Home DIY

Toilet conundrum.

In order to preserve a clean, smooth exterior surface, the bog seat bolts go into recesses that aren't accessible from underneath.

These little beauties are put into the recess folded vertically then spring flat to form captive bolts.

The picture is upside down. In use the flat bit sits outside the hole and the anchor shape goes into the recess. A threaded rod goes through both and tightens them together, and is also what the seat attaches to.

One of our bolts has lost a wing, giving sitting down an extra drama as the seat lurches sideways.

The end of the rod and what's left of the wing is enough to stop the assembly coming out altogether but with only one wing there's no way to stabilise it. I need to replace it.

The screw is welded into the wing and plate by years of limescale (took 2 days of cilit bang and scraping just to see the screw and broken wing) and there's nowhere to get a decent hold with pliers. As far as I can tell from poking a wire into the recess there is no hole at the bottom.

How the hell do we get it out?

Best plan so far is to cut with a dremel, but we are restricted where we can cut without hitting the ceramic. The safest cut means we'll end up with the wing and end of the rod still in the recess - hopefully deep enough that they won't foul the replacement bolt but we won;t know until it's too late.

Anyone dealt with this before?

Which model? I have spares for my Axminster powered respirator which I believe is a jsp clone. Happy to send you a pair if you're in need?

I mean does @chrisbmx116 lives, laughs and loves ?

It's the press to check one don't know the exact model # but I doubt that the filters from the powered respirator would fit.

Edi;t thanks for the offer though. Embarrassingly rude of me having to come back and edit my post to thank you.

No problem!

If you can only find one of the studs in the wall, and you want to put a coat rack up. And the plasterboard is fucked.

Is it:
cut piece of wood to the width of the wall. Screw multiple screws into wood into stud. glue the fuck out of the rest to the wall.
Then mount coat hooks to wood?

Or
sell the house
burn the house
get someone else in to do the job properly

How fucked is the plasterboard?

Gripit fixings are good. You'll need a spade bit to use them though.

when you say plasterboard is fucked, how so?

3 batons of 20mm x 30mm each with 3 50mm screws through into rawl plugs in a brick wall

Shelves. Pine, 20mm thick boards, 130mm deep. I could probably weigh it. Will be used for glass jars filled with dry goods.

Is it going to collapse? Should I add more batons underneath one of the lower shelves?

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What size(girth) screws and which plugs? Adding more battens will likely be hard to get exactly in the right spot to properly distribute the load. If you have them too high, it will want to lift off the top battens. Too low, it will pull down more on the top ones. I would have thought you'd be fine. I've seen kitchen units that hold (far too much) crockery hung by less. But then, @Bobbo could likely weight in and tell me I'm talking bollocks, which I'm fine with.

I've had a consistently unpleasant experience with these... even in our new build with perfectly solid plasterboard walls, they have a tendency to pull out and gouge huge holes in the wall. They also leave colossal holes (at least for the larger size ones) which are a pain to patch.

I've now replaced all of these (where they existed) in our house with hollow wall anchors. Much easier to set, much more solid.

4mm width, into red rawl plugs

I think it will be fine, but it's one of those cases where being wrong would be disastrous

I’d always have a batten at the bottom, simply to rely on compression rather than tension (sitting on something vs hanging off something).

When I lived in place that had fake walls (tm) I've had success with toggle bolts for putting up shelves and whatnot.

I rate snap toggles for ease of install and strength. The big metal bar distributes the load really well. And they don’t rely on the hole being mega accurate like grip its. You do have to use the m8 bolt as your fixing though.

Just counted how many screws it takes to put up Vitsoe 606 shelving.

One hanging rail has eight M4 screws - that's just one less than yours in total.

Just saying.

What’s everyone’s favourite plunge saw blade? I’ve had Mafell, Trend, Bosch and Freud. All have been pretty good but none amazing.

Freud is probably in the lead but maybe there’s one I’m missing... mostly birch ply in various thicknesses but also some melamine faced stuff and all sorts of other sheet material.

The only comment with hollow wall anchors - which is obvious in hindsight, but not something I initially cottoned onto - is that they need at least the full depth of the anchor behind the plasterboard for them to seat properly, otherwise they just crush and collapse.

Fucked plasterboard, it's 40 years old at least. Really crumbly. Gripit fixing pulled out (hence coats on floor at moment).
Bought a gripit kit (with the right drill bit and everything, then had to buy the undercutting tool as wasn't right). So. tried them...

I mean. Alternatively, I buy a two tier clothes rail that will fit.

True, though I’ve managed to used them on external walls with dot & dab plasterboard by drilling into the block work behind to make sure they have room to seat before using the setting tool.

What type (name/size/etc) wood do I need for the rungs on a children's climbing triangle?

(Over 12kg of child)

Cheers

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How have you found different width blades in the mafell? I know theirs are slightly thinner than Festool etc.

Beech, 30mm+

https://www.toolsandtimber.co.uk/beech-dowels-config-1148

No different really. I’ve not used the Mafell blade in ages as I found even when fresh from sharpening it would burn edges.

The Mafell blade is 162mm too, which is silly. All other blades are 160mm but it’s easy to dial in the depth gauge so not really an issue.

it would burn edges.

Weirdly I had this more when the blade was newer, now it’s a bit older is doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue (although maybe I just haven’t cut bit bits of birch ply recently). Glad* you had the same problem - I’d just assumed it was burning because I was doing something wrong 😅.

I bought a spare Axminster blade for cheap but I’ve never had to use it as the Mafell blade still seems pretty happy/I’ve not made anything nice enough to need that level of finish #bodger4lyf

*glad to have the fault found with the equipment rather than the user that is!