ProDave

My bargain basement firestick arrived today and i have just set it up. Setup wasn't too painful. All the iplayer etc apps had to be downloaded. The only one that gave grief was My5. It told me to go and register, When i entered the URL to register I got a 404. Eventually I figured you can use My5 without registering. It all seems to work okay even playing okay on our slow broadband. And just as i thought, the commercial channels disable the fast forward when the adverts are on. I might have mentioned that irritates me (my PVR lets me FF through the ads) I suspect I will be using it only for stuff I have missed or the PVR crashed. The web browser built in would be far too clumsy to use without a keyboard to use with it.

I bought one from Screwfix for the static caravan but it was more expensive than the BES one that Peter linked to above.

The main issue is that timber (looks like softwood loglap planks) is desperately crying out to be sanded back to bare wood and re coated with a good outdoor wood preservative. That would be my No 1 priority job. It is always going to suffer from rain bounce wetting the bottom planks unless you raised the whole thing on a brick dwarf wall. fitting some guttering to the roof would reduce that a lot and would be my No 2 job. Notice the back, where there is no run off from the roof, is looking a lot better. It's difficult to see what base it is on. I think it might just be gravel? Digging around the outside and filling with stones to make a French drain would help keep the ground dry and there looks to be plenty of room to do that with the building in place.

Score and snap works for a straight line that goes all the way across the board. Score the plasterboard side for a clean cut where it matters. For anything else use a panel saw and cut it. Beware, plasterboard blunts a saw quickly, so I have an old already blunt saw kept especially for cutting plasterboard.

I was meaning when at the last minute SWMBO changed the layout of our en-suite. And before that, changed the layout of the main bathroom. By the time I got to solvent welding the bath and basin waste, the layout was set in stone (or set in welded PVC)

One advantage of push fit 110mm is when "someone" changes the position of the toilet, it's easy to undo it and move it.

If I have an awkward bit to cut and only 1 bit of material (or expensive material) I make a cardboard template and get that right before cutting the real stuff.

For me I mostly used push fit for the 110mm with some solvent weld where things were a bit tight (often a SW fitting is a bit smaller than the same push fit) For the smaller stuff, 50 / 40 / 30mm I use solvent weld except for things like sink traps.

I suspect the dowels will need to be quite a bit smaller than the hole or you will never get them in.

No doubt a quirk of the low energy consumption in these troubled times, but Octopus actually charging a negative rate for electricity this afternoon. Mind you the peak rate of nearly 20p later on is what kills this for me.

Take 2 at cutting an external corner. (a different corner this time) This time the cut done with the chop saw. Better, but not perfect.

Lets have some more positive input to the thread. The bits I have finished, the architrave and skirting on the upstairs doors. All upstairs doors have their archtrave. Only the left hand door on the first picture has it's proper oak door stop (I only bought 2 lengths to try it and the merchant is now closed) The rest of the doors still have a scrappy temporary bit of door stop. Remember these are the door frames I made out of left over engineered oak floor boards. It is pleasing that the end result of frames made of floor boards, oak doors, solid oak door stops, and veneered oak architrave and skirtings all end up with pretty much the same finish and match together nicely. Only the landing side has the corner blocks. Those are purely to enable one stock length of architrave to do two sides of a door with hardly any waste. The bedroom sides of the door frames have no corner block with the architrave going down to the floor.

I am pretty sure all the steps in "a flight" have to be the same, I wonder if BR interpret the two halves as a different "flight"? Do you have different floor to floor heights between ground and first and between first and second? If not I would be wanting to make all stairs the same.

Yep that's now I do the internal corners. It's the external ones I am struggling with.

I have one of those. I used it in the last house for the same thing with no better results. Even those have a surprising amount of slack in them. I suspect this is the hardest joinery cut to get right.

I take it you have tried ez-start? BIL seems to always need that to start his Fergie.

I have a chop saw but I suspect it would end up with a worse cut. Anyway this is it: That is not fixed in any way, just stood there, and the wood is bare at the moment. If I could fill it with something that could be oiled, or oil it first and fill it with something that would look a similar colour it might be okay. Lots of wood fillers say they can be painted or stained, I have not found one yet that says it can be oiled. I suspect part of the problem is with the corner bead that the plasterer used, the angle may be a bit more than 90 degrees. I think I have about 8 external corners to do like this in total, most of them around door reveals like this one.

I will post pictures later, well probably tomorrow. More a case of the slot in the mitre block I was using is slightly wider than the saw blade so allows a certain amount of "wobble" resulting in a less than perfect cut. Wait for the pictures later.

Was the dumper burning much oil? Watch out for worn bores and rings and that "engine killer" the diesel engine running away burning lubrication oil. Usually only stops when it self destructs. If that happens the best advice is run.

I have just tried cutting a skirting external angle, and not happy with the results of the first try. If I can't get it right I see two options. Fit little corner pieces on all internal and external corners as per a few posts above. OR fill the imperfections with wood filler. Anyone have experience of a wood filler, than when sanded and painted with Osmo Oil would make a near invisible joint in Oak? Or is that asking too much?

Which bit are you referring to? Will it be used as a fireplace or what?

Toolstation are the latest to p me off. Everything was in stock when I placed the order. 3 days later an email to say an item was out of stock. Off to find an alternative from CPC who at the moment still seem to be processing orders and dispatching in a couple of hours.

And if the suppliers are shut down, what will the lorry driver do? break into the suppliers premesis to get the materials?

You need to determine exactly which planning policy it failed. Is it "open countryside" or "not sustainable" or both? Then see if there is a way around either or both.

I ordered some stuff from toolstation 2 days ago. All in stock when I hit the button. Expected it to arrive today. Instead an email telling me delivery is postponed because one item is out of stock. Warehouses getting empty and supply chain issues. Shame the email did not come 5 minutes earlier before I placed an order with CPC.