When air gets into hot water radiators, either from new water in the system or even from problems with seals, it can make noise and reduce the heating effectiveness of the system. That running water noise is actually caused by a big air bubble at the top of a radiator and the water falls through ...
It may surprise you to find out, but for an optimum cut in wood, you should have fewer teeth on your saw blade when the wood is thicker. We know that you want fewer, even different types of teeth, for ripping than for cross cutting. But both when ripping or cross cutting, as the material gets thi...
Often in constructing a house, the sequence of putting up walls, applying outside sheathing and installing insulation batts can leave the outside corner as a hollow spot with no insulation. The carpentry work was done and the hollow corner closed and hidden before the guys with the fiberglass eve...
ENTRANCE DOOR HORIZONTAL ADJUSTMENTS
Entrance doors often warp from season to season and are hard to close in the winter and rattle in the summer. This requires moving the strike plate horizontally -- but the good fit changes from season to season. Don't adjust it at all -- but rather follow...
Low flow toilets: do they work? do they not work? This is an ongoing very interesting debate. This history of the evolution was first written in 2001. For the latest updates on this story and current data on toilets that do work, click here.
The average Canadian household uses between 7 hundred...
After you have mastered the basics of woodturning then your only limit is your own creativity. One of the most challanging projects, conceptually and technically is reversed turning, where you turn both the inside and the outside of spindle like objects. These can be just artistic objects, or bea...
The wood lathe is my favourite woodworking tool - hands down. Follow this link to me simply having fun.
The most important safety detail in woodturning, after a face mask, is to learn to properly place, and constantly adjust, the chisel support. It should always be close to the wood to leave you...
Contact cement is a uniquely useful adhesive. It will adhere to most all surfaces and hence is often the in-between for sticking two different materials together.
It comes in two basic varieties, solvent based and water based, the later often being called "green" or "solvent free". Although thes...
Epoxy is the most water resistant of all grouts and is probably one of the most durable, making it a good grout for a ceramic tile kitchen counter top where you will be scrubbing it clean all the time. But there are some tips for working with it.
It comes as a kit with three pouches: the A and B...
Scratches on furniture can often be camouflaged by any of a number of simple techniques, especially if the scratch follows somewhat the grain of the wood.
WIPE-ON POLY
When there is no stain on the wood, so the finish is actually the natural colour of the wood, simply putting a bit more fini...
