Home DIY

In other highly exciting news, they even got us some 3 core SWA in single phase colours, which was nice.

Just brown, blue and P/E? The armour isn't always enough cross section to provide an earth.

Best just to treat it as armour but not earth both sides of it sometimes. There are some tables that tell you exactly how to deal with the various sizes.

But Sunday and a bit drunk...

We use 3 core for single phase installations, the cable is glanded and earthed at both ends so it just becomes a parallel path for earth, with your 3 cores as phase, neutral and CPC.
It’s nice to have it in single phase colours because it saves you faffing with tape to sheath them in the correct colours is all.
4 core gets used for transformers that get moved around - 3 phases and the neutral gets sheathed in green/yellow and used as an extra earth because if the tranny gets bashed or the cable pulled and the armouring comes loose from the gland you lose earth, which is no bueno (and the tranny doesn’t need a neutral).
But we regularly use the armour as the sole earthing. Chucked in 90m of 70mm2 x 4 core for a crane supply on Friday 3P+N, . Definitely makes you yearn for twin and earth when you’re wrestling that through a series of bog filled ducts, lol.

Just for looks to be honest. Was gonna go with the more common style of fitted bookshelf with the French cleat system

There are 2 kits here, carpentry and electrics with a little bit of plumbing. A 1 stop bag which might be enough on it's own. Looking like this it weighs 7kg. I thought it was a lot heavier. It does often have a Festool TXS in it.

Might be bigger than you want day to day.

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If I've got some long pieces of 45mmX45mm that are warped on all four sides.

I've got a Stanley no 4 Plane in the post and a very large antique apprentice's plane.

Is it feasible to get it roughly square?

And if so are there any tips or tricks? Thinking especially about clamping. I work on a folding garden table that isn't very stable when doing vigorous stuff on it.

Cheers

It's not for everyone, true. I liked it when I saw Dov do it, and it's cheap. Less than £300 all in.

I went without a vapour barrier in my shed as it's not heated. Heating it would mean it counts as a liveable room and therefore need planning permission where I am.
My construction is: outside - tongue and groove - 20mm air gap - 60mm mineral wool - 15mm OSB - inside.
The structure should be vented for sure, whether or not your shed is leaky enough on it's own is hard to determine. I have a double glazed window and door, so I left an airgap at the top of my walls which I hope is enough. If it's not, I'll core out a hole for a proper vent.

There are a load of youtube videos about the squaring part, so I won't butcher that. As for wonky tables, I used to only have a rickety workmate (well, that's still more than I have now). When I started trying to plane stuff, I would either butt the workmate up against a low wall to provide resistance in the direction I was planing. Or butt the work piece up against the side of my shed, but that doesn't allow you to plane right up to the end. A solid workbench is a godsend for planing. One I won't have for a while it seems.

How long is it? Squaring timber by hand is one of those jobs that probably becomes pleasurable with mastery, but I find it hugely frustrating. Winding sticks at the ready.

true, but looking at it more - it certainly fits the bill and with my socket being surface mounted presently, it does away with any faffing around - we have bookcases which I've have to cut the back out etc - I've got to at some sort point, chase the wall and move the sockets up - just avoiding the mess and the hope that I have enough length of wire to do it - which I'm not confident may be the case for some

How accurate are you looking for? How much of it are you doing? It might be worth outsourcing it.

We have a table top thicknesser which helps but if i wanted it really accurate then I'd take the materials to the manufacturing joiner where its £40 an hour and wouldn't be more than an hours work.

Professional choice of AA batteries 👍🏻

Re lengths: most are ~2m. I need 4x 1m.

Some are more fucked than others.

Re accuracy: if we're talking de minimis, only actually need about a foot of that length to be square, and only really on two sides.

In reality I could probably get away with not bothering. But as most of it is painted in red cedar, I wouldn't mind getting that off anyway.

@stevo_com - you've reminded me I've got a work mate! So that plus using a wall sounds like the ticket. I've been using our garden table as it's bigger, higher, and outside rather than trapped at the back of the outhouse.

A sharp and clean plane is your next good friend. I've found Paul Sellars to be the most no-nonsense when it comes to this. I see a lot of people talking about expensive or complicated set ups and very specific ways to set up your plane. Paul uses mostly sandpaper and a bit of glass he found in the tip. I basically copied him for my chisels and planes and could shave the hairs off my arm with my half inch chisel by the time I was done.

This anti slip mat can be useful but obviously works best on boards.

https://www.rutlands.com/sp+routing-router-fitments-grips-mats-premium-router-non-slip-mat-rutlands%C2%AE+r5082

It's available all over the place just linked to Rutlands because it's easy to find on their site.

Cheers guys.

That is the basic version of the scary sharp system which uses heavy float glass and 3m paper. The owner of Workshop Heaven is a big advocate.

p.s. Don't visit the Workshop Heaven website unless you're feeling flush, lots of lovely tools there.

Scary Sharp was the name I couldn't recall. I just used a piece of MDF as a one off trial (do not do this more than once as I'm sure with even the one off I probably put some kind of curve in with the wood deforming). The big changer for me was the leather strop. I used an old phone case (made from heavy leather) with the suede side up.

I still think a guide for plane blades makes all the difference. I use DMT diamond sharpeners for plane blades with a veritas guide and a Tormek for chisels. It suits me very well, even my masonry chisels are sharp. I can't really see the advantage in going the extra mile to get mirror finishes on blade edges because they don't last like that for very long in use.

Is the scary sharp the machine one of the Perkins brothers(American youtubers) lost his fingers on last year?
Edit: Nevermind! JFGI. Sandpaper to sharpen.

how much paint will I need for two coats of an 8 ft x 6 ft shed? can anyone recommend a black exterior paint? if I remember correctly maybe @Tenderloin used one previously?

I used Sandtex exterior satin - I’ve also tried a couple of others on the fence and the Sandtex is deffo the best.
I think you’ll need 5l (I’m not sure if they do 5l tins or if you need 2 x 2.5l)

Get one tin and see how you go - you can thin it a little to get it to go further

Oh, I don't use them very much (if at all recently). If I ever get my workshop built I might change it up.

Just finishing off a bedside table for my little boy, don’t think he will really appreciate the grain on the black cherry or ebony/maple inserts but I enjoyed doing it. Hairpin legs to be fitted

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Ooh nice, looks really fast.