I spent a frustrating hour trying to tidy up some wiring in the garage yesterday. I was trying to use some Tower cable clips (good quality I believe) to clip some 1.5 mm Twin & Earth to the wall. Is there a knack to doing this or something most clips end up with bent nails or flying out from under the hammer.
So, what's the best size of hammer to use? What are the best make of clips to use? Do they normally go in with one blow?
I have several meters of 10mm Earth cable to clip to a wall soon and would like it to look neat when I have finished.
Cable clips are OK into timber, but if your masonry wall fights back, give up at the start and save yourself the time and effort. Even if you get them up, they've no holding power.
they do seem to have a habit of doing that! There is definitely a knack, not sure I know what it is, but I used a larger hammer and a more positive blow, obviously fingers need to be out of the way!
If they still won't go in, Tower also sell some "pin plugs" specially designed for cable clips, IIRC you drill a 5mm hole, insert plug and then knock cable clip into that. I got some at B&Q.
Steel conduit and singles, great fun bending and threading it, looks good and will take plenty of knocks in a garage. I use it a lot on CCTV installs and there is a satisfying permanency about it.
Tower are normally quite good. For hard walls, a heavier hammer and a few blows tends to work better than lots of tapping away with a smaller one. If you can't nail into the bricks/blocks then try into the mortar course.
Tower pin plugs are another good solution for nail proof stuff!
To hold and steady so you can thump with a hammer, push the nail through a piece of card or stout paper, then you can hold it in place with fingers out of the way. If this fails resort to what others have posted.
Screwfix do a fixing which you screw to the wall with a plug - usual stuff - which then takes a cable tie. Used these to fix co-ax on the outside of the house and found them much better than drilling and plugging for cable grips. Also, you can add extra cables or remove the cables then refix without any more drilling and screwing.
You can get wallplugs to take the nail. It's a lot slower, of course, having to drill a hole for them, but about the only way into hard materials. B&Q sell them - alongside the boxes of clips.
Another variation is if you must hold a short nail by hand, don't do it the "natural" way between thumb and index finger. Instead hold it between two fingers with the back of your hand facing the wall, and the palm facing the hammer. If you do miss the nail it is way less painful than hitting the sides of your thumb and finger!
Some types of wall are just like that - give up. Drill tiny holes for the nail and squirt resin in, or else medium holes and knock a dowel in. Long ago I sometimes screwed a standard cable clip to a wall, and it works if the screw's particularly thin, but you wont find such things at screwfix etc, and I dont know where you would get them from.
I used to like the old flat strip cable clips best, but theyre no longer legal for mains wiring. Theyre a flat strip of very thin metal, you nail or screw them to the wall, then bend them over the cable. One side pokes through a slot in the other side, fold over and the cable's going nowhere.
25mm size 4 twinthreads? I just bought some for that very purpose. Not sure whether I'll have to drill a slightly bigger hole in the clip, but there's plenty of room for that
Must admit to not having seen these on sale or used for quite some time, but against the regs??
since when?
To the OP, IMHO tower type clips are completely unsatisfactory for any type of hard or brittle ceramic material. Though as you've found, you can expect little luck on brickwork, you might stand a chance into blockwork. Even then the penetration depth is most unlikely to be satisfactory. The problem with blockwork is that the voids are large relative to the depth of a tower clip. Greater penetration is needed to allow for enough bonding of the ceramic particles to each other around the area of the hole, and enough area of grip onto the penetrating pin or dowel.
Mortar too, is unlikely to provide a long term hold as in time even the best mix stands a high risk of deteriorating into powder.
Either drill & plug a hole for a wooden or plastic dowel then nail or screw. At least 25mm, better 35mm, is needed to seat the screw or nail into the wall. It pays to squirt in a dollop of a setting "Megabond" or similar PVA based adhesive to fix the dowel.
Alternatively, & IMHO the best solution, is to fix a timber batten (tanalised or similar) to the wall.
Lastly use stainless screws in an environment like this with near exposure to outside air.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.