Knotty Pine ceilings

Hi folks,

A friend of mine was installing Knotty Pine ceilings and he found that it was difficult to knock in the panel pins to hold the boards up.

I thought about it for a while and we decided to do 2 things:

Firstly:

We made “T” clamps that reached from the floor to the ceiling to hold the ceiling boards in place which then left our hands free to knock in the panel pins.

Secondly:
I cut the head off a panel pin and used it as a drill to drill through the ceiling boards into the cross members of the roof supports where we were putting up the ceiling. This gave us a pilot hole to insert the panel pin into, thus not having to hold the panel pin whilst knocking it in and avoiding hitting our fingers.

We found the job of fitting the ceiling boards took ½ the time, one of us drilling and the other hammering in the pins behind.

I hope this helps you with your ceiling problems and of course this principle can be used for numerous other jobs.

Waterless car cleaning

Goodday,

I have been away for a few days on a trip to the coast. A total journey of 3000km and as you know your car can get very mucky and dirty picking up insects, oil splatters from trucks and tar from all the road works.

When I got back my car looked as if it had not been cleaned in at least a month and was an insect graveyard. I thought to myself, “This is going to be an all day job to get Gypsy (my car’s name) back to her normal sparkling self.”

I went down to our local car spares shop to get some car shampoo and wax to clean Gypsy and was going through all the various car cleaners and waxes when a spray can caught my eye. It said waterless wash and wax, which intrigued me so I picked up the can and read on.

It claimed it could remove all the grime I had accumulated on Gypsy and more, it could also clean my windows, car rims, chrome and plastic parts and wax her to boot.

I thought to myself, “Well if it can do what the can claims I have a winner”, all I needed was one can of spray instead of dash cleaner, mag cleaner, chrome cleaner and window and tyre polisher. I need only buy one product instead of 3 – 4 products to do the same job. Why not give it a chance, if it worked WOW! What a saving!

I got a can of the FW! Racing formula and off I went home to clean my car with only one can of spray on cleaner instead of a whole packet of goodies, not too sure of the outcome.

When I got home I read the instructions on the can and started to clean Gypsy as instructed. The whole cleaning did not take more than an hour and I was delighted with the results. I found that the formulation also had UV protection in it so it will protect my dashboard and paint surfaces from the sun.

You can carry a can of in the trunk of your car and if you pick up tree sap, tar or road stains on your car you do not need water to clean the dirt off your bodywork.

Apparently it is also suitable for boats, bikes, aeroplanes, trucks and even the kitchen sink, which I have not tried yet.

Watch this space for more information on if it works on other things too.

Hi again,

This past weekend I had to do some odd jobs in and around the house, like tying up the climbing roses and tightening up the odd loose screw on the light covers. Fixing the handles on the sliding door and fixing the window frames.

Instead of having to carry around a whole tool box to do all these small household jobs I found a multi-tool that I was given as a present was enough to do almost all these jobs.

I have a John-Benzon tool and it has the following tools:

1. Long nose pliers with wire cutter and a cut out to grip longer objects.
2. Long bladed knife
3. Short bladed knife
4. Bottle opener with large flat screwdriver.
5. Can opener
6. A small saw for wood, file on the 1 side and 2½ inch ruler on the other.
7. Socket attachment for the 3 star point screwdrivers, 3 flat point screwdrivers and 5 hex Allan key set.
8.  A small chisel point tool

There are many other makes out there such as Leatherman and Swiss army knife.

Some of these have variations to mine, they can come with a small hammer, vice grips or crimping pliers. If you are looking to buy one first find out what tools they have and pick the one most suited to your needs.

Not only has my multi-tool been very helpful for fixing items around the house but it is also useful when we go on outings where someone has forgotten a bottle opener or a can opener. I have used it to cut meat strings and pulling out fishing hooks to doing minor repairs to boats, caravans and cars.

Now days I don’t go anywhere without it, it comes in a handy pouch which attaches to my belt. If you need a do-anything, go-anywhere tool. I recommend a multi-tool. Every man should have one!

Erecting a towel rail

It’s me again,

Recently I had to put up a new towel rail in my newly tiled bathroom which meant I had to drill into my new tiles without damaging them.

I discovered a very easy way to do this which I thought was quite interesting and this is how to fit you towel rail, or any other item to a tiled wall.

1. Put your towel rail against to wall at the required place and height and mark the hole you wish to drill on one side with a marker.
2. Take masking tape and put it over the mark on the tile. I suggest 20 – 25mm wide tape. You should see the mark through the tape. (Masking tape will prevent the drill from “running” all over the place and also prevents the tiles from chipping and cracking.
3. Take your drilling machine and fit the correct size masonry drill bit to suit the rawl plugs that are generally supplied with the item you want to fit.
4. Take a plastic packet and fit a strip of masking tape to the one side.
5. Tape the packet to the tiles just below the place you are going to drill. This will catch all the dust from the hole and make clean up a lot easier. (If you have someone else around you could get them to hold a vacuum just below your drilling spot to catch the dust.)
6. Place the rawl plug along side your drill bit and mark the length of the rawl plug on your drill bit using a piece of masking tape. (This will tell you how deep you need to drill)
7. Drill the hole through the masking tape on the mark made. Ensure you hold the drill at a 90° angle to get straight hole.
8. Once drilled fit the rawl plug into the hole and mount the towel rail on the one side (lose enough to allow it to hang down while drilling the other side hole)
9. Lift the towel rail and ensure it is level using a spirit level, laser level or tape.
10. Mark the second hole.
11. Swing the towel rail out of the way
12. Repeat the above procedure for the second hole.
13. Swing the rail into place and tighten firmly.

This will give you’re a secure level fitting for towel rails, toilet roll holders or any other bathroom or kitchen item to be mounted on tiles.

Changing your Tap Sizes

Hi All,

My new neighbour has just moved in and was having trouble with his tap fittings for his garden hose, washing machine and dishwasher.

He told me of his problems and I offered to help. I found that some of his tap fittings were ½ inch and some we ¾ inch we analysed this as follows:

His top loader washing machine had ¾ inch connections but his hot and cold taps had ½ inch connections.
His dishwasher had ½ inch connections but his hot and cold taps had ¾ connections.
The taps for his garden hose were ¾ inch and the hose pipe was ½ inch with Gardenia quick couplings fitted to the hose pipe.

We counted how many ½ inch and ¾ inch fittings were needed to fix the problem taps:
The total was:
5 x ¾ inch taps
4 x ½ inch taps

This is what we did to fix the problem:
Instead of changing the taps I went down to my local hardware shop and got:
9 x ¾ inch to ½ inch galvanised female reducers
5 x ¾ inch galvanised nipples
4 x ½ inch galvanised nipples
1 x PTFE thread sealer

I went home and got my pipe wrench and went over to neighbour to fix the taps.

The process went as follows:

1. Clean the threads on the tap with a cloth.
2. Put thread sealer around the tap.
3. On each ¾ inch tap, screw in the ¾ side of the reducer with a pipe wrench until tight.
4. Put thread sealer on one side of the ½ inch nipple and screw in using a pipe wrench until tight.
5. Fit appliance hose, ensuring the rubber washer is in place on the pipe connection.
6. Turn on tap and inspect for leaks. If leaking, tighten leaking connection.

Reverse the procedure to remove the taps.

This exercise did not take a lot of effort and the costs of changing the tap fitting sizes saved my neighbour a lot of money and time.

The main advantages are:

1. No need of a plumber
2. If you change your appliance or increase your hose size, all you have to do is remove the reducer and the tap is back to normal.

Garden Chair Repair

Just today we found that the garden chairs in our entertainment area, after many years, started to show signs of wear and tear. A number of bolts that were holding the legs and seating area together had broken off and become uncomfortable to sit on.

We had thought of getting rid of them, but in this day and age they would have cost and arm and a leg to replace, so I thought “Let me have a go at fixing the broken areas”.

First I removed a good bolt from the chair to determine the size and length of the bolt I needed. I also checked to see how many I required. I found I needed 6 x 40mm bolts and 16 x 6mm washers.

Next problem was where to get them so I jumped in the car and went to our local hardware store. To my joy I found they stocked little orange packets from Eureka which had all that I needed, I also discovered that most good hardware shops stock them at reasonable prices.

I also bought a tin of a product called Spark which is very handy to have as it only removes rust to make the extraction of rusted bolts, nuts etc easier because it lubricates and is also a water repellent. I need only 1 tin and it will come in handy for many other DIY jobs as well.

Off I went home with my packet of supplies and started to fix the broken chairs but soon found that some of the bolts would not come out. I sprayed them with Spark and left them for a while pondering over how to remove these stubborn bolts.

The one’s that were just above the flush, I took a hacksaw and cut a groove in the centre of them. I then took a small screwdriver and managed to remove them this way, in no time I had three chairs repairs. Remember to change all the other bolts to ensure the chairs would be good for another 5 –6 years.

The stubborn bolts were slightly harder, I had to drill to remove them. I did this by centre punching the middle of the bolt and taking a 4mm drill and drilling a hole through them. Then I took the back end of a steel file and tapped it into the drilled hole. I took an adjustable spanner and turned the offending screws out as I had no “easy-outs”.

If you do not have a steel file a small flat or star screwdriver could work, but it is not as easy and doesn’t always work.

Now all the chairs are repaired and we saved ourselves a small fortune not having to replace them.

A tip when fitting bolts or nuts that are subject to the elements: Lubricate them with a good lubricant spray such as Spark, Q20 or even a touch of light oil or grease.