Our membership does a fair amount of home repair and construction, so it makes sense to have a thread for sharing.
My first post is a tip that avoids smashing fingers with a hammer. Weekend before last I assembled a new business desk for my home office, and one of the tasks was to nail a "L" shaped section of plastic flashing on an edge of a panel. The brads used are small, the plastic is flexible and had to be held out of the way, and doing all that with one hand while not smashing my fingers was not likely to happen. As the photo shows, it's a small brad.
My solution? Hold it with a pair of narrow pliers:
This has the extra benefit of helping to avoid bending the brad on the first strike. I gently pound it in until the pliers touch the panel, then remove the pliers and finish the job.
No black-n-blue fingers!
My first post is a tip that avoids smashing fingers with a hammer. Weekend before last I assembled a new business desk for my home office, and one of the tasks was to nail a "L" shaped section of plastic flashing on an edge of a panel. The brads used are small, the plastic is flexible and had to be held out of the way, and doing all that with one hand while not smashing my fingers was not likely to happen. As the photo shows, it's a small brad.
My solution? Hold it with a pair of narrow pliers:
This has the extra benefit of helping to avoid bending the brad on the first strike. I gently pound it in until the pliers touch the panel, then remove the pliers and finish the job.
No black-n-blue fingers!
