Any idea what this is?

[JoeJoe]

I am not certain, but it could possibly have come with a wall clock.

[Tim Lamb]

In message <IpKdnUqlb7ceSTzCnZ2dnUU78f [e-mail]>, JoeJoe [e-mail] writes

Wall hanger. Bash the pins into the plaster.

[JoeJoe]

Silly me, now it all makes sense. Couldn't understand why the pins where on the "wrong" side of it...

Cheers. Going to hide in the corner in shame.

[Clive Arthur]

They can work well. The pins don't just hold it to the wall, they also compress the plaster 'sideways' making it stronger. The same technique is often used in tunnelling or mining where rockbolts are used to apply radial stress to the rock.

[jrwalliker]

They also make a real mess of the wall when you remove them.

John

[John Rumm]

Its a so called "hardwall" hanger. Clomp the 4 hardened pins with a hammer until they are flush with the top, and it will stay put nicely on hard masonry and plasters.

[John Rumm]

There is a trick to removing them, that just leaves 4 very small holes.

Take a light hammer, and tap gently on one side a few times. Then on the opposite side. Repeat three or four times and it will work loose and come out clean.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

better than those sticky command crap

[Andrew]

If I did that with the awful plasterwork in my house there would be hold the size of a golfball. Any sort of impact and the basecoat would turn into dust.

Very weak sand/cement basecoat with a skim of grey gypsum plaster that is barely a couple of mm's thick.

In fact they would never grip in the first place once the plaster had fully dried out.

[Andrew]

Are you watching the US election results or just a nightowl ?

[charles]

I found they worked very well in my daughter's modern flat. I wouldn't use them in this house (1908 build)

[John Rumm]

The latter... One of those cases of watching a film at 11:30, before realising it was 2 hours long, then faffing about a bit catching up on some email etc before retiring. Plus sprog 2 did not need depositing on the college bus at sparrows fart this morning, so I could sleep in until the customers got to work :-)

[Andrew]

Your daughters walls will presumably be drylined with plasterboard on dabs, not probably not a skim coat. 12.5 mm plasterboard is dense enough to hold those fixings.

With dry, crumbly sand/cement basecoat -forget it. any sort of drilling results in a hole in the plaster far wider than the drill bit itself. The sand/cement basecoat just seems to disintegrate into fine dust.

Your house will use lime plaster, with horsehair on lathes (where there is no underlying brick wall). Similar problem to sand/cement basecoat.

[charles]

yes,

Yes. Been here for 43 years; I know all about it.