DIY manuals - are they still a thing?

[George Miles]

I've just bought the Home Extension Haynes manual, they also have Piano Manual etc etc

I've bought Insulate and Weatherize and several others from Taunton Books

[g]

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

I've got the full bound set of "The Knack" sat here if you want some projects.

[harry]

Barry Bucknell anyone............

[John Rumm]

Which in one sense at least means they period features are preserved and can be uncovered later.

[newshound]

Also master of the spiral ratchet screwdriver. With flat blades. Obviously everything was pilot drilled *and* assembled beforehand.

[John Rumm]

Yup, I don't recall seeing many of his programs (A bit before my time really), but the prowess with the Yankee driver did stick in my mind. I recall using one for the first time, and being a bit disappointed :-) But then, I had not appreciated then that for the TV shows all the holes were pre-drilled, and they had rehearsed the build first - so the screws already knew where they were going!

[tabbypurr]

Yankee screwdrivers are hopeless compared to even the cheapest cordless screwdriver. It's not just the terrible mechanism, the drill bit geometry was way off too. Plus any sort of powerered screwdriver doesn't work well in an era of mostly slotted screws. It was just better than nothing.

NT

[alan_m]

Isn't "period feature" just estate agent speak for junk that need modernisation?

Not all period features are good and some are just a PITA when it comes to decorating.

I was persuaded once to start stripping the heavily paint period stair spindles because the original bare wood would look nice. After stripping

3 it was evident that poor quality wood had been used and the spindles were nailed top and bottom with the large nail holes filled with a soft putty.

[alan_m]

Having used cordless drills in screwdriver mode for very many years I purchased a cordless impact driver. It's another tool I wish I had purchased earlier.

Also first time use of some concrete screws that don't require raw plugs, just drill a 4mm pilot hole and wack them in with a impact driver. This was through a thick layer of 100 year old plaster and into brick. I'm not sure the cordless drill in the screwdriver mode would have had enough umph to fully tighten the concrete screw.

I was impressed by how easy the impact driver coped with self drill metal screws.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah, the 'stripped pine' problem. If you are going to paint it you dont use top quality wood and you dont bother to blind fix.

I keep telling people that pine was the 19th and early 20th century equivalent of MDF...

[Thomas Prufer]

No they aren't, IME. Not if "nothing" is a regular screwdriver, which they were supposed to replace...

The yankee is mostly for slotted screws. (I have one single Philips bit for my yankee screwdriver, bought in the hen's tooth department). On mine; I need to press hard to get the bit to turn, the bit then slips, and chews up the wood.

And as I need to press hard, it does this very well.

Spawn of the devil, they are, promising an easy job and then ruining it.

Thomas Prufer

[Halmyre]

I had a flat with all the doors panelled with hardboard and wooden trim tacked on. I decided to have them 'dipped and stripped' and set about removing the hardboard, only to find the moulding had been removed and bits of plasterboard had been fixed into each recessed panel. So that had to be stripped out as well (all this the evening before the doors were due to be collected), and then new moulding made up and fixed in place once the doors had been returned. Worth it in the end though, I think!

[spuorgelgoog]

Do they still do car manuals?

I thought they'd gone over to fictional works like How To Maintain Your Starship Enterprise.

Owain

[charles]

I bought my first Yankee screwdriver in 1960 - long before any cordless screwdriver appeared on the market. I still use it and its big brother which I bought a few years later.

[newshound]

+1, impact drivers are amazing, aren't they!

[John Rumm]

For Philistines yes :-)

(although it does really depend on the feature. e.g. High ceilings are a period feature - that does not mean they need modernizing).

Yeah, well when they were built "unpainted" meant, not finished yet!

[tabbypurr]

I got one from Lidl. It's pathetic & never used.

NT

[tabbypurr]

except that it looks nice and copes with normal household use. MDF doesn't look good & deteriorates from there.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

To be fair, the studio carpenters in TV used them a lot - to say strengthen a set after building, and where it wobbled etc. Drove screws straight in with them. Am told the change to pozidrive cut down on minor injuries considerably.

But I was never able to make one work like that. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

True. But then no such thing as a cordless screwdriver existed in the

1950s.