I had the pleasure in this segment of my TV show to work with a great Italian craftsman (I think tiles are in Italian's blood) on a floor tile job.The still picture you see here doesn't do it justice, but this is one of the tips I learned from Fior Paolucci of Trades Unlimited in Richmond Hill, O...
Leo writes: Hey Jon, my year old house has squeaky ceramic floors in random areas, the sub floor was to be screwed down to prevent this but when I look from the basement I can see the screws poking through were they have missed the floor joist. After complaining, the builder stuck some shimmi...
Changing a faucet is a simple task that you actually should do once a year, to avoid having it ever drip. The general concept is easy enough, but here are some useful working tips:Put a plug or strainer in the drain first, to catch screws and other little parts. This avoids having to extend ...
George sent in his tip of using a pulley or bearing puller to get faucet handles off of the stem without having to bang them all up. He takes out the retaining screw and puts in a headless screw to give him something for the puller to push against. Then the puller just grabs the handle and you ...
Generally, it is best to send circular saw blades out to a sharpening company to have them sharpened because these companies have the equipment and ability to sharpen the blades while keeping them perfectly round. If you try to sharpen circular saw blades yourself, you could shorten some of ...
Isn't it frustrating to go to the store and look at that wall full of spatulas, trowels and glue spreaders. Why are there so many? Which one do you need for your job?First the difference between flexible and rigid spatulas. If you have ever tried to apply thick window putty with a rigid spa...
It is amazing what can be made out of copper, and perhaps even more amazing to discover that still today there exist coppersmiths, plying their trade with many of the same tools used hundreds of years ago. We think of copper today as fancy hoods over kitchen ranges or even copper roofs, particul...
Maria has a door that sticks and she is tired of having to use her hip to open the door, especially in the summer time. So let's look at a few tips about un-sticking doors.It is best to work at the time when it sticks the most. For Maria that is the summer time when the humidity is highest a...
For those of you who simply don't like tools, LePage has come up with the No-Gun caulking tube. Yup. It is caulking in an aerosol dispenser. The really nice trick is that they put an adjustable trigger on the can so that you can set the speed you want it to come out -- giving you a very ni...
Here are two special tools that make working with hinges easier. The first photo shows a hinge scoring tool. It actually has chisel like blades on three sides, laid out to exactly the size of a given hinge. You pound it into the wood with a hammer and the hinge mortise is scored on all three s...
