Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.
A bit over three years ago, I bought a decrepit old house in need of general upgrades and repairs. Like any building that has been neglected for long periods of time, there is always hidden damage that just doesn’t show up, or register when doing the pre-purchase inspection. In my journey to begin the repairs to the house I found some structural issues complicated by improper mechanical installations that eventually led to the following picture…
Over the years, this tool has saved me on many occasions. I have used it to install 110 pound I-beams in my old shop in Florida, and recently used it to remove a non-structural beam over a door opening of what used to be the coal bin in this house. Beats the heck out of having to call someone over to help.
The beam itself needed to be removed so that I could re-rout the return air duct and will be used to repair the following abortion on the adjacent structural support wall.
This seems to have been originally created by whomever installed the original coal fired furnace duct work. This was further aggravated by the “professional crew” that installed the most recent furnace and ducting, by covering it all up. The area over head in the house is the access hall to the back side of the house. Anyways, waste not, want not.
This is just one of many adjustments to make on this long journey I bought myself into. The house has good bones, just needed someone to catch up on all the neglect.
Wow, that does look like a handy tool. Could have used it this summer lifting a deck beam. Who makes it?
It’s produced by Telpro Inc. and has 150lb capacity. As it sits, it can reach over ten foot ceilings, and there are extensions that can be added to achieve much higher ones. I will have to ask my brother how high, as he bought one of the extensions for his. I have never needed an extension myself.
This was the first tool that my brothers wife stated, “OK, you can go buy one of these” after he had borrowed mine to do some work on one of his old houses. She was a bit tired of being the third hand when he installed sheetrock, for many reasons.
Ha, nice job!
Funny how tools seem to gravitate to any flat surface within reach when working on the house.
Is that a Fein Drill I see JMG?
Most assuredly there DR99… 😉
Fast became my favorite shortly after receiving it.
JMG wrote:
On 11/4/2016 at 2:42 PM, JMG said:Funny how tools seem to gravitate to any flat surface within reach when working on the house.
Yes, I pull my centipede out and it’s full before I know it!
The back story about what started me on this particular series of repairs started one day when I noticed that my basement stairs had started to collapse on one side at the top…
When I tried to inspect the reason behind this problem I encountered the previously mentioned professional duct installation…
If you look real close, you can see the heat pipes being supported by tying a strap to a lone electrical wire that had been stretched out around the air return. In order to even see the problem from this side I had to drop all of this mess which started with a spaghetti cluster around the other side of the stairs on the furnace…
I don’t know about you but this looks nothing like any furnace air return I have ever seen before. Have to continue this in another post as I have run into a problem uploading images.
Anyways, when I dropped the duct out of the way, which I have decided that was the worst installation I have ever run into in more than thirty years in construction, I found this…
It seems that the main support tie in for the head of the stairs happened to be in the way, so the furnace installer just cut it away. They were even proud enough of their work that they left a sticker with company name and address on it so I would know who to blame….
As the stairs themselves are of dubious construction and will need to be replaced, I fabricated a temporary solution to hold them until after I correct the HVAC issues.
This was simply to use three lag screws to attach the cross support to the header. The new stair assembly will be supported by doug fir 4x down to the cement floor. The process of jacking up the stairs also caused another issue to appear on the outer rim joist that I am currently working through so that I can continue with some of the other structural issues that were on the list from the beginning of this journey. It’s all like a series of dominoes tied into a huge jigsaw puzzle…
Ugh yeah one of those repairs that lead to another repair which goes on almost endlessly….
Where’s that one video where the guy goes to buy a lightbulb and ends up pulling the engine out of the car lol
Yeah, these repairs all string from one of the first projects on the other side of the house. Found water damage in the back bedroom. Followed it downstairs where I had to remove the ceiling. Found different water damage under the bath but tied to the same joists damaged at the outside wall. Damage from the bath continued to the joists on the other side of the center support wall and need to get the furnace out of the way to ease the addition of new joists, which relates to the current issue, along with window replacement allowing the addition of reinforcement to support the outer end of the joists. Then we get to go back upstairs to work on the water damage after all the sub-structure work. Dominoes and jigsaw puzzle…
In order to work my way back towards the start of this house project, I need to move some existing wiring, most of which needs a complete update and replacement. Ninety percent of the house was on one single circuit and this included the basement lighting as well as the furnace. Last week I ran some of the new can lights, and a good part of today was spent running a circuit to a new service disconnect for the new furnace location, along with a temporary feed to its current spot.
One day last week was also spent moving the main gas feed to clear a jumble of unnecessary fittings as well as to allow some access for new joists. Part of another day was spent adding a ground rod and wire to remove the older connection that had been grounded to the water pipes, which at some point had been tied into a new plastic main feed… (not that grounding electricity to water pipes was a good idea in the first place).
After getting the furnace set up on its own circuit, I backtracked the old wire to see if by chance it could be easily disconnected…
I think that I will leave this for another day.
by the time your done you’ll have a new house
One could wish for it to be like a new house.@Jronman But fifty years of neglect is a tough obstacle to clear completely, and I will be happy if it is a comfortable living space when all projects are complete.
As you work on an old house, and attempt to correct issues created by others, the house starts to tell you its story. Working in the crawl space yesterday, I found that the house was originally covered in a red cedar lap siding. At some point someone decided to whitewash this, and then later the house was wrapped in a layer of tar paper and re-covered with the old cement board shingle type siding. I don’t even want to think about whether or not that it was the asbestos laced material. After the addition with the crawl space was added on the back end, the house was covered over again with aluminum siding, which is how it sits today. So, the main section of this house has three layers of siding on it. Sort of like the old shingle roof on the garage that has four layers on it.
I am glad that the materials that have been covered up are not prone to dry rot, and will only have to make surface repairs to the current flavor. Unlike the garage which is a separate structure and is going to require quite a bit a exterior work to correct some of its issues, where the materials covered up have rotted away, leaving minimal adhesion of the siding in places.
JMG wrote:
40 minutes ago, JMG said:One could wish for it to be like a new house.@Jronman But fifty years of neglect is a tough obstacle to clear completely, and I will be happy if it is a comfortable living space when all projects are complete.
As you work on an old house, and attempt to correct issues created by others, the house starts to tell you its story. Working in the crawl space yesterday, I found that the house was originally covered in a red cedar lap siding. At some point someone decided to whitewash this, and then later the house was wrapped in a layer of tar paper and re-covered with the old cement board shingle type siding. I don’t even want to think about whether or not that it was the asbestos laced material. After the addition with the crawl space was added on the back end, the house was covered over again with aluminum siding, which is how it sits today. So, the main section of this house has three layers of siding on it. Sort of like the old shingle roof on the garage that has four layers on it.
I am glad that the materials that have been covered up are not prone to dry rot, and will only have to make surface repairs to the current flavor. Unlike the garage which is a separate structure and is going to require quite a bit a exterior work to correct some of its issues, where the materials covered up have rotted away, leaving minimal adhesion of the siding in places.
Sounds about right, fortunately, I think the previous owners at my house had already removed all the old siding, I can only see in small sections where it used to be ship lap wood siding, with multiple layers of pains it appears, hard to tell for sure, as one part used to be a porch and it was converted into living space. The underside of the porch was actually cement floor and with a basement underneath, joining into the main part of the basement. So they supported a layer of cement, instead of just pouring on fill.
Today’s weapon of choice;
One Ramset D60.
I purchased this tool back in 1984 (approx.), and while it does not see much use these days, it is still an indispensable item in my arsenal. Labels fell off of it a couple of years ago, but it is still going strong after all these years. I don’t normally use this type of tool to attach lumber to cinder block, unless in an extreme hurry, or as in this case needing to drive one fastener to hold the board in place so that I can drill holes for the hammer tacks I will be using.
When I was jacking up the stairs, with the intention of placing supports under the joists in a effort to level out the floors above, I found that the outer ends of the short joists under the exterior door were pushing up at the same rate, wedging the bottom edge of the door itself when trying to open it. In order to mitigate this problem, I am in the process of installing a two by eight on the block wall under a two by four installed under the floor joists. This will allow me to screw down through the two by four, tying down the joists and reinforcing the outer rim in general. The two by eight was chosen for the vertical member to tie in the top two layers of block, lowering the overall stress on the top edge of the wall when I start jacking the joists around.
Board prepped and relieved with a cordless planer to allow clearance of deviations in the mortar joint, as well as the steel angle used to reinforce the window opening.
Notice the compression mark in the 2x from trying to pre-stress the opening before screwing the angle iron in place.
This is the first window that I changed out, and the addition of just one flat two by six at the top of the window was not enough to cure the problem of deflection in that short span. This one also highlighted a couple of other small issues with the windows themselves that will be addressed on the rest before installing them. The future openings will also have angle iron relieved into and attached to the inner as well as outer edges of the top plate for reinforcement. One of the other openings may require an additional piece like this one due to the number of joists located over its location.
I’m no engineer but it looks like you’re thinking this through carefully and doing what works in your situation. Plus it’s night and day better than how you found it
KnarlyCarl wrote:
4 hours ago, KnarlyCarl said:I’m no engineer but it looks like you’re thinking this through carefully and doing what works in your situation. Plus it’s night and day better than how you found it
Both of my grandfathers were engineers. Maybe some of it rubbed off on me… Their area of expertise was in waterworks engineering, and I was told once that they had worked on the Manhattan Project at some point, but no one ever offered any details about it.
A couple of days ago I started a small project that was supposed to take two or three hours to complete. Two days later, the new heat duct in the bathroom is finally attached in its new location.
Haven’t used that rigging ax in years. I also decided to keep the new Makita impact because that auto function setting is awesome.
Right from the git go, I discovered that I did not have a three inch hole saw in my kit (just about every other size, but not the one I needed… typical). So, off to the local box store to pick up a carbide tipped tool. Lowes was the only store in the area that showed any stock for carbide hole saws and I picked up the Spyder brand they had. Honestly, I am not impressed with its performance. Maybe I am used to Relton’s quality, but the Spyder just did not seem aggressive enough and took much longer to cut a hole in the 2x than I expected it to. I started on a low rpm setting, but quickly found that it worked better at higher speed, which also made the kick backs, when it bound in the cut, a bit harder to handle.
After punching the hole for the vertical duct, I dropped the old register feed pipe, which turned out to be held in place by a single piece of hanger wire (no screws or other fasteners to be found.. well, maybe a little duct tape). Gotta love those professional work ethics I keep encountering here. At this point, I realized that I also needed to re-route some water pipes and move the temporary in line water heater before installing the flex duct. I started this because I needed the old heat pipe out of the way so that I could repair the floor joists.
From this…
To this…
And what was left here was still in the way of the repairs.
A couple of weeks back when I got the Testo, I drew down the AC compressor and disconnected the lines and power, then moved the compressor itself into the garage for the winter. The plan is for all of the mechanical to run between the joists,where possible when finished, instead of the spaghetti mess that has been the rule currently found. Also the compressor will be elevated out of the dirt when reinstalled.
So the water pipes and heater have been moved (one more trip to the store for some fittings, etc.). The flex duct is installed and one more pipe is left to remove and I will have clearance for the jacks and access to the water damaged joists. So much for the three hour tour…
Typical domino effect on a house like that! Nice work!
I was wondering about the Spyder brand of hole saws. Talked to a remodel contractor we plumbing work for, and he said he likes the Spyder, but i’m wondering if there are better ones out there like the Milwaukee or dewalt new ones
I ended up getting a bit side tracked this week and started working on a different part of the jigsaw puzzle…
Basically it was finishing sections of the concrete floor in areas where the equipment is being moved to, or going to be covered by build outs for appliances. Oi vay, that epoxy finish stinks…
Jacks are in place on both sides of the wall so that the damaged top plate on the center wall can be removed.
For safety purposes, all jack posts have steel plates attached to the base.
Cross member is attached with hurricane ties. When I get to the outer wall, I will probably tie a longer cross beam into the joists before attaching the posts, as I need to push five joists at the same time in that location. That’s much further down the list though.
Prior to this current distraction, and after also, I was pulling old wires out of the way and then dropping most of what was left of the old ceiling, along with moving the storage shelving and equipment around to be able to do so… During this I found one of those all too common issues that I dread having to find in an old house. Uncapped live wires. This instance was not as bad as my brother and I have found in past projects, but still annoying all the same. This time, I found an old doorbell transformer still hooked into the primary circuit with the low voltage wires still attached, cut, and laying in the dust on the sheet rock ceiling panel. When I first moved into the house, I had removed the transformer for the door bell that was currently in use (I detest electric door bells), so this find was a bit unexpected. By the time I finish working on this house, there will be NO other issues like this for anyone else to find…
The last couple of days have been dedicated in part to finally curing the problem of sewer gas in the basement. When I first moved in I assumed that it was due to the old washer drain not having a trap on it and capped that off. After that it was getting the wax ring replaced on the toilet (the cause of all the damage over the center wall). While both of those issues contributed to the gas problem, they were not the worst offender. The last spot to work on was the floor drain, but the steel cover was wedged tight into the concrete, and I left it for quite awhile.
Couple of days ago I finally went to work on it and it took a bit over a half hour to work the cover up out of the drain hole to find this…
Seems the trap plugged up and it was easier to just remove the clean out plug and throw it away than to pull the backwater device and snake the trap. Yeah, can’t fix stupid… just clean up behind it.
Have to give them props though. It did look like they made an attempt at removing the device as one tab on it was slightly bent. Thank god for SDS hammers…
I used an old drum type key chucked in the regular drill to finish spinning it out after breaking it loose. The last person to install it failed to use any compound, and it was seized solid. Took close to a minute of hammering with the SDS to get it to break free.
After getting the float clear, I ran a rod down into the trap and found mostly sludge. I then chased down my short snake, but could not get the bitch to turn the corner in the trap… grrrr. I ended up down at Lowes putting together something else to make the attempt.
Worked so much better that trying to force the snake into a short sharp bend.
Cover has been ground and finished. Now all I have to do is drill out and chase the threads on the retaining screw points and order a new backwater device. None of the local stores that are open on the weekend carry items like this anymore… They would be happy to order something though. :angry: Overall I spent as much time scrounging up parts and tools as I did actually working on the drain itself.
Spent some time pulling out the rest of the sheet rock on the ceiling and cleaning up any nails and other debris left over from past adjustments to the basement. I then moved several of the storage shelf units for the third or fourth time…
I have six of these shelf units, all purchased from Costco over a period of a few years. Price on them has always been around $150 each. They have been invaluable as temporary/permanent storage. I prefer the original units powder coat finish over the current matte black flavor they sell. Easier to clean off. Moving this time was to clear space to knock a hole in the floor to install a backwater valve closest to the outside wall…
At least the drain line was easy to locate. B)
Eventually I will have to empty this area too. Still have some minor water intrusion to fix on the window wall and need to sand down the old finish on the floors before applying the epoxy coat. Structural issues and mechanical first though. This room is slated to be my general workshop space, specifically this area pictured. The first picture will be the general storage area once the mechanical issues are all fixed, so those shelf units are close to their final home.
Drive pin anchors… I always used to call them hammer tacks.
I prefer to use these when I need good lateral shear strength. A little bit less fussy than tap-cons when it comes to hole size… A 1/4″ hole into both materials and no worries about stripping anything out.
I was in a real hurry one time to beat the weather when replacing the lumber on my trailer deck and used these anchors. They held up for over ten years of hard use with less than a ten percent failure rate anchored in the 1/4″ steel trailer frame. Just had to seat them fully before driving the wedge in. Most of the failures were due to someone dragging scrap steel and whatnot across them later in their life.
Basement has been dry enough to work in this last week after at least four floods this spring, and much cooler than doing anything outside, so I got back to working on the repairs and whatnot down there. Taking the furnace apart today so that I could move it out of the current work area, I found that the original installer had left the installation packet inside of the furnace leaning up against the gas heat plenum. This is just another one of those frustrating issues that makes me wonder how lucky one can be that the house did not burn down due to professional ignorance or laziness. The plastic pack had melted onto the frame of the unit and the papers were a bit brown in color at the point of contact, and I am going to get a headache from shaking my head again… To top it off, the first paragraph of the instructions is a note to the installer on what to do with the instruction packet when they complete the furnace installation, in large letters.
The rest of the assembly is going to need some work as well due to incredibly poor workmanship and lack of sealant materials at joints in the system. Not that I am surprised after the previous work on ducting that I removed, but frustrating all the same.
Today’s project: Begin joist repairs from water damage due to previous occupants not wanting to replace the wax ring on the toilet. Guess they preferred the smell over spending a couple of dollars on a replacement ring.
Spent a large portion of the day getting to this point, moving jacks around and trying different points and configurations to get enough pressure to remove and replace a section of the old top plate and get this one joist into a vertical position. Knocked something off the kitchen counter at one point when a pressure point let loose. Gotta love old houses.
This is all just preliminary work before tearing out the bath for complete plumbing update at a later date.
Ever have a tool that you’ve wondered why you still have it after hauling it around for more than ten years without using it?
I really don’t remember what project I bought this porta power kit for, but it just paid for itself, again. Took an incredible amount of force to get this joist to vertical and jacking the floor was not an option in this area.
It’s a bit frustrating when the old injuries kick in and interrupt the work process. Have to take another break for a few days to let things settle down.
West side of the basement ended up taking about five hours per joist to get them locked in. The foam in the wall is left over material from filling in other areas/gaps and is just core filler to be covered over with concrete patch material, when I end up finding enough left over foam to finish the core.
The joists on the east side of the basement have been much easier to install and have only taken two hours or so apiece due to the type of damage on the outer frame that allowed me to jack each joist individually. Water damage again that was just covered up instead of being repaired. You have to wonder how long the leaks were left for this much damage to appear. Next on the list is to replace this window while reinforcing the framing before I can install the last three joists in this part of the project. Window would not close completely last winter so… lotsa foam.
Got a little side tracked the last few days digging after hardware and jumping into some plumbing prep.
Amazing what you collect over the years in the name of saving money, and as seemingly usual, most of what I dug out was either too short or too long for what I needed. What ended up being the right length for the first bit were some old J bolts left over from my shop expansion more than fifteen years ago. Less than twenty five percent of the bolts I dug out will be usable on the current process. Meh…
Just covering the what-ifs here and stabilizing the sub structure, while using up excess hardware. One of the old joists was distorted bad enough that I had to cut through it to relieve the pressure and bring it back into alignment with the new one.
Those new Diablo carbide tip recip blades are awesome. I am going to go ahead and add in another joist on this side and then bolt them together. Might be a bit overkill, but better safe than sorry and the extra doug fir joist only adds about fifteen dollars to the cost of the project.
On the plumbing side, I spent the morning finishing up cutting a second hole through the wall using the Makita X2 rotary paired with a Bosch 4 3/8 inch Speed Core bit.
The bit is a bit over spec for the hammers rating, but it worked surprisingly well, and while I would not want to use this combination on a day to day basis, it’s fine for the occasional one off. Saves me from having to invest in an SDS max platform, as I do not do enough of this type of work to justify the expense.
A couple of notes: This unit is a power hog when stressing it out like this and the 4ah batteries that came with it are a bit short on energy in this situation. Also, the low battery indicators are not visible when drilling in a corner like this as they are placed on the left side of the hammer’s case. It would have been much better if they had placed them in the bottom center of the D handle so that they would be visible when working from either side. The unit did get a bit warm as well, and gripping the lower front in the area of the brushes without gloves was a bit uncomfortable at times. Overall though, I am really happy with the performance to date and have no regrets in having added it to my collection.
In the fair warnings department… Generally most of us have probably heard that when cutting fresh jalepenos that you never rub your eyes. Bad things happen if you do. On a secondary side of chopping the peppers, if you need to use the bathroom after handling them you should absolutely scrub your hands before doing so. Man, talk about a hot crotch rocket…
Gives new meaning to the Elvis Presley song “Burnin Love”.
Rim plate reinforcement assembly for the new window.
This will allow me to attach trim strips where needed and give better support than just a flat two by six in the limited space available.
The Drill with handle that bit easily. Core bit in cinderblock is child’s play. It’s the poured reinforced that pushes the tool.
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Not all the old concrete block was equal in density. These were hard enough that if any real feed pressure was applied the anti-kick would engage.
This section has been a long time coming…
The last two joists over the window were a right pain to get locked in. The two damaged ones were badly deformed from the combination of water damage, age, and original poor grade of lumber used.
Spent a bit of time with the bar clamps and jacks getting things lined up and tied in. Time to change hats…
These old steel frame basement windows were just not made to be removed.
They were originally installed as the basement block was finished out and before the rim plate was added. Dropped into vertical grooves in the side blocks and set into a sloped bed of mud, bottom and sides. SDS hammer is a wonderful tool to have for clearing the excess mortar prior to cutting away the frame. I can remember having to do things like this with a cold chisel and a single jack.
Back to the beginning. Started this small repair today.
Set up, prep, and clean up seem to take longer than the the actual work does.
Gonna go take a break while the initial patch work sets up…
This mornings project: Bumped the flu vent the other day and the existing mortar patch holding the pipe in place fell out.
Just another pita to deal with.
Trying to keep it close to the vertical surface while still being able to get a screw into the pipe. Break time again.
With all the rain that is supposed to be headed this way next week, and all of the flooding problems I have had this year, I decided to jump off on this dreaded project.
You never know what you are going to find under an old slab, and I have been procrastinating the start of getting this part of the plumbing work completed. The Makita saw has plenty of power to horse through the cuts, but the dust collection port is only marginally effective. It did a good job of drawing anything off that made it to the back side of the saw, but a majority of the dust just shot out the front. Might have been better if the dust port had been mounted on the front edge of the blade guard instead of the tail, at least for this type of dust.
Floor in this section was less than 3 1/2″ thick, so a couple of strikes with a six pounder was all that was needed to get started.
Took most of the morning to get to this point. Could not stick a shovel into the dirt without getting jammed up by a chunk of concrete left behind by the original plumbing crew. Filled up a five gallon bucket with pieces of concrete. Turns out the soil pipe is of the larger variety at this point and I have the wrong size check valve on hand, so off to Menards I go… All in all, no major surprises or problems at this point, so I feel fortunate.
Spent a majority of the day trying to get this one finished up. Assembled the parts last night and let them set up. Then cut into the pipe this morning. Iron pipe was in much better condition than expected. Ended up buying a ten foot section of six inch pipe for less than a one foot section for the riser. Ten foot of pipe at Lowes was almost the same price as a two foot section at Menards. (Couldn’t find the riser kit they supposedly had in stock)
Hard part is over at least, but I am beat. Forgot to pick up a decent pair of knee pads before hitting the point of no return. Cement is going to have to wait until I recover from tamping all that dirt back into place with the short sledge.
A short note on the backflow device that was mounted at the floor drain. It was useful for stopping sewage from running back up the floor drain itself, but when the water level exceeded a normal flow and drain rate, it acted like a plug and ended up keeping the flood water trapped in the basement for upwards of thirty six hours. It also only stopped the back flow only at that trap in the floor leaving possible issues in other areas, along with stopping sludge in the trap itself and causing another form of plug. The backwater valve in the main pipe was the best solution overall, as the float ball at the drain ended up being just another problem child.
So happy that is over with. Concrete work is definitely not my favorite pastime.
Tying up loose ends today. Need to fit a top plate over these blocks as this is where the return air feeds over the wall between the joists. Will be able to get a much better seal than what was here before…
The old gravity return air used to feed from two different spots in the house, but one of the locations was not optimal for the forced air system currently in play and was blocked off long ago. Need to install pre-filters in between two joist sections under the floor grate here to limit any necessary future duct cleaning. Just trying to make the best of a less than optimal situation.
Old growth pine used in the original construction of the house versus the new growth timber we have access to today.
The house was constructed in 1943, and I have my doubts that the lumber was kiln dried due to the deformities I have run into as I demo/repair existing areas of the home. I have salvaged any usable material I could find, with limited success, and spent a bit of time pulling nails and whatnot. It has highlighted the difference materials available from then and now. Makes me wonder about the general differences in strength and amount of movement between then and now.
Not a fan of the white wood the industry sells us these days and prefer to purchase yellow pine or spruce for stud materials, and doug fir for structural support, at least for my own projects.
Disabilities have been acting up over the last few days, so light duty items moved to the top of the list. Measuring and scribbling on the walls for plumbing and wall locations, general tool clean up, some painting of wall sealant, and shifting some items around.
Found a couple of quirks on the Flexvolt miter… The sand cast finish on the blade and motor housing is a dirt trap, especially when cutting pine with a high pitch content, and doesn’t vacuum or dust off well. Had to go at it with a rag, and found that the inside edges of the plastic blade guard are really sharp, along with some other parts too. Also, the small channel behind the blade that directs the dust towards the exhaust tube clogs up in a hurry, detracting from the already suspect dust collection of the saw. Next, when mounted on this saw stand, the weight of the unit becomes a factor and can wobble front to back during use as the mount locations make it significantly tail heavy when cutting at ninety degrees. Going to change out the blade as well. The thin kerf blade that came with the saw just flexes too much and does not handle knots well enough for my tastes (thought the blade was going to explode on one that popped out during a cut). Saw has excellent power on batteries though, and overall is very smooth in operation. Not planning on giving it up any time soon.
You have come a long way over the past year! Great work.
Quick test to check out how well the Makita diamond wheel works…
I believe this is the same model wheel that Eric reviewed on the TIA main page recently. This was about five minutes worth, and it does an excellent job of stripping up the old paint and knocking down any lumps on the surface. I am quickly finding out how uneven this floor really is. If I wear this four inch one out, I might try the next size up.
The old paint was reacting with the epoxy finish and delaminating, so the new tool will get its workout. It doesn’t look like it will be a major project with that grinding setup, just a bit of a strain on the ol back. I am really liking the optional accessories Makita has for their grinders. Although not made specifically for the cordless units, the dust shrouds can be made to work on them with minimal adjustment. The only difference seems to be the location of the rotational slot on the tool for the locator pin on the shroud.
It took a bit over three hours to rough out about 2/5 of the room area, but it was all my back could stand at one go. The Makita diamond wheel is holding up quite well, with a bit of wear showing on the outer edges, but still cutting away.
Took a break and then worked through the set up for this next back moidering project…
One form for the concrete pad for the AC system with sump drain running through it. The compressor was basically sitting in the dirt when I bought the house, as nothing much will grow in this corner. Should make a decent space to mount a hose reel too.
Okay, that hurt… About six hours to prep, mix nine 80lb bags, trowel it out, brush the surface, pull forms, finish & brush edges, and clean everything up. After that it was Yeti time.
The Milwaukee mud mixer worked like a champ, but it turns out it has a resonance issue when moving horizontally through the mix, and will at times feel like it is grinding its way through the material instead of smoothly mixing. Seems like the software controls are not entirely in sync with the motor under pressure.
Testing out the nibbler today.
Sure made short work of that pipe. Power toys are so much more fun than the old hand tools.