The Carpenter Show with Robin Clevitt, powered by Festal's new innovative eighteen volt cordless
range from drills to sores, including dust extraction, all powered by eighteen volt
batteries. Discover the more at festal dot co dot UK. Welcome to The
Carpentry Show with Festal on fixed Radio. I'm Robin Clevitt with you as always
for the next hour. On this week's show, I'll be troubleshooting some of
the common and perhaps not so common issues carpenters and joiners have when working.
These will be technique and site based as well as logistical and customer service based.
So in the last sort of a couple of weeks, I've been doing
all kinds of stuff to finish my big jobs because there's been all kinds of
you know that, like when you get to the end of a job and
they say, oh, what about that little drain cover that goes on there,
and what about that little bit of pointing that goes around there. It's
like a hangover, isn't it, And you kind of go, yeah,
I'll knit back on, knit back, and all those nipping backs add up
to time, but they're all getting out of my hair now, which is
nice because we've got holiday times coming up. We're in the middle of July.
The web is not too bad. It's been a bit sort of frantic.
They said that we had the hottest June, yet July has been a
bit sort of mediocre. And they also said that we had the hottest day
on record in the world, something like about eighteen degrees And I had a
conversation with Becky about that. She said, well, that's not that hot.
I said, no, it's like every country in the world have a
snapshot of the temperature on that day. Add all of the countries up,
add all the temperatures up, divide them, and that's what it gave them,
I suppose. And I thought that was quite interesting, really, to
think that we're in a time where the climate is changing so much. And
whether or not we believe it's something to do with the way that humans are
treating the earth or not, because everyone has an opinion on this is another
thing. Anyway, Let's enjoy the summer, Let's enjoy our time. If
your children off school as well as is my daughter, let's enjoy time around
them. So try not to overdo it like I've been trying to not overdo
these little hangover jobs and let's enjoy the summer. The Carpentry Show on fixed
Radio. This is the Carpentry Show with Festival I Robin Clevitt troubleshooting some problems
carpenters and joiners have had. Okay, So let's take the scenario that you're
making something. Building something could be a bit of joinery, it could be
a frame, you know, the normal sort of thing we get to do
putting something together, measuring it, marking it, cutting it, fitting it,
and it's going out of square, okay, or it's getting a slight
slope when you're trying to plane it, for example. And so two things
there we need to think about. So before we start assembling something, we
just need to make sure that we've cutled our members in the right sort of
format. We've not measured them individually, we've cut as many things together as
once, so when you screw that together, it's going to be already somewhere
near parallel in every direction. And also, for example, check that your
blades are square and your swords. If you're using a circular saw or you're
using a chop saw, it's very easy to have the base or the fence
slightly off, and so when you do screw something together or nail it together,
it's naturally going to pull in the direction of the blade. So let's
always make sure that those things are in place. And talking about planing,
for example, if you're using a power plane, you know the golden rule
is you have your weight on the front as you go in and your weight
on the back as you come out. And if you're actually planing something which
is a little bit wayany to start with, the chances are it's not going
to get any better. You're just going to replicate that wane and it's just
going to get even more of a slope. So I think that's where a
little bit of sort of experience comes in. And when I was doing my
sort of apprenticeship, we didn't have a power plane. We only had jack
planes or smoothing planes. A jack plane is generally long, and it was
with a jack plane that we actually did manage to flatten things out because it
will ride over the hollows and flatten off the lumps. And I suppose once
you've used a jack plane, even when you pick up a power plane,
you kind of know when something's not flat. So yeah, there you go.
I mean there's sort of some of the on planning for example. So
let's look at another problem woodworm. Okay, let's say a client has presented
you with a load of oak boards and they said, oh, this is
this reclaimed oak and we want you to lay it all. And it's been
treated, they say, but it still looks like that woodworm is live.
Now, I suppose you can't just go and let You could just go and
lay it, but if you feel really responsible and think, if I go
and put this in, it's going to go into the joist and it could
be a real bad infestation. It could go into the furniture, it could
go into the walls. So is there a quick fix? Is there any
way to purge it quickly? Because you know what it's like, you're on
day work. It's fine, you can go off to the supplier and buy
some stuff, but if you're on a price. If you said I'm going
to fix this oak for you and it's going to cost sex amount, you've
either got to go back to your client and say we need to treat this
stuff, and you would have to pay me daywork because I've got to stop
what I'm doing, I can't earn my money and get the chemical. Now,
talking about the chemical, if you go on to some of the big
sort of suppliers or even Amazon, you can find some really good stuff on
there, but quite a lot of them aren't that good. So make sure
you buy something which can be brush applied, because a lot of them have
to be impregnated. Or make sure the woods clean. If it's covered in
dust, as you as soon as you put that on, eighty percent of
it is going to get absorbed by the dust and fall off. So yeah,
you can use a good quality treatment, not necessarily the ones that you
think of. Just go for some specialist ones and get it done. But
make sure that client pays you for it. And let's talk a little bit
about frameworks stud spacing issues. Okay, so a question was how do I
improve the stability of structures like sheds for example? It says by being more
accurate and what are some tricks to calculating spaces of timbers needed? Okay,
So first and foremost, if you're building anything, understand the way it will
carry. Whether it's a shed with a shed roof, you can say,
well that shed roofs can be fifty kilos, and if it snows it might
be two hundred kilos. That is a basis there. If it's a building,
you should have some structural calculations and they will say that you need to
space your studs at four hundred centers six hundred centers or four fifty or whatever
the case may be. And in most cases you'll always have a sheathing on
stud work. So if you have OSB on the outside. For example,
all timber frames have a nine millimeter as standard OSB on the outside, and
that does two things. That holds the insulation from falling into the cavity between
that and the brickwork or the external finishes, and it provides rigidity, and
then that is the far more important thing. But it's not just the OSB
on the outside. It's how many nails and how far apart they are.
Some of them are as close as seventy five millimeters or three inches, so
improving the stability of structures like stud walls. It's all about the sheathing as
well. If you had studs twelve hundred centers and you had eighty millsheathing which
is fixed really well on the headplates, solet plates and studs that would be
super strong, but the load would be decreased what you can put through it.
But always check with a structural engineer, especially if you're responsible for building
dormers and that sort of stuff. Okay, coming up up some trouble shooting
for tools, logistics and more the Carpentry Show on fixed radio. You're listening
to the Carpentry Show. I'm Robin Clevitt and I'm troubleshooting some issues faced by
carpenters and join us this hour. So sometimes when we go to work,
it's almost impossible to just keep bringing your tools off the job for the weekend.
Okay, So I have often covered when we talk about going out and
finding work and what's important about when you go and find the work and logistics
are quite important. So you look at a job you get sent as drawing,
but they also need to look at where's the job? Can I part
nearby? When I can park there? Let's say I can park outside.
Can I securely store my tools there? So is a client living there?
Have they got a garage or a really secure garden building that they could all
be locked up? So that's the first thing. Okay, if you've got
a client before you start work when they're all keen to get you in.
Say, by the way, I will leave my tools here. Is there
a room where I can securely leave them? Might be a bedroom that you're
being refurbished, or even the area of working a kitchen, for example.
Carpenters just load up all the kitchen units, don't they, so you know
you've got you open the door of a new kitchen being fitting. It's just
full of boxes of screws, drills, circular saws. It's great, is
there. The clients must come over the evenings and open up, thinking,
oh, look, I don't like all their tools in our new kitchen cabinets.
But yeah, it's really important to try and leave them there, because
there's nothing worse is there. Get to the end of the week on a
Friday. Hopefully you've finished everything you need to finish. Hopefully you've finished everything
the client wants you to finish. And then you've got to load that fan
up, get home. It's Friday. You've arrangedly going to the pictures with
the misses, and you say, I'm running late and I've got to unload
the van. Can you can you help me to say? I'm getting ready,
I'm not coming out. I've got my makeup to do, and then
you're now under pressure. And the worst thing is well leaving them in the
van, because then you won't enjoy the pictures because you'd be worried about someone
stealing them anyway, So that is a big issue. Make sure your clients
agree to let them. And if you can't order box in the corner of
a room, you know with the SB stack you've got just make a box,
screw it all up, take the drill home in the van, put
it under the seat so no one steals that either. So talking to tools,
when building a collection of tools, let's say you've got yourself you circular
saw, battery, drill jigs or all the normal sorts of things for doing
small builds or small jobs sanders for example. As well, if you're doing
sort of multi trades, what would be the next best addition. So that's
a really good question, and I reckon if at that point you don't have
a multi tool, that is a really good addition. It can do so
many things. And if you've not gotten multi tool, you're listening to this
thinking about it, well, you think why would I need it? Well,
once you've got one, it's a tool that you get out and you
realize, how did I do it before? And it might be something like
trimming some mark trade off to put in a finished floor, so a floor
covering. It might be a laminate floor or a wooden floor, which is
all the rage floating and you've got existing linings. You can even nick underneath
the lining halfway to slide the floors under and it looks amazing. I think
that was the perfect job for a multi tool. But then it's cutting things
like sockets out of an existing plasterboard wall or a kitchen unit. Someone says
they want to sock it in the end of an island. That's another really
good example of where you'd use that. It's much better than jigsaw, much
much safer. So I think a multi tool is a really condition. But
if you're in the market of getting a multi tool, look at the vibration
because if you're using them a lot, I mean, the vibration that comes
through your hand is not going to be good for you over a long period
of time. But some of the market leaders are really good when it comes
to that. Going back to Sanders, I mentioned Sanders. There sanding issues.
Okay, so we've had some comments about the discs tending to fly off.
Okay, it says, is this the quality of the disks, Is
there a better way of securing or is it a sander issue. That's a
bit of a loaded and variable question there, because I can't see which sander
or which discs you're using. Are you mixing brands up? Are you taking
a disc which isn't really compatible because most sanders have dust extraction through them,
which means that the discs are either mesh so they'll take all of the dust
out. Some of the really major brands, like the three MS, they
take something like ninety nine percent. Their technology allows for most of that dust
to come out. Okay, I know, Festival. I've got the small
Festal sander, which is a rectangular in shape round about eighty meal by about
one hundred and sixty I believe it is, and that is absolutely fantastic.
Now, their paper has a cloth on the back, so when you actually
put it against the base, it's a little bit like velcro or you know,
this two sided material that attaches, and that works really well because not
only is the dust extraction pull in all that dust through, it's also pulling
the paper against the base. But what we're talking about when they start flying
off, it's the discs because you're spinning, spinning really fast, and if
that disc has got dust between it, or the bottom of the sand has
been damaged in any way, and those little hooks aren't holding on, yes,
they're going to fly off, and it's so annoying. It really is
so annoying, especially if it's flown off or you haven't realized it, and
then you start standing with the bottom of the sander, which is not that
good. Okay, So another question about table saws or other tools that keep
blowing fuses. Now this will come a thing of the past, but for
me in my early life, it happens all the time, mainly with my
circular saw. It was a nine inch circular saw. I still say that
in inches, so a two hundred and thirty millimeter circular saw, and it
pulled a lot of power and it was fine when it was plugged into directly
into a socket. But how often do you ever get to do that with
a saw with a lead no more than three meters long. So you have
to have a cord and you plug the cord in, so you're working outside
someone's house. They've opened the garage. You've plugged into a socket which is
a spur from the kitchen, so it's not it's a radio, which means
it's just a cable coming from the ring. Then you plug in your power
lead wheel it down the drive another fifteen meters. Then you plug in that
saw, which is pulling two thousand watts, and it's the startup. It's
that initial boom you know it was. It's from nothing to go just like
that, and that's going to pop fuses and that used to be so so
frustrating. Table sorts is a classic example there. Also, if the blade
starts getting a bit dull, you know, you're pushing that timber through there
that you're using literally twice as much power to just get that cut, and
that is going to hit a thermal overload and that's going to pop the fuse
or it's going to thermally cut out the socket if you have an unreeled the
lead. There's so many things to worry about, but look at the new
technology. Let's look at the positive side. Look at the Festal tiny weeny
table. It's like it's like a sustainer table saw. If you've not seen
this, you've got to have a look at it and that it's got so
much power you can do all kinds of stuff with it, and it's the
size of a sustainer. So on one side we do have these issues with
power and core tools, but going forward in the future where it's all going
to be a thing in the past, because we're going to be just charging
batteries, turning up in the middle of a field and making whatever we like.
The Carpentry Show with Robin Clevert powered by Bosh Professional FIKS Radio. I'm
Robin Clevitt on The Carpentry Show, and on today's show, I'm troubleshooting some
issues faced by carpenters when working so as a subcontractor. Okay, there's another
big issue as a subcontractor. Is it an issue that I charge one price
for my services and the building firm I'm working for is marking up my services
to the customer. Okay, So this is the scenario. Let's say you're
a chippy and a building firm's got you in and you've agreed at day rate
of two hundred quid. Okay, so say two hundred pound a day,
and you don't know what the builders charging you out at and he's falling out
with the customer. The customer comes round and quite friendly, quite polite,
makes you a cup of coffee and says, oh, you know, you
enjoy your work. And before you know it, they're asking you and how
much how much do you charge day? And you, without thinking, you
think it's hardly so you don't know what the builder is charging. You say,
oh, it's two hundred pounds a day, and she says, how
much he's charging me three hundred pounds a day for you? And all of
a sudden you're in dodgy ground because the builders never said to you. By
the way, you don't talk to my client about how much I pay you
or how much I charge them. That's between me and them. If they
come and speak to you, then you know, you say sorry, I
don't talk about that. You need to speak to him. And I think
that this is a big issue. And it's happened all the way through my
life. You know, I've been doing a big price job and someone somewhere
has said, oh, he's making a fortune, you know, and they
have no idea how much work has gone into getting the work, getting the
client, looking after the client. My knowledge. They're paying me for my
knowledge, the fact that I can actually do it, regardless of how much
I might earn an hour to do that work. So you'll probably be listening
to the radio thinking, yeah, I've been there, I've done that.
The guy was working for was charging double and everyone was thinking it was me.
It was charging that much money, and they hated me, and when
they found out I was only half they liked me again. And I mean,
it is a really awkward situation. So if you're the builder, make
sure you say to your subcontractors it's confidential what our arrangement is, so you
do not speak to my client about it because and equally you say to your
clients, you know, please don't ask my subcontractors how much they charge me,
because it's a it's a very loaded kind of question that I don't think
that should be asked by either party. So took the customers when customers ask
you questions about the entire build. So as you're a subcontractor and they come
to you say well, do you think this should be like that or do
you think you know, they come and start troubleshooting their problems with you because
you're they're doing the build the builders off. He's going organizing five other jobs,
and you know, they they start seeing you as the person who's responsible
for the job. I mean, how much should you get involved with that?
How? You know? I always say to my lads, if the
client comes and ask you, by the way, can you do this?
You say, it shouldn't be a problem. Just have a chat with Robin
or give Robin an email. In fact, all of my lads know any
questions that come from the client, they always say, just give Robin an
email, send Robin an email and he'll deal with it. But you turn
up and the boys say, we've moved that wall. What do you mean
you've moved the wall? Well, the client came up and said, we
wanted to hold on a minute. I've paid you to put the wall.
They're only paying me once to do it. Now they're telling you to move
it. Do they realize that's going to cost him any money? I don't
know. So, yeah, you've got to be so careful, haven't you,
because that can really really really make your day go bad when those sorts
of things happen. And as a subby, what if the client student says
can you come and do some work? For us at the weekend, or
hire you privately for other work in the future. Now, in all other
sectors, in all professional sectors, let's say you're an accountant and you're working
for a big firm, you will be on some sort of contract that says
if you leave us, you cannot go and work for anyone for a period
of eighteen months. A list of competitors, and what a lot of building
firms should do with this. Sobby should say, by the way, you
can't work for our client privately or in the future. They're our client,
And I think that that doesn't happen because it's just like, you know,
we're kind of a trusting environment in the building trade, and we you know,
we dwan the pub and we see seed a bricky hello, mate,
any chance to come in jumping on the job, And they come to jump
on the job and the client loves them. Before you know it, they're
doing a garden wall for the client and you're thinking the client would have come
to me for that garden wall. And then there's this issue about oh,
awkward you fall out if your mate because you said, well, hold on
a minute, they said, no, we asked me to come at the
weekend. I said no, no, but it's my job, it's my
client. I've fought for that client. I was struggling to get work and
I found that client and now you've nicked it from me. So that's really,
really, really tough too. And let's touch on diet. Okay,
how do you eat healthily when you're at work? So let's take all these
scenarios just trying to get through the work. Do you take a pack lunch?
I think that is probably the most sensible way if you can meet yourself.
This is me, this is what I do in the winter. I
do fresh to We have a microwave on site, and I generally buy them
on the way to work. So I go to Waitrose or something like that
where they sell fresh soups, you know, petrol station, and I buy
chicken soup and I generally just take that and it's it's got everything I need
in it for a day. Okay, it's all my calories I need,
it's all the protein I need. And i'd a bottle of red milk as
well, knock that back if there's no tea and coffee making facilities. So
that's all I do. But that's that's what I do in the winter,
and they're really good for me because of a cholesterol issue. When you get
old, you have to find out about this stuff. And also I do
salads in the summer, but to go without have a can of tuna,
whap the top off tuna the salad or cooked chicken as well, and I
just sort of stick to those two things. Also, once a week I
love to go to the calf as well. I love to go to have
a proper fry up. I think I think it's eighty twenty rule, isn't
it. I said eighty percent good, twenty percent do what you like.
Okay, that comes down to having a drink at the weekend as well.
No, not eighty percent drink and twenty percent food. You should have a
bit of both. Big Radio the Builders stationed. So that's it for today's
Carpentry Show, where I've offered some advice on a range of issues carpenters and
joiners have come up against. You can download this show as a podcast,
make sure you subscribe and leave a review. Sometimes we put exclusive content in
the podcast too, okay, so it's worth a download even if you've listen
to the show. So we're building a community of carpenters and we want you
to be a part of it. How do you get involved? Sign up
to the Carpentry Show newsletter. You'll also be entered into the draw to win
a Moquita Site radio, and we'll invite you behind the scenes to have your
say on a range of topics