Home DIY

Could you drill a hole on one wall where you want the pole to be, then fix your lazer to the hole and pew-pew it to the other wall?

I guess the risk is your lazer might not be fitted straight.

If your walls aren't perfectly true there's a good chance that doing by eye will end up looking straighter anyway. I remember as a teenager spending ages mounting an acrylic sign perfectly level only for it to look wonky and shit because it was an old house and nothing was straight. Did it by eye and it looked perfect.

Use the laser level to mark the two points on the wall to ensure level. Measure the two points to get the length of pole required.

perpendicular to both walls and level

The problem you will have is neither wall is likely to be particularly square/straight or parallel to the other. Get it level (using a level) and as square as you can (by eye or using a square if you want to measure how far out it is), which will mean it's slightly off square at both ends but no one will ever come and check the angle but you will see it every day.

Where is the door to the room, this is where you will look at it from mostly, and where will you be when hanging stuff up? Figure out where you will look at it from and do the best you can.

Theoretically yes. How out of true are your walls? Using a larger square will make any wonk in the wall have less of an effect

Yeah, I think it's this.

As you enter the room the pole will be directly horizontal across you, at just above head height.
Having that line flat is most important, and I can do that with the laser level.

A wee bit of rough rafter square eye-balling should sort the rest

thanks everyone

If your walls aren't perfectly true there's a good chance that doing by eye will end up looking straighter anyway. I remember as a teenager spending ages mounting an acrylic sign perfectly level only for it to look wonky and shit because it was an old house and nothing was straight. Did it by eye and it looked perfect.

Yeah did exactly that, mounted shelving level, realised radiator was way off anyway and looks wrong. At least the rad can be adjusted..

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Festool Domino jointer?

A useful resource, thank you!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xsPohWSJyGw

There are also various jigs available that allow you to do repeatable slots like a Domino using a router. Not as easy but a lot cheaper in the short term

Yes,
Peter Millard does know his stuff.
HNY by the way.

an update on the shelving.

18mm router bits are slightly hard to find but otherwise pretty straightforward. not perfect but good enough that i can live with it.

18mm was definitely the right choice and 4mm is more than deep enough.

now to sand it down and finish it

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that's tidy, more quality most furniture

Good stuff

Boom, no messing around! Looks great. Did you just use a straight edge of some kind to guide the router in the middle of your uprights?

Wealden Tools is good for all possible router bits.

Also - props to this guy for building his own successful flood defence system. Impressive.

Christ, imagine if it suddenly failed. The pressure on it must be quite something

Fair play, guessing he probs isnt getting insurance on his place and has took things into his own hands.

I wouldn't think there is much pressure unless you're getting a strong flow. If it's still it'll be very low.

This briefly explains it simply.
https://theconstructor.org/water-resources/forces-acting-dam-structure/5251/?amp=1

Nice! Did you glue and clamp the whole thing in one go?

Every household insurance policy includes a precept to fund Flood Re,
https://www.floodre.co.uk/
so that even the flood prone can get insurance.

Mini update: I managed to get those bathroom steels in before Christmas so we could cut the ceiling joists.

Scary stuff using beam lifters to raise steel into an angled position, not recommended!

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Bright ideas and simple solutions wanted.

tl;dr is there an easy way to drill a 90cm tunnel under paving

• I want to be able to keep my motorbike battery tender plugged into my bike while maintaining a clean footpath and no trip hazards, and not worrying about my charger getting nicked.
  
• Finance will not approve an external socket.
  
• we have a spare socket (that I currently use) in an outhouse down the alley.
  
• I have spare connectors to make my own super long extension cable.
  
• All paving is recent with a cemented in boarder and some pavers set and others cemented - I cannot remember which, but feel the footpath may all be cemented as a high traffic area.
  
  

I can work out how to run the cable neatly around the outside. The problem is how to get a cable across the footpath? I'm wondering if there is some sort of extra long sds drill bit I could rent/buy to span the 90cm path, then dig a hole in the bed either side and drill underneath, possibly running a bit of metal or plastic conduit to maintain the structure of the hole.

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You can definitely get extra long SDS bits, I've got one of these.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-sds-plus-shank-masonry-drill-bit-10mm-x-1000mm/413hy

It wasn't actually that unwieldy to use, I think your main problem will be making a big enough hole to get the drill and bit in to start off.

You can get SDS bits that are well over 1m long, so no problems there.

You'd need to dig up lots of garden to drill horizontally... maybe drill at an angle instead?

You'd want the cable/housing to be weather-proof and ideally armoured.

Cheers.

Found this one cheap. Initially when I was searching for used on Ebay they seemed really expensive.

It's an Optimate vehicle battery charger:

Googles says 18 gauge wire is £1p/m, but that's only a cursory look. I don't actually want a real power cable as I want the Optimate stored somewhere out of sight.

The cable helpfully has this printed on it.

VW-1
105°C
300V
NANSI
C(UL)
SPT-2W
2X0.824mm² (18AWG)
FT2

The standard cable is 2X0.824mm² (18AWG) and the 4.6m Optimate extension cable is advertised as "Thick copper 16 SWG cable"

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