Over the years I have had the occasion to teach working with tools to kids as young as 3 years old. At whatever age the secret is to know the individual kids attention span and prepair the work to give them a feeling of completion and success within those limits. Regular sessions of success and...
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...
When you want to attach tiles where you would have to support them while the adhesive dries, like on a sloped surface or a ceiling, Chester from Metochosin, BC has a solution.
Put the ceramic adhesive around the outside edge and then apply some hot glue to the centre. Push it into place and hold...
Tooling Caulking
Brad, who works in the trade of caullking high rise buildings, sent in the tip of dipping a shaped piece of wood into Sunlight detergent before tooling the caulking. This gives the caulking the exact shape you want, but nothing sticks to the wooden tool. Note that his tool is n...
Oh how many times has the wobbling ceiling fan driven you crazy. Sometimes it is acceptable on one speed but not another. Sometimes it just click, click, clicks so badly that you can't get to sleep. Fixing it is easy, but not fast. There are a large number of things that could be wrong so work yo...
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...
Caulking joints on the outside of the house will not save you energy and will not stop cold air drafts. That is because almost all sidings are vented specifically to allow the wind behind the siding to help keep the wall dry. If you do not have a modern sealed house-wrap all around your house und...
Before you start fixing anything, you really need to know if it is the chair or the floor that wobbles. If the chair only wobbles in one or two spots in the room, it is probably the floor that is out of line.
CHECKING THE FLOOR
To check the floor, either use a laser beam or a string line tha...
When you build that basement wall with economy lumber, and one stud is just not flat with the others, there is a way to fix that quickly to end up with a flat wall.
IDENTIFY THE BULGING OUT SIDE OF ANY STUD
Then in the middle of the bow, saw cut about 2/3rds of the way ...
Several of you have sent in the tip of using sawdust or wood shavings, mixing it with glue to make a putty, rather than buying a commercial putty. So I put my props maker to work. Using all the same wood shavings, but three different glues he got three different results. First a tip he came up wi...
