Toolboxes
Toolboxes are a personal thing, and what finds its way into yours is likely
to be reflected in the type of DIY you like. This guide is primarily
aimed at DIY beginners, perhaps people who have just taken posession
of their first property, or who have decided to add another string
to their bow. This is aimed at a relatively low budget, so most of
the fancy tools like routers and jigsaws I will only cover in passing.
Your toolbox will grow with your DIY, and will include some special
tools which I have not mentioned below. Bear in mind that this guide
is meant to be light-hearted in places.
First things first
For virtually every job you will want to mark the work out, and ensure
that it is straight, plumb and square. So:
Pencil; an ordinary HB pencil is just right for the job. If you break the
point, you can sharpen it with a razor knife. You might prefer a carpenters'
pencil, which is rectangular in section, and so is the lead. This means
you can use it for thick and thin lines. With the lead trimmed to two points,
you can do parallel lines, or follow a wall contour. If all else fails,
in conjunction with a piece of paper, or even an offcut, it doubles as
a primitive calculating device. A piece of chalk may also come in handy.
Tape measure; I suggest at least 3 metres, 5 if you can afford it. Second
in usefulness only to the pencil. When you go off to buy materials for
a project, you will need to know how much to buy. When you buy it, snap
off the belt clip. Only poseurs wear tape measures on their belts. You
can also check large items and rooms for squareness (what?) by checking
that the diagonals are equal.
Square; I prefer a combination square, and mine has a spirit level built
in. It can be used to mark right angles, 45 degrees, as a depth gauge,
and as a ruler.
Plumb line; you can improvise with (e.g.) a nut and a piece of string,
but if you buy one of the self-chalking ones, you will be glad when it
comes to wallpapering and tiling. They can also be used for marking straight
lines on floors and ceilings.
Spirit level; in a pinch, you can use a torpedo level, or the level
on your square. Ideally a 1 metre level is very useful, but quite often
you cannot use one in a confined space, so you still really need the
torpedo type as well.
Safety
The most important consideration in DIY.
Eye protection; a pair of goggles is a good idea if you are using striking
or power tools (anything which throws up dust or particles).
Gloves; gardening gloves will protect you against splinters and raw
edges of metal. It is a good idea to have a current tetanus immunisation.
This is available on the National Health, and indeed if you go to hospital
with any sort of cut, the injection will be given to you as a matter
of routine.
Ear defenders; if you are going to use a Kango hammer, or tackle a lot
of hammer drilling or a lot of heavy hammering.
Steel toed boots; a good idea if you are going to be handling (e.g.)
paving slabs.
Dust mask; good for nuisance dust, (brick, cement) but for asbestos
it is probably better to find a professional contractor to do the job.
Some councils do free asbestos removal.
Boiler suit; if you do not have tatty workclothes one of these is a
good investment. There are plastic semi-disposable ones available from
the usual DIY outlets, or you could get one from an army surplus shop.
Hat; useful if you are doing overhead work, or something really dusty.
In any case after DIY, you will probably want a good bath or shower.
Odds & Ends
I couldn't categorise these, but they are handy on occasion.
Torch; doesn't need to be a particularly expensive one, but if the lights
go out, or you are trying to see what is going on in a confined space,
it will be invaluable. If you are feeling rich, a Cyalume lightstick
is an alternative.
Cricket (disposable) lighter; always handy, especially in conjunction
with the next item.
Candle; besides providing light in emergency, it can be used to lubricate
woodscrews and drawer runners. Also good on woodsaws if the cut starts
to bind. Rub the candle onto the sides of the blade.
WD 40; all sorts of uses, including stopping your tools going rusty.
Insulating tape; again all sorts of uses, limited only by your imagination.
Cable ties; another DIY panacea. When pulled tight with pliers they
come close to the holding power of Jubilee clips. You may find these
discarded in all sorts of places. If you get the blade of a razor knife
under the pawl of the ratchet end, you can back them off and reuse them.
Extension lead; again, a very useful bit of kit. If you are working
up a ladder, you may want to fix the end of it to the ladder at a suitable
height, using either the tape or the cable ties, so that the end of the
extension lead does not keep bashing you in the shins, and the power
tool is easier (and safer) to use. If you intend to use power tools externally
an RCD protector is a good idea. At the slightest sign of any risk to
the user of the power tool, these interrupt the electrical supply to
the tool.
Picture hooks; sooner or later, you will want to hang something decorative
on the wall.
PVA wood glue; for making sure that the flatpack furniture you put together
stays that way. All sorts of other uses, of course. Best used in conjunction
with the next two items.
Nails; a bag of assorted nails and pins can be useful, particularly
to hold a workpiece together while the wood glue sets.
Dowels; short lengths of (usually ) beechwood, the best ones are grooved,
as this allows the glue to form a really good bond. The best way to buy
your first dowels is as a kit with the drill and markers. You set the
depth collar to just more than half the length of the dowels, (or as
needed) drill holes in one of the pieces to join, put the markers in
the holes, offer up the pieces in exactly the position you want and knock
them together firmly. The markers will have left indentations in the
other piece of wood, which you drill into to match up. put glue in both
sets of holes, drive dowels into one side and assemble. If it is not
going to show, you can simply drill one deep hole, an dowel the assembled
joint from outside. If you are trying to screw into the endgrain of a
softwood, you can install a dowel at right angles to the screw in the
end of the appropriate piece of wood.
The Next Step
This is a list of basic tools which allow you to do simple DIY tasks
like assembling flat-pack furniture, changing fuses and fixing leaky
taps.
Razor knife; also called a Stanley knife in a generic way. Plasplugs
do a quite reasonable disposable one with snap-off blades. When it wears
out or if you lose it, a replacement is not expensive. Useful for trimming,
cutting and much more. Do not apply too much force with one of these
knives as if it slips you could cut yourself very badly. For cutting
rubber, use dilute fairy liquid as a lubricant to make the job easy.
Spatula; for scraping off old decor, and applying filler, among other
things.
Pliers; Engineers' pliers. Grip, twist and cut, but beware if the pliers'
grip fails suddenly, you can nip yourself very painfully.
Screwdrivers; One medium pozidriv, one medium slot type, and an engineers
screwdriver are the bare minimum. larger posidriv and slot types are
useful, or you may wish to get one of those drivers with the 6mm hexagonal
bits stored on the handle. An engineers screwdriver has an 8" blade,
and a narrow tip. It is excellent for work on electrical jobs. You may
wish to get one with an insulated shaft, but if you are that cack-handed,
perhaps you ought to stay away from the electrics. The very cheapest
screwdrivers are made of inferior steel and will not give good service.
You may want to buy a power driver, but if you do a big job, it may go
flat before you finish. You may also want a mains testing screwdriver,
but check that it does light up when on a live wire. Otherwise you may
think that a circuit which is live is safe to work on, with potentially
lethal results.
Hammer; avoid the cheapest, as the head may splinter. A claw hammer
is probably the best for general DIY.
Adjustable spanner; the purists will insist that only the right spanner
should be used on any nut, but for general DIY, the main tasks for these
will be plumbing tasks, notably changing tap washers. For this sort of
task, bearing in mind how rarely it gets done, an adjustable will be
adequate. Ideally you would want a 6" and a 12" adjustable
to cover the domestic plumbing. If you intend to do car maintenance,
then yes, buy a full set of spanners.
Wood saw; probably the best bet is to buy the cheap hardpoint type,
and be prepared to ditch it when it goes blunt. My local ironminger charges
more than the price of one of these cheapos to resharpen a saw.
Hacksaw; one of the "junior" size will probably cope with
most of the jobs you will be tackling.
File; a flat medium-cut file will be useful for (particularly) cleaning
up the edges of the metal you have cut with the hacksaw. Don't forget
to do both edges as the jagged finish a hacksaw leaves behind can cause
a nasty laceration.
Surform; a useful all-purpose wood tool. The blades wear out rapidly,
so when the tool starts feeling like hard work, it is time for a new
blade.
Chisel; a wood chisel is likely to be bought for a specific project,
so initially at least, you could leave this out.
Pump pliers; Enourmous pliers, which again will probably be bought for
a specific job. Alternatively a pair of stillsons for heavy work.
Shave hook; specially for stripping paint from complex mouldings. Beware,
however that if they are left lying around, they almost always have a
point facing upwards waiting to ambush the unwary.
Putting it onto the wall
One of the first DIY tasks is fixing something to the wall. One of the
best ways of achieving this is to use rawlplugs, on which I have written
a seperate FAQ. As it is more economical to buy in bulk I suggest buying:
Rawlplugs; No. 8 size, if these are genuine Rawlplug articles they are
colour-coded red. They come in a "block" of 100.
Supascrews; recognised by the following details;
The heads are usually Posidriv.
They do not taper.
The thread runs all the way to the head.
There are actually two threads, running parallel.
Buy a box of these No.8, 1 1/2" long. The boxes are usually rather
flimsy, so find an old tupperware container to keep them in.
A hammer drill; the subject of another FAQ I have written.
Drill bit; a masonry drill bit with a tungsten carbide bit. These do
wear out, so when your progress into the walls slows down, it is time
to get a new one. It is possible to resharpen them, but no one I know
bothers.
Masonry nails; an alternative to rawlplugs, but they appear to be falling
out of favour these days.
Power tools
Heat gun; a much safer alternative to the blowtorch, this softens gloss
paint so that it can be scraped off prior to redecoration. can also
be used for lighting barbecues, and in a pinch, for soldering pipes.
Steamer; for stripping wallpaper. Not everything the television adverts
would have you believe. Better to pierce the wallpaper with a rowel,
paint it with dilute wallpaper paste, and keep damping it down for a
couple of hours, when it will come off easily. Plasplugs make a scraper
which looks not unlike a jackplane, and I found this to be brilliant.
Hoover; if you have just acquired a place, and will be doing some serious
DIY, the dust will be bad for your normal domestic vacuum cleaner. Sacrifice
your old one, (and buy a shiny new one) or buy one from a second hand
shop. If you are feeling rich, buy a shop vac with water capability.
You'll wonder how you coped without one before.
Jigsaw; nice, but probably not for the beginner.
Router; if you really like working with wood, and pride forbids you
buying flatpacks.
Angle grinder; a very capable, but potentially very dangerous tool.
Make sure you use the right sort of disc. Stone for stone, metal for
metal. My neighbour tried cutting metal with a stone disc, and most of
the neighbourhood got a piece of the disc in their garden. The large
9" size have a quite intimidating torque-kick when they start up,
but as long as you are careful, they are superb. ALWAYS wear eye protection
when you use one. In the first instance, hire one. The 4.5" size
are increasingly affordable.
Copyright notice: With the growth of the net, copyright law has become
very complicated. You may reproduce this FAQ in any form from stone tablets
to putting it on your homepage. You may distribute it to absolutely anyone.
You may even add your own bits to it. However, if you remove my name
from it, or try to pass it off as your own work, I will be very, very
angry with you.
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John Schmitt john49@mdx.ac.uk
Last updated 18/04/00
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