Graham's Top Tips

[AMc]

Our previous owners were fans of ornate woodwork and 'half panelled' one room, bar a gap behind the radiator. While I'm 99.99% sure we'll be covering the gap with bookshelves, we decided to make good the gap when we removed the radiator.

Without a planer/thicknesser I've had to fiddle around shimming standard stock to get the panels right, then finally to mitre in the beading. Knowing how rubbish I am with a handsaw and having seen my chippie use a chop saw for almost everything I bought an almighty sliding compound mitre saw for this and other jobs (total cost less than 1 day of chippie time).

So I measure carefully, cut one mitre measure again to check cut the other mitre, repeat and discover they don't meet at 90 degrees ?!?
Top Tip #1 - You must hold the beading the same way up on the saw for both 45 degree cuts or you end up with a piece of expensive kindling.

Lesson learned I measure, cut, measure, cut can't work out why the bead keeps ending up 3-4mm too short?!?
Tip #2 If the laser sight on the saw is aligned for left hand feeding then when you feed the second mitre from the right you need to account for the 3-4mm thickness of the saw blade.

Still it was only 2 lengths of bead at £4 a pop and a few hours of my life....

 

[Schoolmarm]

:lol:

 

[Moo]

And, of course, mitre saws are designed to create exact right-angled corners. Which seldom exist in period properties.

 

[DaveBrigg]

If you ever need to stick the bottom of your curtains to the wall, I can thoroughly recommend the adhesive properties of limewash.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

If you hear the words "uh-oh" immediately after the sound of a toilet flushing, it is already too late.

A king-size waterbed can fill a house of 2000 sq ft to a depth of 4 inches

 

[MdB]

Oh dear.... Do tell all.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The waterbed one, to be honest, was just in a jokey email I was sent the other day, but it's too good not to share. Not that anyone here would have anything as vulgar as a waterbed...

The toilet* one happened to a friend courtesy of her elder son, now aged six and (hopefully) now growing out of the "will this flush?" stage. By a happy coincidence, it was the same younger son whose vocabulary I extended after the stock / colander incident recounted on the very first page of this thread, all those years ago.

*I've just been reminded by a wellwisher that nobody here is vulgar enough to have one of those either

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

My brother's got a waterbed, I'll have to tell him...

 

[Jon Maine]

A king-size water-bed can fill a house of 2000 sq ft to a depth of 4 inches

1 bed 6.5 feet x 5 feet = 32.5 sq ft.

2000 sq ft at 4 inches equals 666.66 recurring cubic feet.

666.66 cubic feet divided by 32.5 sq feet = 20.51ft

Now that's one hell of a deep water-bed................ :lol:

 

[MdB]

2000 ft^2 x 4 in x 1 kg / l = 18.8778977 tonnes :shock:

 

[Jon Maine]

2000 ft^2 x 4 in x 1 kg / l = 18.8778977 tonnes :shock:

With the weight of that and lathes on the ceiling beneath a sure recipe for disaster!!!!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Yep, I did the calculation after posting too, and it's wrong.

Though the melted Eiffel Tower calculation does work (the Eiffel Tower is hardly there at all - if you melted it down onto its base, it would be about 3 inches high)

 

[Jon Maine]

Yep, I did the calculation after posting too, and it's wrong.

Though the melted Eiffel Tower calculation does work (the Eiffel Tower is hardly there at all - if you melted it down onto its base, it would be about 3 inches high)

Like taking one huge scaffolding and flat packing on the floor, rather a lot of air gaps.

 

[Penners]

And, of course, mitre saws are designed to create exact right-angled corners. Which seldom exist in period properties.

Seldom?

You lucky devil.

I've stopped calling them right-angles. They're all wrong-angles.

 

[JoceAndChris]

When ordering a curtain pole, just check you have not confused circumference with diameter. A great mighty lump of a bespoke curtain pole has just arrived, with rings like dinner plates. I think when I erect it the wall is likely to fall down

 

[Moo]

A photo + dimensions would be useful. There may well be people here who could give it a good home.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks for that thought, we'll see what His Lordship thinks when I hold it up - if I can lift it.

 

[Jon Maine]

A photo + dimensions would be useful. There may well be people here who could give it a good home.

Yes please :shock:

Can you make it work?

We had so many to do I had finials made for the ends and brackets to my design and just bought standard 25mm pipe which we then bought a chemical blacking agent for and it worked well. What would have coat £5000 from Jim Lawrence was about a tenth of the price.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh God, you've got 25mm in your great big house, that makes it doubly crazy to have 55mm in this cottage. I'll see how it looks over the weekend, but thanks for concern.

Very clever idea there with yours Jon!

I wanted a particular shade of proper mahogany, and I got it with Jim Lawrence in their mahogany curtain pole. The dimensions looked so reasonable on the website. Here tis (it' s 1.25 metres):

http://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/curtain-poles/mahogany-curtain-poles-brackets-finials-rings/mahogany-curtain-pole-55mm/529/detail
with 14 of these rings
http://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/curtain-poles/mahogany-curtain-poles-brackets-finials-rings/mahogany-rings/562
2 mahogany holdbacks
http://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/curtain-poles/holdbacks/mahogany-holdbacks/2153/detail/sku=6039M
2 brass standard brackets
http://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/curtain-poles/mahogany-curtain-poles-brackets-finials-rings/brackets-for-mahogany-poles/55mm-brass-standard-bracket/3711/de
and 2 mahogany button finials
http://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/curtain-poles/mahogany-curtain-poles-brackets-finials-rings/finials-for-mahogany-poles/button-finial/532/detail/sku=6035M

 

[Moo]

Prompted by those links I've checked against a ruler to see what 55mm actually looks like, and it seems to be exactly the same as the curtain pole we found in a junk shop when we were doing our very first house. We were very lucky, because the window in question was* a rectangular bay and the pole was, too, and came complete with the rings and big fat finials rather like the ones in your link.
I think it's all a question of ceiling height rather than grandeur: our house was a real Pooteresque semi - nothing in the least bit grand - but it did have nine-foot ceilings so we were able to hang quite substantial curtains from the pole.

ps When I showed it proudly to my grandad and told him what a bargain it had been he was amazed. Apparently he'd chucked quite a few of them on the bonfire in his time.


* and, presumably, still is