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Evening to you all


Lee Morton

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Evening to everyone,

 

My name is Lee and I am a chippy by trade and have just stumbled across Buildhub whilst searching the Internet far and wide for various questions and answers in relation to self building.

 

I am currently about halfway through the build for myself located in Whitstable, Kent and have to say it is the most stressful but rewarding thing I have done.

Having had a fair bit of time to wait before I could start the build, I managed to research and find suppliers of materials in advance and has been vital as I unfortunately do not have a "Grand Designs" budget. 

 Along with my father who is also in the trade, we have built the (stick build) timber frame on site and plan to do the majority of the internal work ourselves i.e kitchen, bathroom, insulating, airtightness and plaster boarding. The remaining jobs will obviously need specialist trades on the job. 

 

I have worked on new build sites before but have never really needed to get involved in the administrative side and that has been a real eye opener but again just another step to getting to the finish line. 

 

I'm sure I will have some questions for you guys if you are able to help it would be much appreciated and in turn if I can be any help I will.

 

Thanks

Lee

 

 

  

 

 

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Hi Lee and welcome to the forum. As well as lots of self builders we have at least two electricians (I am one of them) and a plumber on here so those trades are covered. Plus an enourmous wealth of knowledge about building in general. So you should feel at home here. We lok forward to you sharing your project with us.
 

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Good luck with your build.  Time is the one thing you will need a lot of if you are doing it all yourself - we are & time seems to fly by with progress being slower than I would like. Patience is the biggest asset.

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Hi Lee. I too am building in Whitstable already know a couple of other self builders / upgraders in our neck of the woods and have got loads of useful stuff here, hope I contribute where I can. Not a tradesman but am reasonably handy. Materials prices is a constant battle as you have said.

 

Anyway sounds like another one for the Kent chapter as @PeterStarck is not far away and there are others on here as well I think. 

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Welcome..... my hubby is a carpenter too and grew up in the building game, so he knows that side too. If we can ever help, we will.... there is a surprising amount of knowledge that is floating about in the old brain cells...... but most of ours is planning and stuff as we are not in full swing yet! My OCD does help with looking into companies so I have picked up quite a bit of knowledge about products etc.... (if it's any use?) 

 

Anyway.... good luck with everything and I am more than happy to help if I can ??

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On 28/12/2016 at 01:02, Tennentslager said:

Or Terry's mangled fingers????

 

Not sure about that one, though I do admit to having the top of an index finger having a slightly flattened profile and somewhat deadened touch senses as a result of a mindfart using a power plane a few years back.  They plane off finger tips very effectively if you are silly enough to let them get near the cutter.

 

Anyway, welcome!

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I too did this once. BE WARNED, an electric plane can be VERY dangerous.

 

In my case I just caught it on the final bit of it's spin down after use. I stuck "the flap" back down with a plaster and my finger recovered, apart from a scar. Be VERY careful with these, at full tilt they could do some serious damage.
 

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Yup, I lost about 3mm -- shreds lost amongst the wood shaving, so nothing to stick back.  This also planed off the ends of the touch nerves.  No fancy stitching or skin graft, just a smooth red weal the size of a fingerprint and the skin slowly grew back from the rim in, so now I am left with a lump of scar tissue in the centre and a crap sense of touch on that pad, not that this is at all obvious to others.  Still, it was extremely painful.  Nothing like a bit of pain like this  to teach you to treat your power tools with a lot of respect.      

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I've got one of these, as well as a 4mm pass / 23mm rebating planer, BFOff router, and god knows what else that will try and take me out if I ever turn my back on it. 

When I use that chop saw, it's with the same concentration and respect every time. That would remove an entire hand without you even feeling it. I also use it to cut aluminium and brass tile edge trims, for the laser precise cuts, and it gets the heart pumping I can tell you. 

The one tool i strongly distrust / dislike / whatever is the 18v circular saw. Powerful enough to do all I ask of it, but underpowered enough to catch and bite. This lifts the saw up and out, backwards, straight towards you. My golden rule with the circular saws is never to be behind it, but always to be beside it and out of its path, should it decide to 'do one'. I put my 230v circular down a while back whilst the blade was still at near full wallop. Only problem was I hadn't used it for a while and the first cut saw the blade guard wedge at top dead centre leaving the full blade exposed. When that hit the concrete floor I nearly shat a brick. Must have travelled at least a metre in about a half second, but with my lobster like grip only tightening as my stupid brain refused to let it go :(

Watch yourselves people, as power tools don't take hostages. ;)   

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@Nickfromwales, can you trench with that DeWalt, i.e. do through housings? Betting you can and accurately too! Depth stop that you can lock?

 

My 255mm Evolution chop saw is fine for rough stuff like stud work, sheds, roofs and conduit/scaffold poles (bathrooms? :) ). For precision stuff forget it. Tried a through housing and it must have been +/-3mm at the bottom of the trench! I have a radial arm DeWalt for through housing / lap jointing stuff but that's bench mounted up in the old stable and it's a trek.

 

I once fell off a ladder with a leccy plane. I escaped serious injury but cut through the flex on the way down.....short lead on it now.....must replace.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

I've got one of these, as well as a 4mm pass / 23mm rebating planer, BFOff router, and god knows what else that will try and take me out if I ever turn my back on it. 

When I use that chop saw, it's with the same concentration and respect every time. That would remove an entire hand without you even feeling it. I also use it to cut aluminium and brass tile edge trims, for the laser precise cuts, and it gets the heart pumping I can tell you. 

The one tool i strongly distrust / dislike / whatever is the 18v circular saw. Powerful enough to do all I ask of it, but underpowered enough to catch and bite. This lifts the saw up and out, backwards, straight towards you. My golden rule with the circular saws is never to be behind it, but always to be beside it and out of its path, should it decide to 'do one'. I put my 230v circular down a while back whilst the blade was still at near full wallop. Only problem was I hadn't used it for a while and the first cut saw the blade guard wedge at top dead centre leaving the full blade exposed. When that hit the concrete floor I nearly shat a brick. Must have travelled at least a metre in about a half second, but with my lobster like grip only tightening as my stupid brain refused to let it go :(

Watch yourselves people, as power tools don't take hostages. ;)   

 

There was a story a while back in the press about a chippy who had a similar problem with the blade guard not returning on putting the saw down, saw took off, he refused to let go ( like you Nick) swept in an arch ( he was bent over putting the saw down on the ground) and it took his old man off ?, su

rgery to re attach was sucessfull. It's all these stories that make me very respectful of power tools.

 

nice chop saw by the way ( jealous)?

Edited by joe90
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On site circa and one of the MANY accidents was a 110V circular saw being put down and running along the floor. Still going it went down an open lift shaft (no toe boards) and only stopped when hit the floor of the shaft.

 

A couple of years before that had a guy go thru the board he was cutting and when the guard failed to return through the top of his thigh! Luckily only a shallow cut and he was back the next day.

 

Leaky petrol can on a scaffold.....right by the access ladder. Guys went for breakfast, came back and fired up the grinder. Sparks ignited the petrol sodden boards between them and the ladder! :)

 

 

 

 

 

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