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I found fitting a heat recovery ventilator that runs constantly at a trickle did help reduce bathroom mould a fair bit (and my bank balance quite a lot !). The downsides of the one I got is that that it uses a humidistat, and makes a racket. You can't manually reduce it back to a trickle when...

That's mixing issues. Overstepping your planning permission is quite separate to building regs. Abd that does seem to be enforced.

Keeping a secret supply of cable in the old colours - whoever would do that ? :wink: Is it just my perception, or are building regs widely flouted by professionals anyway ? The stove install I mentioned earlier by a builder had studwork timber within a few inches of a stainless flex liner...

There's an awful lot of houses with work done before various sections of the building regs. There's an awful lot of work that was done that should be subject to building control, but lacks the proper paperwork either through DIY or trademen doing work they aren't officially competent to do, or...

It would be quite nice if they were made stiff in the hole with a sprung wire in a groove, like some bench dogs or a 4mm banana plug as used in school physics class ?

IMHO - they have sensed that you are competent so will be able to see their crappy workmanship for what it is, which is why they don't want the job. Good tradesmen are like parrots' teeth round here. I have had straight up incompetent, or really nice guys but unfortunately are unreliable. I...

I bought large Scotch eye augers made in Japan. They were a single spiral, and looked for all the world like they were cast somehow. Do work well.

I used Corby bolts on the kitchen knives I have rehandled. Riveting brass rod into thin hardwood struck me as too fraught.

You are quite right. Is there anyone anywhere making hand brace augers ? I think there might be some Irwin ones from South America (Brazil ?) made of cheese-like steel. Some NOS ones still lurking fron Ray Iles, Dieter Schmidt. There are plenty of round shanked augers for power drills, but I...

Two things I missed from my last post - indeed a super repair and a lucky find on eBay. But also: _btMbEZGW0I

There are quite a few patterns. The Russell Jennings, made by flattening a round bar and twisting (I saw a great video of one of the last people doing this at Clico, but can't remember where). Then the Irwin pattern with the solid core - there are some imposters in Andy's box above. The...

Early surform ? I have a thing, "Aven trimatool" or something like that, which was a surform like tool but held a cutter like a rasp or float - very coarse teeth. It was absolutely great for sculpting big car body filler bodges. But it had the useful feature that a screw adjuster allowed you...

I usually go with Danish oil, not so yellowing as linseed. But then, I don't want the stark white look. It does not take long for the colour to settle to a rich tea biscuit sort of tone which I like. I'm uneasy with osmo raw, as if I understand it, it is basically staining the wood white...

I've got a 16kg bag from Morrisons. But only a bit of yeast. I'll be watching that Sourdough video tomorrow.

Actually, old rowing blades were made with quite a few bits of wood glued together to make the spoon. The shaft was hollow, made as 2 parts of lighter softwood, often laminated with a thin layer of ash front and back. I collected some from the F Collar works in Oxford, and got a factory...

It's a dangerous business trying to predict the future. I recall an old Grand Designs where the whole house had cable trays of wired ethernet everywhere. Before WiFi came along. It was probably only Cat5 at best too. I wonder where we are going. Broadcast services are in decline, except...

Prepare yourself for disappointment... Grapes are perfect for making wine - lots of sugar, acidity, colour and tannin from the skins if you chose to use them, and come complete with their own dusting of yeast. In fact it is harder to keep grape juice from becoming wine than to make it. Pea...

My Dad used to make "country wines". I struggle a bit with some of the ideas - in purist circles it seems to be taken as a fault for the wine to actually taste of its ingredients, and in any case most of the recipies use ingredients quite lacking in sugars, so it is actually fermented...

Cellos and rock - it must be time for Apocalyptica ! Etns5DS3Txo 4sxtHSXOdKA

I used to solder the centre pin of TV antenna connections, but noticed nobody else seemed to bother. Just poking it in seems to work fine - I guess even in absence of a solid comnection there's enough capacitive coupling. But I guess soldered is better. When dealing with EMC issues, it is...