Getting Handy in 2013 - Man Skills

[EvilPie]

Shower attachments are generally universal.  Chance asking at B&Q if you can buy the connector bit on it's own.  Can't remember if they can be got as an individual item or if they only come with the hose.  When you do get the new bit...don't use any tool to tighten it!!!  Hand tighten only or you'll be sorry later.  

Wouldn't worry about that. It'll only be a tenner for the full hose and if the connector's gone something else will go soon anyway.

What's your shower head like? Does it spray the same as when it was new? If not you should either clean it or change that at the same time.

Really easy job to change the shower hose as others have said. Can't stress the 'hand tight' thing enough.

[DaveShoelace]

Thanks everyone so far.

Yes the shower head itself is fine, but will give it a clean anyways.

[EvilPie]

I assume the 'holder thingy' is the bit where the shower head screws in to the hose?

I don't know if there's a technical term with showers but to me it's just a thread.

You get 2 types of thread, male and female. The male thread is the bit that enters the female thread. The female thread in the case of a shower is always on both ends of the hose. The shower itself and the shower head will both have a male thread.

[pleno1]

Great great thread. Can relate ALOT!

[DaveShoelace]

I assume the 'holder thingy' is the bit where the shower head screws in to the hose?

I don't know if there's a technical term with showers but to me it's just a thread.

You get 2 types of thread, male and female. The male thread is the bit that enters the female thread. The female thread in the case of a shower is always on both ends of the hose. The shower itself and the shower head will both have a male thread.

Yes it's the female thread then. Hardware shop round the corner from mine, will have a crack at it tomorrow afternoon.

[EvilPie]

I assume the 'holder thingy' is the bit where the shower head screws in to the hose?

I don't know if there's a technical term with showers but to me it's just a thread.

You get 2 types of thread, male and female. The male thread is the bit that enters the female thread. The female thread in the case of a shower is always on both ends of the hose. The shower itself and the shower head will both have a male thread.

Yes it's the female thread then. Hardware shop round the corner from mine, will have a crack at it tomorrow afternoon.

The holder thingy has been bugging me.

I'm going for "the female thread of the shower head and hose assembly" when describing it to the hardware store fella.

Anyone got a better description?

[kinboshi]

Don't forget you'll need the bit for your locking nut on your alloys if you're changing a wheel. Make sure you know where it is (and that place should be somewhere in your car, rather than at home in a cupboard).

[Laxie]

Take the hose off tomorrow and carry the broken piece to the shop with ya.  Then you don't have to worry about it's formal name.

[EvilPie]

Take the hose off tomorrow and carry the broken piece to the shop with ya.  Then you don't have to worry about it's formal name.

That's not the proper 'man' way though is it?

Barry needs to turn up at the shop with the wealth of knowledge required to achieve his task the way a real man would.

Turning up and saying "can I have one of these please" just doesn't cut it.

[DaveShoelace]

Yes holding my own in bloke conversations is of paramount importance. Especially with mechanics whom I mistrust, gotta speak the language if I want my car to pass its MOT.

[Tal]

Take the hose off tomorrow and carry the broken piece to the shop with ya.  Then you don't have to worry about it's formal name.

That's not the proper 'man' way though is it?

Barry needs to turn up at the shop with the wealth of knowledge required to achieve his task the way a real man would.

Turning up and saying "can I have one of these please" just doesn't cut it.

Yeah get out. Men talking.

[RED-DOG]

I don't know how to offer advice in this thread.

It's kinda like this. When I was growing up there was never any money to spare to pay tradesmen, so we did everything ourselves. Not only that, but when my dad did something, I would be along side him either helping or hindering, but always learning.

If we were not doing things for ourselves, we were working for someone else as tradesmen.

Of course my dad didn't know how to do everything, but the things we didn't know we learned as we went along, and we knew how most things worked in principle. It's kind of an accumulation of basic knowledge that you draw on for each new task. 

Over the course of a lifetime you end up doing thousands of jobs that in part at least, relate to other jobs.

Someone earlier in the thread talked about bleeding the air out of a radiator, well that's the same principle as bleeding a diesel engine after it's ran out of fuel and let air into the system, or bleeding a car brakes when you have to change the master or slave cylinders. OK it's not exactly the same, but if you're done one, you have a better chance of being able to do the other.

Another thing that experience gives you is the ability to cope when things don't go as the manual (or these days the youtube video) says they should. If for instance, it says  "Remove bolt A"  but bolt A is seized, or the threads strip, it doesn't matter whether you're changing a clutch or fitting a gas cooker, if you don't know how to undo the bolt, you're fecked.

Now let me give you an example. Before cars had alternators, they had something called a dynamo, which is like an alternator but not nearly as efficient, which was OK because back then cars didn't have so many electrical gadgets..  But I digress..

The thing is, a car dynamo used to have four copper 'pads' inside. Each of these pads weighed about half a pound, so that's two pounds of copper per dynamo. I used to buy them at just over scrap iron price, strip out the copper, and then weigh the scrap iron back in. During the course of a week I would probably buy about 50 of these, which produced about a hundredweight of copper. This would sell for about £25. A very nice little earner.

The trouble was. these pads were held in place by a half inch thick countersunk screw with Philips head. These screws were always seized solid, and because they were countersunk you couldn't get at them with mole grips or a stillson or anything. They drove me crazy. Then one day my dad saw me struggling with them and showed me a trick. He hit the head of the screw smartly with a ball pein hammer and told me to try undoing it again. It came out as easily as if it had just been fitted yesterday.

I've used that technique on hundreds of seized bolts since then, and I've transferred the principle to other things. For instance, We has some flooding the other day and later, when my daughter tried to move her car, she found her back wheels were seized solid. What had happened was the water had caused rust to form on the shiny metal brake disks, this rust had kind of welded the brake pads to the disks.

Her car is front wheel drive, and the rust-bond was so strong that when she drove the car forward, the rear wheels just dragged along behind without turning.

I removed the wheel trim, poked a sturdy drift through one of the vent holes in the wheel, gave the brake disk a good clout and ping, the calliper sprang open to release the wheel. It looked pretty impressive, like Fonzy hitting the jukebox to make a record play, but really it was the same trick my dad did with the seized bolts in the dynamo.

There are thousands of little tricks like that. Like scoring a tile so that it breaks in the right place, or filling a pipe with sand (or ice) so that it doesn't kink when you bend it.

To the uninitiated, some of this stuff looks really clever, but it's just what I grew up with.

Let me put it into perspective. These days people use technology like its an extension of their arm. They mess around with the workings of computers, mobile phones etc without a seconds though.

If have a problem with my phone or my laptop, I call for my daughter. She messes about with some settings and boom! It's working again. To her it's simple stuff. To me, it's alchemy.



 

[RED-DOG]

Our flood.

Click to see full-size image.

[AdamM]

My biggest bit of advice is get a really good book.
When I bought my first house 13 years ago, my dad gave me a big think Readers Digest DIY book.
Before I start any job, I read the section in the book.
Have used it for fitting a kitchen, hanging doors, laying a laminate floor, basic wiring, brick laying, plastering, wall papering, skirting boards, etc.

I often follow up with trawling youtube to see what ever job I'm about to do for the first time done for real, but the problem is, it's often tradesmen who make it look really easy.

Just finishing off my kitchen, which I stripped down to bare brick, plaster boarded and skimmed, moved plug sockets, put cupboards up, painted and tiled. Just got the floor to sort out.
The only parts I got professional help with was plumbing in the sink (because the original plumbing was a right state) and the Mitre joint of the worktop (just too important a job to get wrong).

My work's not professional quality, but it's satifying to get your sleeves rolled up and Do It Yourself.
Good luck

[outragous76]

I totally agree with Tom - man skills are very much learnt and repeated/reused. Someone with Toms wealth of experience could probably turn his hand to most things just due to having "done stuff".

Everytime I have written something on here I have thought I could have added to it. However, I also believe that anyone wanting to try these things will just do it (like Barry). The other end of the scale of course (and I am sure is the reality) is people will have a go when they NEED to.

The day I passed my test, my dad made me rotate all 4 wheels on my mums car before he would let me take it out. Rest assured I would obv never have done it without being forced to. My driving reality is I have had 7 flat tyres in 20 years of driving (I run bad), but i am thankful for my dad making me do it.

I am sure that no-one not needing to change a tyre will be out on a sunday morning doing it for fun, but Im happy to be proven wrong. Still lets hope that we get fedback within the thread that it is useful.

I am keen too up my man skills too. Im sure Leethefish and Evillpie will have much to contribute. Electrics are my uber weakpoint. TO be honest I am frightened of them. All I have ever done is one lighting fitting change. As for Lee - I did once sand down 2 bits of skirting into a mitre joint - was quite proud of that one  - but my joiner mates did laugh - alot - for a long time!