What "man jobs" have you done today?

Closer to finishing renovation work. Old carpet ripped out of bedroom, woodwork painted and roller blinds put up. New carpet put in yesterday.

Starting to look habitable!


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Just had to bail out the garage - just nipped over the road to a mate and left garage door open - The heavens opened and it was blowing into my garage - everything within 4ft of door was soaked.
 
Next project I am going to do is make a walnut knife stand as my drawer is getting destroyed. Either a simple strip of walnut, with strong magnets set into the back, or maybe a big block of walnut to stand on the work top.

I have seen some online and the guy is asking £575 for them :eek:. It's such a simple thing to make, I don't know how he can charge that, or why anyone would pay it. I can make the same thing in a couple of hours for like £30 or so for the walnut and magnets.

BTW, does anyone know about neodymium magnets and can recommend where to buy some and roughly what size/strength i'd need? I don't want to have to yank the knives off it, for obvious safety reasons..
 
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Mark A said:
Next project I am going to do is make a walnut knife stand as my drawer is getting destroyed. Either a simple strip of walnut, with strong magnets set into the back, or maybe a big block of walnut to stand on the work top.

I have seen some online and the guy is asking £575 for them :eek:. It's such a simple thing to make, I don't know how he can charge that, or why anyone would pay it. I can make the same thing in a couple of hours for like £30 or so for the walnut and magnets.

BTW, does anyone know about neodymium magnets and can recommend where to buy some and roughly what size/strength i'd need? I don't want to have to yank the knives off it, for obvious safety reasons..
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I've eBayed for neodymium magnets before - there are calculators online. Enter the mineral type, diameter and thickness and you get the pull force. I was making a mouse station set into some wood, so I weighed the mouse and figured double that for when I turned it over. TBF I ended up stacking magnets and ordering stronger ones, so possibly hedge your bets and buy two strengths. Only about £3-4 for 10 magnets.
 
Cleaning the bottom of our swimming pool. Gradually getting a very tired and unloved tiled pool back into shape.

Getting a winter cover for it later this year as half its’ problems stem from that. Having a nearby willow tree dumping seed pods in it for the last few weeks haven’t helped.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
Cleaning the bottom of our swimming pool. Gradually getting a very tired and unloved tiled pool back into shape.

Getting a winter cover for it later this year as half its’ problems stem from that. Having a nearby willow tree dumping seed pods in it for the last few weeks haven’t helped.
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Floculannt :)

We had a pool when we were kids and when I moved in with the missus the landlord had an unloved pool full of frogs and six inches of leaf mulch on the bottom.

Took a while but I got it back to crystal clear with a new pump, gallons of chlorine, flocculant and regular hoovering.
 
Moved my light fittings upstairs today, for some unknown reason they were right in front of the bedroom windows, looks miles better now.

Ready to insulate the flat tomorrow
 
pingwing said:
Moved my light fittings upstairs today, for some unknown reason they were right in front of the bedroom windows, looks miles better now.

Ready to insulate the flat tomorrow
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Was from times when people used to worry more about privacy. A light in the centre of the room casts a shadow of you on the window/curtains when you are getting dressed. They used to put the light near the window so the shadows were cast inside instead.

I think its also part of the reason old houses had doors opening into rooms differently to the way they do now. It allowed whoever was inside to have a moment to put their tadger away before being spotted :D
 
Hedge said:
Was from times when people used to worry more about privacy. A light in the centre of the room casts a shadow of you on the window/curtains when you are getting dressed. They used to put the light near the window so the shadows were cast inside instead.

I think its also part of the reason old houses had doors opening into rooms differently to the way they do now. It allowed whoever was inside to have a moment to put their tadger away before being spotted :D
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:D That's brilliant! Been wondering what they were thinking...

Today's success, 270mm of installation laid across my attic. I can already feel the warm fuzzy feeling inside me
 
pingwing said:
:D That's brilliant! Been wondering what they were thinking...

Today's success, 270mm of installation laid across my attic. I can already feel the warm fuzzy feeling inside me
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Go see a doctor ASAP! If you can feel it inside you, you have ingested FAR too much.
 
Hedge said:
Was from times when people used to worry more about privacy. A light in the centre of the room casts a shadow of you on the window/curtains when you are getting dressed. They used to put the light near the window so the shadows were cast inside instead.

I think its also part of the reason old houses had doors opening into rooms differently to the way they do now. It allowed whoever was inside to have a moment to put their tadger away before being spotted :D
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This takes me back a few years - I was living at home with the folks in a terraced house - The rear of next block of terrace houses faced us and they had converted back bedroom into a bathroom (we had no bath and outside karzi) and their light was in centre of room and when he went for a slash he was fully silhouetted against the window blind - When she went you saw every movement - was quite entertaining at times.

I also put my lights in centre of ceiling where I am now.
 
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Sewing is manly right? First time using a sewing machine since I did upholstery at college, so was quite pleased with this. Just made from some old jumper material I saved for use as rags, but does the job of protecting my surface plate from the dust in my shed.

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Used the surface plate today to flatten the bottom of my block plane and it took forever. This is supposed to be Stanley's upmarket 'sweetheart' plane, so it was surprising that it was so far out. I guess it didn't help that I only had 240g sand paper, so that's why it looks like a mirror.

Also had to do some re-working of the bolt that holds the cap iron onto the blade as it was a really poor design as every time you tightened down the top cap onto the blade it would slide back off the bolt and work loose in use. For something that cost £90 i was really disappointed with it and as such it hasn't seen much use since I bought it years ago. But @famas thread inspired me to have another look at it and see if it can be sorted and with a bit of filing and dremeling it seems good now. Although I might go a step further and make a top cap iron from scratch from some tool steel and some walnut.

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I'm not too familiar with the SW planes but from looking the slotted brass screw above the lever cap should not be done up tight.
It wants to be loose as it's acting as the pivot point for the pressure adjuster at the back of the plane. If you do the slotted screw up tight it's not letting the lever cap enough angle to pinch the blade and will work loose as you use it.

Lovely looking plane though.
 
The screw never seems to get loose as the thread is so small and looks kinda mangled from the factory. Maybe mine was screwed up during assembly :(. With the screw not tightened down the wheel at the back doesn't seem to have enough travel on the threads to reach the point of being tight and the wheel comes out of the thread and tilts over. This is why I just gave up on trying to use it years ago as i could never work out what was wrong with it. Looking online it seems lot of others are having issues, so I think it's just a poor design. I might look into getting a steel pin made to replace the brass pin and see if it being loose in the thread helps. Thanks.
 
Start of project garage for me.

Battened and boarded about 2m of one of the walls ready to hang bikes and hung a network cabinet that will house my router, switch, various hubs and NVR.

All in to thermalite type blocks so belt and braced the studwork and cabinet with resin and studs. Also the reason why I just didn’t hang bike hooks straight from wall.

Like so:

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Next up is finish the painting, install shelving - one long run across back wall and a rack in an alcove, then flooring tiles, couple of extra sockets and a weather strip to finish the floor.
 
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Did a one day “introduction to welding” today as something to do and with a view to convert a LWB into a camper van and some point in the future.

Really interesting day and feel equipped to buy a welder when I’m ready and get started practicing :)

Also made a BEEFY new pen pot for my desk at work, will upload pics soon!
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Did a one day “introduction to welding” today as something to do and with a view to convert a LWB into a camper van and some point in the future.

Really interesting day and feel equipped to buy a welder when I’m ready and get started practicing :)

Also made a BEEFY new pen pot for my desk at work, will upload pics soon!
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Any welding in particular, ie MIG or Arc?
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Arc and MIG. Was a really well set out day that didn’t go into too much detail and focused on the basics and just getting stuck in :)
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Sounds cool :) Never done Arc myself. Would love to have a TIG welder though. Done plenty of MIG work, it's very satisfying when you get it looking pretty.
 
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