Recent content by Windy*miller

But bear in mind (and you did ask this) that although it sounds like a sensible thing to do it is almost cetainly against the rules for you to do it yourself. I'm kind of assuming that if you were an electrician you wouldn't be asking the question.

I've just bought some old dining chairs on ebay. They need restoring, but they only cost twenty quid including a table, so there's not a huge amount riding on the project. I've no idea what the wood is, but they are reasonably dark and finished with a fairly shiny varnish. They don't have to be...

I'm trying to find somewhere to buy some lengths of round timber to use as table legs (75mm or so diameter), but without success. All my googling leads me to either fence posts or curtain poles (which would be ok but seem to be extraordinarily expensive). Any ideas?

I don't get it with the nail guns for wooden flooring unless you are doing a really large area. I did 20 m2 or so last year by hand, drilling small holes through the boards at 45 degrees to get the angle right and avoid splitting then using a hammer and punch. For that area I am certain that...

I would be be nervous about using wall brackets. Essentially brackets are designed to carry vertical loads and if your working surface is a sensible length then you are going to be tending to twist the bracket out of the wall when you put any weight on the end of it. It might be strong enough...

What are you selling bsm?

I admire them enormously. I was at a craft and food show at Blenheim recently and the quality of everything on display was really really good. There was all sorts of stuff - woodwork, artwork, clothes, blacksmithing, loads of foodstuffs - and plenty of people admiring it, but hardly anything...

I was getting new tyres put on Mrs WM's car the other day and while I was waiting I wandered across the road to browse round our local toolstore which is expensive but usually pretty good quality. Just inside the door they had a couple of sawhorses with a strip of mdf laid between them (about 4...

The guide rail above (red saw) is one I made recently. The comment about loss of depth of cut is absolutely justified but it was specifically made to cut 18mm mdf and 12mm birch ply which it does really well. Max depth of cut would be about 24mm. The blue masking tape is now gone. It didn't...

I bought a single sheet of 12mm birch ply from Creffields in Tilehurst, Berkshire (www.creffields.co.uk) for £25 cash. They are very friendly but not much used to customers turning up and collecting so the guy just took the took the money and put it straight in the staff Christmas party tin...

Ditto.

I agree with wooblycogs. For boring stuff they still seem to be the best, certainly compared with B&Q etc, but for more exotic things they're just another one on the list to compare. Some of their tools' user's reviews I've found interesting though.

I think Dewalt is an odd company. I have a DW jigsaw which I can honestly say is the only tool I have that I don't enjoy using (it's really not very good), but I also have DW707 mitre saw, which I love. The company started out in 1922 when Mr Dewalt invented the radial arm saw, so I figure that...

Very classy.

My mother died a couple of years ago and I still have the container her ashes came from the undertaker in. It's a green plastic screw top item with external dimensions 230 x 125 x 125 mm. Effective but not classy. I recall that it was about 2/3 full but clearly that wasn't something I was paying...