repairing things

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.

yeah getting doors back on hinges is OK, it's building new doors that's hard

thanks. sounds good but if i'm shitting with the door open next week i'm going to blame this message board.

both of my exterior door frames are trapezoids

hwat

there is a gap above the door because the top of the frame is not quite horizontal

that is much less bonkers than i hoped it would be

I'm now almost into a week with a knackered boiler but i've remembered and relearned that a cooker is also central heating!

Is it possible I’ve got 1” drywall in my ca 1950 Southern California house? Trying to patch holes and the existing drywall seems extremely thick. I thought 1/2 or 5/8” was standard? Could it be two 1/2” sheets? This is ceiling and interior wall.

Never heard of 1" drywall, but with older houses, anything goes. Our house is from 1928 and when we gutted our bathroom years ago, you could see the label on the back of the adjoining walls and it had a label with the year 1928. Our contractor could not believe there was drywall that old.

I think it would be unusual for two sheets to be used back to back and that would be easy to figure out.

i was getting a roof resealed today but now the roofer guys say the wood underneath is soft and they have to entirely redo the roof :(

Oh no. Get a second opinion! We have two quotes for some roof repairs, one over 1700, one less than 600. It's a small flat section in front of a recessed dormer window, the second guy says it should be done with scaffolding but he can do it without... might have to get a third quote.

yeah we will. i’m almost more skeptical of low estimates than high. in any case i feel very much like i have zero leverage or knowledge to evaluate what’s been proposed

i fixed the cold tap and my bf's laptop

that little red/blue pvc tab on top of the tap can be a bugger to remove!

oh it was FAR more dramatic than that

you got the adjustable spanner of mass destruction out?

no