repairing things

those plates have burned me more than once

Bad enough I couldn't sleep before this thread yiz animals

sorry I forgot to put "wiring zone" in scare quotes!

I have successsfully used a magnet to locate studs: rub it gently over the plasterboard and it should detect the nails or screws in the studs; once you've found two or three you get an idea of where the studs are.

never thought of that before, it would have to be a very strong magnet I guess? but looking online you can get super strong neodymium magnets for pocket change.

I've had shit luck with those drywall mesh patches, they always left an obvious mound no matter how smooth I got the surface. I've had much better luck actually making the hole big enough to screw a brace in from behind then putting a cut piece of drywall in the opening.

I'm posting this example video because of my crush on Tom Silva:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLGmTzEGSIY

My current house is from 1938 and has several additions over the years (I can see five totally separate wood floor in my upstairs hallway) and the outer walls are made of concrete block so some walls are modern drywall, some are 83 year old plaster and lathe, some are cinder block, some have regular 16" stud spacing, some do not, etc.

The wall I decided to mount guitar hangers turns out to be drywall added over the top of existing plaster and lathe. The studs have 3 inches of wall material over them and couldn't be found without drilling a number of exploratory holes and having to use 5 1/2" screws to mount everything.

I have successsfully used a magnet to locate studs: rub it gently over the plasterboard and it should detect the nails or screws in the studs; once you've found two or three you get an idea of where the studs are.

I have never had any luck with stud finders. Seems like the whole damn wall has a stud behind it. Or none.

But that makes sense. Hell, it's probably how a stud finder works in the first place and not by, I dunno, sonar like I've always thought.

it puts out like a wave or something to measure density, not magnetic

I guess my walls aren't the only things that are dense then.

not a wave i guess. that would be more like sonar. it's based on whether things conduct electricity?

But there you go, it's looking for the metal, not so much the wood.

I've never had much luck with them either, they only seem to work really well if you've got newer construction with metal studs. Allegedly, the best bet with wood studs is to find a stud located along the seam of a drywall panel joint, where there will be more nails to hold the drywall edge in place and thus more chances for the magnet to pick something up.

Our current house is from the 1920's and has thick as fuck plaster walls that render a stud finder pretty much useless.

xpost - some are magnetic, but yes others measure density (the latter are the ones that I never have luck with)

NB I've never tried any of the newer, extra wide ones that are supposedly much better.

The only time I’ve had difficulty with studfinders is when the walls are plaster with those skinny boards behind it. Lath boards?

Yeah, lath.

But there you go, it's looking for the metal, not so much the wood.

― pplains, Tuesday, November 9, 2021 9:58 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

no because other things conduct electricity too. even you. are YOU metal?

i don't really know how it works but i'm going to imagine it's like my fancy scale that says i am 3% bones. like a stud finder for your body.

But wood doesn't conduct electricity! And that's what studs are usually made of!

that's what she said

*points studfinder to chest* it's beeping hahahahaha

I'm just glad it wasn't me that finally broke the stud barrier on this thread.

Electric stud finders are able to measure the dialectric (resistivity) of the material by trying to induce an eddy current. Kind of like reading the electrical "density" - metal have low dialectric, as do humans due to water content; wood and plaster and air have high dialectric.

Aka magic

Wow yet another thread about investigating the dialectic

A good stud finder will actually let you find the exact edge (width) of the stud. It's not just finding a random nail in the stud.

this thread inspired me to dig out a DIY synth project i'd gotten annoyed with and put away years ago and fuck with it some more. thanks thread!

!!! that's fun!

You know what’s not fun? Dealing with a county planning board to rebuild a shed in my backyard that’s covered in lead paint and falling down. The shit they’ve put me through

F'ING SQUEAKY DOOR. I mean i know it's small beer compared to other things in this thread. but ffs. it's also one of those things you only remember you need to do every time you encounter it but forget immediately after.

one of the most mind blowing moments i've ever experienced was when i was hanging out with some of my druggie friends in glasgow doing absolutely nothing and one of their friends came over and drew a can of oil from her handbag, exactly like you might see one drawn in a cartoon, with a needle-like spout and a convex bottom that made a little POINK sound if you pushed it, and she went over to this one door that had squeaked outrageously ever since anyone could remember and she just squirted a couple of drops of oil on the hinges and suddenly it was as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton and i thought to myself tearily, 'once, you could kick a ball in the street'

hah, a bit of 70's nostalgia "every home had a little can of 3 in 1 oil in the pantry" (usually next to some unused carcinogenic weed killer from the 50's with a faded label).

Its magic, reminds me i have one to do downstairs actually

a certain member of this board once oiled the door of the upstairs area in the Lexington because it was squeaking during a quiet acoustic sunday afternoon gigs he was co-hosting. fixed it right up.

The street door here kept catching and then i used WD40 on it and it closed automatically. So the idiot next door started leaving it on the latch and even bringing the handle around so it looked like it was locked. Never knew whether to think he was actually trying to get one over on me and failing massively or just putting himself out an extra bit because he was a twat or what.

i have one that has like so much emulsion paint wedged into the hinge that an oiling lasts a few days at most. i can hear it sqeaking right now

anyone ever tried re-hanging a door that keeps catching? those chippies make it look so easy. I got it so wrong that it was catching the architrave even worse + rather than correct it I just planed it down to fit, which was what I should have done in the first instance!

the father in law is a chippie and he does quite a bit of that and its anything but easy as far as he tells it

thats a big job thatll set u back

now

I wouldnt do it that way, now

turning into The Irish thread!

https://c.tenor.com/ICSlOQOsVtQAAAAd/hank-hill-wd40.gif

doors are so fucking hard, harder than almost any other construction imho

wedge shims, try to close, repeat x1000

Doors are something I would not want to do myself because the cost of doing it wrong is so high.

Re: stud finders, I've had good luck with a free metal detector app on my phone, which I had no idea existed but which does a pretty good job finding nails.

2/3 screws on the bottom hinge of our bathroom door are stripped, so the door is not hanging true and is dragging across the tile. i know how to fix the stripped screws (plug with dowel/matchsticks, etc.) but i haven't done it because i'm scared of getting the door back on the hinges. if the hinges are already there and already in the right place, how hard will it be?

both of my exterior door frames are trapezoids

xp

It's not bad if it is a light, interior door.