twinslot shelving

[Stephen]

Hello,

This morning I wanted to put up some twin slot shelving. I thought it won't take me long with my sds drill.

I was very unlucky. All the holes I drilled, seemed to go into the mortar between the bricks, and what should have been 7mm holes ended up big enough to put a finger into!

I moved the support slightly to the side and drilled them all again and this time I was very relieved when red brick dust came out everywhere. I have had to polyfilla my other set of holes and will have to paint over them, which creates another job!

Is it just a matter of luck drilling in the right place or is there a technique I am not familiar with?

Thanks, Stephen.

[Tim Watts]

Luck...

Though with some modern soft bricks, I have been grateful to hit the mortar as it was stronger!

[PeterC]

Your technique's not the worst - I usually hit the edge or corner of a brick. Favourite seems to be, with a 2-hole fixing, that the lower, locating and lightly loaded screw goes into brick and the upper screw... you've guessed it!

[spuorgelgoog]

Drill hole. Squidge in some pollyfiller. Push the wallplug in but do not insert screw.

Allow pollyfiller to harden fully before screwing up.

Owain

[Jonno]

Stephen scribbled

Make some 'wedges' out of wood offcuts with a chistel and whack them in with a hammer. That's how it was done before the arrival of rawlplugs.

[David Lang]

Assuming the wall is rendered and you can't see the mortar joints, drill a pilot hole to find brick then measure down in 65mm increments.