Roland wants to know how to get curtain rods to hold better in drywall.A screw driven directly into drywall will not hold at all, unless it is driven into wood behind the drywall. If the wall is hollow where you want to drive the screw you must use some kind of drywall fastener or fastener syste...
Nelson from Glouchester, Ontario made a jewelry box for his wife and put a magnetic catch on it. But the magnet works so well that he can hardly open the box. So he asked, "how do you weaken magnets?"You can't actually weaken the magnet itself, but you can weaken its hold on the metal catch sim...
Michael had a curious question. "What is an escutcheon plate, and what is it used for?"An escutcheon plate is similar to a face plate, although usually round. Its function is to cover the hole which something is inserted through. So those decorative plates in the shower that go around the fauc...
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...
Allan from Chatham, Ontario sent me that red object in the photos above. We all have that box of various screws and fasteners and if you are like me and Allan, we usually dump it out on the table or into a pizza pie pan to be able to sort through it to find the screw we want.Allan pours them int...
David from Kingston, Nova Scotia had a question about a floating shelf he was trying to build himself, but before answering his question I wanted to show some commercial 'floating' shelves that you can purchase.Just what is a 'floating' shelf? It is a shelf that appears to have little or not...
Gates that swing out towards the street present a serious problem for latches. If you mount the latch on the gate itself, it will not work unless you install it on the street side. Out on that side it is simply not secure. If you mount it on the fence, then the shaft that catches the gate is a...
Weather-stripping is used to seal air leaks at any opening in the house that moves -- doors, windows, and traps. If you need to be convinced of the necessity of doing a good job of weather-stripping, check out Air Barriers in the search tab above -- or look at your last heating bill.
Much of ...
Glue or Adhesive?
What is the difference between a glue and an adhesive? Only vocabulary, although often Glue is the term used for DIYers and Adhesive for professionals -- or for some Glue is liquid and Adhesive is gunned from a tube with a caulking gun or applied with a notched trowel. Whether...
The old days of stacking structure
In the old days, before we had specialized hardware like joist hangers, we would always create beams, or low lying ledger boards and place the joists on top of them with some kind of toe-nail attachment.
The arrival of joist hangers
When joist hangers came in...
