Changing Brushes

An aspect that customers never see is the care and maintenance of my tools and the day to day running costs to keep all these tools working. 

The impact driver is an essential part of a modern carpenters tool kit

 My impact driver is an example of this. This week I've had to purchase two new batteries (coming in at over £50) and replace the brushes to keep it working.

Brushes worn out from lots of use!

The old worn brush on the left and what it should look like on the right

New brushes in place - no down time at a customers house now!

The constant maintenance, sharpening, repairing and updating kit takes lots of time and costs a lot of money every year. A modern and efficient carpenter has to have far more kit than any other trade in the building industry.

Changing Doors

This is a job I've been working on in the evenings and weekends for the last month or so. I've changed most of the doors in the house and the two front doors.

Before

After

 It's amazing the difference changing the front door and painting the windows has made to the front of the house. Certainly improved it's curl appeal!

I changed most of the internal doors for oak as well, and I made a couple on site for the cupboard under the stairs. Architrave and skirtings were also changed for oak in places as well. I treated them all with a coat of Osmo oil before leaving them. 

Hopefully all this work will make the house more appealing to potential customers.

Floating Oak Mantle Piece

A picture heavy post sorry. This is our own mantle piece in our living room. It's been on my "to-do" list for quite some time! 

The top of our fire place looked like this all winter, so it was time to make it look a little better!

Plywood template made up the exact same size as the oak so holes could accurately be drilled and match up between the wall and the piece of oak

Fixing the template to the wall. Making sure it's level

The stainless steel threaded bar fixed into the wall. The holes behind are a couple of mm bigger to allow for the resin to fix the bar. 

Using a template in this way means that the bar will be in exactly the right place. I used the nut to make sure it was the right distance out from the wall.

The three pieces of threaded bar resined into the wall. The middle one is purely to locate the oak and to stop it from warping.

The underside of the two ends. The oak is then tighten to the wall making it very strong. This hole will eventually be filled with a Walnut plug for contrast (If you can't hide something then make a feature of it!)

A good spanner had to die to fix it though as a normal one wouldn't fit in the hole! 

The finished mantle piece

The mantle piece looks quite modern but, in my opinion, goes well with our fireplace, giving it a good mix of the traditional materials with the sharp lines of the rest the fireplace. 

A Pair Of Doors

Last Saturday I fitted a frame and hung a pair of doors on a building we'd been working on.

 When you get to fit the frame as well as the doors its normally makes the job easier, as any twist can be taken out with a small adjustment of the frame. These doors were made bang on so no adjustment needed.

Set up outside on a sunny day

Hinges cut nice and tightly on

The finished pair of doors

A nice job for a sunny day.