DIY Home repairs

My place is a duplex built in 1951, purchased by me in 1990.
Plaster & button board walls…had screw in fuses…yikes.
I like it and get to ‘pick’ my neighbors.

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Very cool app! Omg do I undercharge

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I will never get tired of watching old home building and renovation videos:

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That money left on the table for families literally gets in the table.

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Here’s a guy that has what looks to be maybe a 20’ long 6x8, two sawhorses and a thickness planer. These are screen shots of the video. He has to be quick to get the beam lifted at both ends. He has only a few moments to move while the planer is between horses. I wonder if there was snipe at either end. I’ve never seen this done before. I think it’s a great solution! I don’t know how to post a video this large. I think it’s slick as greased snot in your back pocket!

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That worm drive saw Larry Haun is using is a Rockwell. I bought a Rockwell just like that, only I think that Larry’s may have a plastic rear/trigger handle. Mine is all metal and a heavy dog by today’s standards. I’ll see if I can find it. I may have given it to the kid. I’ve given him a lot of my tools. I bought mine in the late 1970s. The saw I was using when I “retired” (had a stroke) is a DeWalt Hypoid drive. It’s a great saw! Light with lots of power.

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Larry is a legend, we watched his videos at trade school. Even one wanted to drive a nail like Larry. I’ll forever call a scrap piece of 2 x whatever a “piece of tubba scrap”

Thanks for sharing this!

Larry and his brother built at least half the houses in California. (This may not be true)
The chuck Norris of carpentry!

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This is some wild technique. Not sure it’s any better than getting some rollers supporting either end of the wood and pushing it through. I’ve got one of those DeWalt planers and would probably slip a disk trying this.

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hold my beer https://youtube.com/shorts/t6nFj2f_sZY?si=KPVe9A_fucuAuBz_

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That would be me if I wanted to plane timbers, because I’m to cheap to buy these. :grin:

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He was the California Framer in California Framer.
He would melt soap on the nails they would use, so essentially invented “sinkers” before the nail manufacturers caught on.
He invented the framing hammer by taking a rigging axe with its wide hammer head, chopping the axe off and welding on a nail pulling claw.

I’m sure he has more industry firsts to his name that I’m unaware of.

Back when Rockwell and Delta was some quality!
My first construction job was in California and I’ve mostly worked West Coast, but I know until fairly recently once you crossed the continental divide, they still used sidewinder saws with the blade on the “wrong side” :grin:
I remember seeing the History Channel show that said the worm drive saw was invented originally to cut down sugar cane.

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IMO, this is worse, but if you don’t have the room or can’t afford rollers or maybe some other reason I’m not seeing, this seems like a real, albeit crazy, solution.

You can’t compare a power plane to a thickness planer. They are different tools.

Thoroughly amazing, but not a thickness planer.

I had an old DeltaRockwell belt sander. I think it was a 4x20. It looked like a diesel/electric train engine and weighed nearly as much, but boy howdy did it ever get the job done! I seriously wish I knew where it went.

You’re correct, those were high quality tools! And good for building upper body strength! HA!

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Larry wrote a great memoir that’s on my summer reading list, seems like a perfect book to devour on a camping trip sitting on a chair or bench I’ll build myself when I get there:

Used copies start around $9, $20 new

I also have this interview saved to watch while I’m trimming soon, it’s with his widow and his daughter and seems like a good framing (hahaha) of his life before I read the book:

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This is true, but this is the “new” industry standard for planing timbers by timber framers, vs the slick and hand planes used by our forefathers and hand tool purists.

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Speaking of timber framing, do you know stereotomy? In practical terms, it’s the way every large and complex building in Europe was built from the 13th century until the mid-19th century when math was first being introduced. That’s right. None of those beautiful cathedrals, government buildings, palaces and large fine homes were built using any math. Just as Notre Dame is being re-built. No math!

If you are serious about timber framing, this is the real deal! Honestly, anyone really interested in virtually any aspect of woodworking should really check out (up close) those two models you see in the link. I consider myself to be a fairly smart person. I was a woodworker in one fashion or another for about twenty years, and I wouldn’t have the slightest clue about how to even think about building either of those.

“Stereotomy – Art du Trait is not something that can or can’t be incorporated into a design or structure. Anyone designing, constructing, or thinking in 3D, uses notions of Stereotomy. More precisely, Stereotomy is a way of obtaining real lengths and angles for lay out. Mastering the ability to think, draw, and lay out in 3D, helps the individual to understand 3D space in order for a design to be clear in your own mind. Simply put, the ability to envision and lay out joinery (mortise and tenon) is using Stereotomy – Art du Trait. More complex, having mastered the understanding of Stereotomy allows the individual to have a clear and concise understanding of voluminous 3D pieces intersecting with one another in space. Going back to the question, anyone who designs uses notions of Stereotomy. So yes, Stereotomy is naturally always incorporated into our designs, but so too is everyone else’s without them necessarily knowing.” Patrick Moore

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I am familiar with stereotomy, but I am no seasoned timber framer, much less a master builder, - esoteric-esque, golden ratio, devine antennae builder.
Show me what to build and I might be able to reproduce it, but design and engineering might lead my structure to disaster.

I am proficient with the Mill Rule and use it’s principles daily in my trade
I am slightly practiced with the Square Rule and I can conceptually comprehend the French Scribe method of
laying out timbers.

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I believe the Mill Rule is an aspect of stereotomy, as are all of the other things you mentioned. The traditional French carpenter goes through a very rigorous seven year apprenticeship that follows what is now the Tour de France bicycle race. Apprentices are required to literally move their place of residence and train under a different master each year for, I believe, seven years.

For anyone interested in learning the basics, you may want to keep the name Patrick Moore in your mind. “In 2013, [he] became the first and only woodworker from the Americas to complete the traditional “Tour-de-France” of carpentry training and to be recognized as a Compagnon Passant Charpentier. Patrick teaches Stereotomy at schools in the United States and Canada, using his own designs to help contemporary woodworkers access these sophisticated techniques.”

My son took a kind of intro to stereotomy type class last year in Chicago taught by one of Moore’s students. His local paid for it. This is the project they built. It was more of a timber framing class using stereotomy than straight stereotomy. Because it was only a five day class, they didn’t do the drawings themselves. The instructor brought those and the class worked from them. This full size roof segment has an offset kingpost with different pitches on each plane. Traditionally, this would have been built using only mortise and tenon joinery.

Currently, my son is enrolled in an on-line stereotomy class. I think it’s a three year class (if I’m not mistaken, which I often am) that’s broken up into several months long segments. This is a model he built of essentially that same roof segment less one rafter on each roof plane. Masking tape holding the joints together at this point.

This is all of the information required to build that roof segment. Every angle, length and pitch… It’s all there. Never any math involved.

And finally, nice sawhorse, eh? A student built this. I couldn’t build that if my life depended on it, and it’s “just” a (not so simple) saw horse! Fuck! Okay, I’m looking at that sawhorse and I see something odd. Look at the very bottom of the leg closest to you. The light seems to be under part of that foot and there appears to be a bit of a shadow in an odd place. I have a difficult time believing that’s a mistake, but it does look odd to my eye.

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Pick up a used pex crumpled off of facebook marketplace or Similar. Fix sink. If no other plumbing work in the foreseeable future. Sell tool on Facebook marketplace.
Cheaper than paying a plumber.

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I got it done yesterday guys. Thanks for all your help. It’s very much appreciated. After I finished, I cleaned up and had to relax, eat, and get some other stuff done.

The cost estimator @thainer posted, and then one I looked up, definitely added a little extra motivation. I just decided to get this faucet done and then deal with any valve stop problem afterwards. I’ll share some more details later.

Oh no, I wasn’t planning on getting the Milwaukee powered tool. Just mentioning it - I thought it was slick.

Yup. I duno why, but I had a figure of something like $150-200 for the crimping tool(s). What do you and others recommend as far as brand for these clamp style pex tool? There are some on amazon, IWISS iCrimp for around $40 cad. And I’m picturing this tool and pex maybe even being useful for garden related stuff.

Eastern canada. We know a plumber, but I think he may be retired or something now. Good guy though, has the “independant mechanic” traits and vibe to him.

Pretty likely. There are definitely some things I could “fix” right now if I had the pex tool and materials. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your help and sentiments.

Thanks again, everyone.

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This is my old framing axe. You can see there’s a cut for pulling nails, but nobody I knew ever used it, at least not for that. It stressed the handle too much.

I was consistent with my strike, but perhaps a bit high. That remains me, a little bit high. I had new teeth ground in one time only. You loose weight with too many grindings. I believe that’s a 24oz axe.

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