88v8
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OT... when were screws first used?
Ivor
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Gareth Hughes
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They were being manufactured (and therefore, presumably, used - but what for I'm not sure) by the middle of the 18th century. Reinhold Rucker Angerstein's English travel diary of 1753-6 in part describes his attempts to find out how they were being mass-produced here, so he could take the trade secrets back to Sweden.
biffvernon
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What a bizarre thread. Countersunk slotted brass screw is the only possible answer in a floor board that doesn't want to be nailed.
Penners
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Screw... thread....biffvernon said:
I see what you're doing, Biff.
:lol:
Gareth Hughes
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only accurate :roll:
Penners
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Are you telling me that the Pacific Ocean isn't going to be renamed Bob Dole Ocean? Or that there isn't really a cure for fangirlism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediaeleted_articles_with_freaky_titles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
eleted_articles_with_freaky_titlesJoceAndChris
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:lol:
Thanks for the extra posts - spoilt for choice. I didn't know brass and bronze was used in floorboards - think I'll go for bronze. This same abomination has happened on the lovely Regency floor in the drawing room so it would be worth it to get a few of those in. To be fair to my father-in-law he was in a tearing hurry and fitted us with a bathroom radiator when these screws were put in (the radiator is also a total mistake and has got to go, and he is banned)
I can confirm that this kind of stuff just pours out of Gareth spontaneously; I don't know how he remembers it all.
Thanks for the extra posts - spoilt for choice. I didn't know brass and bronze was used in floorboards - think I'll go for bronze. This same abomination has happened on the lovely Regency floor in the drawing room so it would be worth it to get a few of those in. To be fair to my father-in-law he was in a tearing hurry and fitted us with a bathroom radiator when these screws were put in (the radiator is also a total mistake and has got to go, and he is banned)
Gareth Hughes said:
I can confirm that this kind of stuff just pours out of Gareth spontaneously; I don't know how he remembers it all.
JoceAndChris
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Penners said:Joce, you may be interested to know that those nailheads might be cut nails. These may not be that old - they're still in routine use today.
But I see what you mean about the screwheads.
That is interesting - and tallies with my knowledge that the floor was turned from running in an east-west direction to a south-north direction in the 1980s. The previous owner lifted the floor and somehow got an oil pipe to run down to the breakfast room, as well as installing central heating. He loved reusing old nails and screws that he found when he came so I guess that explains why there's a mixture in the floorboards.
Unfortunately, he replaced a few boards in the dining room with new ones whose colour does not match the old. I toyed with the idea of using stains on the new, but I don't like them all that much so I've just waxed it and hoped for the best. In a few years a rug should cover most of this anyway.
MatthewC
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I didn't realise how dark your floorboards are, Joce, so clearly black screws are the way to go, and I apologise for implying that you might have dust in your lovely clean home! I also love your arches, which are quite similar to my one: 
Of course, I've still got some way to go with the floor tiles!
Matthew
Of course, I've still got some way to go with the floor tiles!Matthew
Feltwell
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JoceAndChris said:
Are you sure Joce? It's not impossible but it would be a a big & expensive job for no benefit I can think of - you'd need to turn the floor joists round as well, probably replacing them with new ones (joists normally run in the "short" direction in a room - unless you've got a square room of course!). Mind you, just to disprove that accepted norm some of the joists in my house run the "long" way, for no apparent logical reason.
I suppose you could take the floorboards up, cover the original joists with ply or new cheap floorboards laid the original way then relay the original boards on top the other way - but why would you want to do that?
skier-hughes
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two of our rooms have cruciform beam structure
biffvernon
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Gareth Hughes said:
What's wrong with Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw#History
Penners
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I'll tell you what's wrong with it. If you search on A1, you get everything except the road.
Somebody needs to do something about that.... :wink:
Somebody needs to do something about that.... :wink:
biffvernon
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That's not true!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1
includes a link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_road
which links to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_road_(Great_Britain)
which takes you via the external links near the bottom of the page to
http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/contents.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1
includes a link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_road
which links to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_road_(Great_Britain)
which takes you via the external links near the bottom of the page to
http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/contents.htm
88v8
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This thread is getting screwy.... :?biffvernon said:
JoceAndChris
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MatthewC said:
Lovely pic of your hallway Matthew! Yes, the arches are a nice feature, four in the hallway here, facing eachother, one in the porch, and one more in the bedroom, another arched alcove in the main room and then a barrel vaulted passageway - it's very typical of the period in which our homes were built, apparently. It's fun picking out that roll moulding on the edge!
Your floor tiles look lovely - that Liberon floor stuff, or something similar, would bring them up a treat.
JoceAndChris
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Feltwell said:
It is indeed the case that the previous owner turned the floorboards around. This has been verified by the previous owner, the previous previous owner who was here in the 70s, and who came round and said "ooh! The floor's moved!" and by an old photo I have.
As the dining room gets the bulk of the prevailing weather this is the worst room for damp. The previous owner found rotted out sections, and damp joists, and made repairs. My guess is that by turning the floorboards round he was able to cut out the worst rot under the window, and reuse the good part of these boards, putting the new ones in the middle where he knew they'd be covered by a rug.
It does sound like a lot of work but BC was a 25 year labour of love for him to save the cottage from dereliction. He treasured every inch of original fabric and made his repairs reproductions of the original as far as possible. He even took all the Regency tiles off the roof himself, repaired, put on new asphalt and put them all back in the same pattern. He was also a highly skilled metal worker and made amazing locks for the doors and repaired all the lead every year.
An astonishing man, really - I just wish he'd understood the difference between cement and lime and I'd have little to do.