Home DIY

The Evolution blades get good reviews. Get a multi use one then just keep that on unless you're doing something that needs clean cuts, then put your wood one back on. Assuming it's a good wood blade to start with.

You'll likely still need to clean up the ends of the twin slot with a file anyway so using a hacksaw will probably not lose you much in the finished product.

Yeah. Maybe you're right. It was more the ease of knocking them out as there will be a few cuts. But TBH by the time I've fucked around searching and gone to buy it I could probably have just used a hacksaw.

Out of curiosity what did you do to treat the ends? Last time I think I used some white radiator paint, but don't think I've got any left.

I just used the full lengths, ordered roughly what I needed and it worked out fine.

No safe but we did find a (thankfully empty) shotgun cabinet under the stairs when we moved in

....aaaand just found a carrier bag full of what looks like unused but rusty (!) shotgun cartridges in the garage....

They've probably been damp at some point, so unlikely to ever fire. Bag them and take them to your local cop shop.

I use wood blades to cut aluminium all the time. The teeth on a wood blade are made from tungsten carbide which is much harder than ALU (I think that's what the twin slot tracks are made from) it's not ideal and if you do it a lot it will wear the teeth quicker but there is no problem if it's just one or two cuts. If you're worried use an old blade or one you're likely to replace soon.

When doing this eye protection is a must and not just cheap safety specs but decent ones that won't let anything through the side like these

As @TW says, or just call the non emergency number and ask for advice. The police are used to things like this.

When doing their loft conversion my neighbour found a fully functioning ww2 era mp40 submachine gun, complete with a couple of hundred rounds of live ammunition hidden in the eaves. The previous owner was a retired austrian policeman, had passed away in the house so his relatives had just cleared it and sold it. The police didn't really care about the circumstances of how it got there. They were more concerned that a firearms officer ensured the gun was safe before it was moved so that there wouldn't be an accidental discharge while it was being taken away.

Making a door.

Everything is on the piss, it would seem, and the blade on my saw is more flexible than an olympic gymnast.

Moar shopping time.

I'm guessing more teeth & wider kerf.

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If you’re ripping then you need less teeth, so that the fibres don’t bung up the blade.
That is unless you’re cutting off a tiny amount (<4mm), then more teeth and fatter blade would seem advantageous.

With power tools that are struggling to straight edge I have opted to run a groove with the blade first, rough cut off the waste and then clean up with a bearing bit.
A right old hassle, but that’s site work!

Let the blade come up to speed and the let the blade do the cutting - don't force it forward. Sometimes the teeth can dull on one side which will always lead to to blade wondering and not cutting true.

If you want to get spendy these work well with guide rails and make getting a perfectly square cut easy. It may be slightly excessive for your average DIYer though.

Can you get it done when you collect?

I’ve got a massive Makita flip saw but I still get the timber merchants to do all my outline cuts on their £30k kit.

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In the process of getting the delightful fake sandstone cladding removed from our house. Taking the opportunity to fix up the slated front step too. Stuff on the top step came off cleanly with hammer and cold chisel, as did the lower part of the bottom step. The rest is proving problematic. Is there anything I could use to speed up the process? Or just a case of chipping away little bits at a time until I get back to the slab I am hoping is under there...

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If you’re ripping then you need less teeth, so that the fibres don’t bung up the blade.

It's an awkward mix of ripping & cross-cutting, as it's a multi-layered & multi-direction built door blank. For this bit, I'm trimming the end to make it square, so cutting between, 2 & 6 mm.

I went for this blade - 40t, 2.2mm kerf.

I also re-seated the rubber on my track, set the cams on the saw correctly, and fettled the mitre on the saw to make it properly square.

We're all good now, thankfully.

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(Spot the safety crocs...)

I think it was a combo of blunt blade & wonky saw. A bit of proper setup has seen it good.

That's something I didn't really consider. I was in a bit of a rush to order the actual door blank though, as there are only a handful left in the country.

That’s good, nothing like a new blade to get things moving again.
I tend to default to the rip blade for cutting doors to length as it’s mostly ripping, the trade off being that it can break out loads, particularly if the veneer is thin/crap/badly pressed on.
And struggling to get blanks at the moment too….

And struggling to get blanks at the moment too….

I know somewhere that has 5 or 6 fd30 full size blanks if you're interested

That’s kind of you, thanks.
But I have a delivery heading heading my way Tuesday (apparently…)

Very odd things in the supply chain being effected this last year or so.

There is, apparently, a single manufacturer in Germany that supplies all of the solid core blanks in the UK, and they have appeared to say fuck it for a few months.

That does make sense to me.
Doesn’t take much extra bureaucracy/staff absence to fuck up a whole chain I suppose.

Laughingly some of the delivery drivers for my suppliers insist that the shortages are due to “the Chinese” buying up all the produce. Blame the mystery foreigns as usual….

A scutch comb in a holder. That will either be a hand chisel or an SDS bit.

Great for cleaning anything hard off masonry.

Thanks! Will pick one up tomorrow.

Ripping out the old space that held the F&E tank for the old heating system. We got an invented cylinder on the floor below. Before I board this over, would anyone ever need access to any of these capped off pipes?

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My neighbour just had a leak caused by rodents chewing plastic pipes. Can you cap them at the source?