands down easily too.

thank you!

Haha sounds like me last week when I was fixing a leak in our Ikea sink that I hadn't touched since moving into the house and then realized it hadn't even been properly setup in the first place. The hole for the overflow to run down the pipes hadn't even been made ... Satisfying in the end but ballache job.

Do I need a collated screw gun?

https://www.toolstation.com/dewalt-dcf620p2k-gb-18v-xr-li-ion-brushless-collated-drywall-screwdriver/p95594

Edit: talking to a load of flooring people lately to figure out what to do with our kitchen floor.
We want to corka it but needs to be flatter than it is. Half is ply over original boards at the moment. Half is latex over concrete but has a few bumps in it that are higher than the ply and the latex sounds hollow in places. So suggestions seem to be MORE ply over the ply to raise the height and then SBR over latex and screed over SBR. Then in theory it'll all be flat. I remember that doing the screws for the first round of ply took fucking forever. Will a collated screw gun be something I use again and again and again every day? Am I going to turn into Maslow's Hammer but start screwing every inanimate object? Don't talk about my wife that way.

I got one of those for doing our ceilings (and soon my summerhouse). it made things a lot easier but the max length of 57mm was a slight issue as we were overboarding some ceilings that were already boarded over the lath and plaster original ceilings so we needed to use 75mm screws so we ended up doing those rooms with a £5 drywall screw bit which did equally as well just without the collation.

it wont be for months yet but i imagine i'll be selling it when the summerhouse is done as I'm not sure i'll ever need it again after that.

What brand did you get out of interest?

That tray arm kit looks functionally appealling but £35 for a bit of plastic attached to a roller tray seems steep! Will definitely get one of the paint pails though, looks a great find.

yeah the tray kit is overkill but it's so nice to use. if you're only doing a room or two you wont get your moneys worth but doing a whole house in numerous coats of different paints it's really earned its keep as i only need to bend down when I'm filling it with more paint so it's been much less strain on my back when painting all day (i actually bought a second one so I can have two different paints on the go as I swap between rooms)

TBH I was hoping there was some kind of something we could just pour straight over the ply (presumably after treating with some bonding something something. But I've heard of floating screeds over ply subfloors but no one we've seen has wanted to do it that way :/

What brand did you get out of interest?

got that exact kit (i needed some extra batteries too) but it's much cheaper on ffx (£284) than toolstation (£504).

https://ffx.co.uk/product/Get/Dewalt-Dcf620P2K-5035048548127-18V-2X5Ah-Li-Ion-Bl-Collated-Drywall-Screwdriver-Kit

Bleugh, didn't need to see that link.

Still tempted to try and pour more self levelling concrete over ply - but think I'd need fucking loads of it and not sure I want to lug that many 25kg sacks up the stairs to the house then mix it (I mixed the first batch by hand with a broom stick..). Not sure which is worse - 40 quid per sheet of ply (we'd prob need 8 or so for the space), then someone in to screed the rest properly - maybe charging 200-250 quid. Versus 4-6 sacks of Mapei plus a few more buckets and a cheapo electric mixing paddle and the risk I fuck it up.

Ok, ok, I'm sold! Thanks for the insights.

The glove over brush trick is genius. Although usually when painting (or doing bike work) by the time I think to put on gloves my hands are already filthy...

I tend to only do it when using oil based stuff as I hate trying to wash that off my hands. Water based stuff is easy enough to wash out of a brush so I tend to just do that and grab another brush for the next coat. Wastes what's in the brush, but I'm not doing this for a job or trying to turn a profit so I don't care.

I'm unexpectedly in the UK as I type this, and was wondering about picking up a drill and potentially a driver (but it's the drill I need) whilst I'm here.

I'll be flying back so I can't take batteries and would therefore need to source those back home, which does of course pose the question as to whether it's worth getting the tools themselves here.

Of course, I could buy the tools, then post them to myself.

What do?

What's your hourly rate? How long will it take you to buy, wrap and post the tools to yourself and how much import tax will you pay? Whenever I've looked into this, the cost saving is minimal for the ammount of hassle and time involved.

I do, however, buy accessories and fittings in the UK if I can't get them here.

Shipping is a bit of an unknown, tax and duty should be zero as I’m within six months of moving. It is moving it into the “just buy them there” bucket though I admit.

Maybe one for Dammit... or Airhead

I've got an insulated 56mm door blank from Germany for ma front door. Is a single part-of-the-frame stop / rebate enough, or should I go full euro and double rebate?

Wasn’t sure where to put this and didn’t need its own thread imo.

I’ve got this B&W zeppelin. It’s got an old iPod 30 pin on it so to try and connect it my phone I bought a an adapter. The phone charges but the music doesn’t play. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it play.

The genuine Apple adaptor contains a D/A convertor (the 30 pin interface included analog audio, Lightning doesn't).
I'm guessing the Zeppelin takes an analog feed and doesn't have a built-in D/A. B&W say the Apple one should work.
It's possible that if you got a non-Apple adaptor which doesn't have one.

In my haste I’ve ordered a Bluetooth 30 pin wireless adapter. Maybe that will work. Otherwise will order the apple one.

Being a cheapskate and having no clue about the built in DA I just ordered the first one I saw.

Still going on the stonework. Kinda enjoying it, a nice blend of manual work and creativity.

May switch jobs.

1 Attachment

I’d expect it to. Your adapter was just a power pass through - couldn’t pass audio over lighting bit. The only purpose of a BT adapter is to receive (digital) audio, it would be strange not to output it in turn..

Are you saying the bt will work?

I’d be surprised if it doesn’t!

Are those sandstone? What are you filling it with?