Preventing Steel and Angle Iron rusting
Nineteen years ago I replaced the original car port at my house, made of 2″ round steel tubing and asbestos sheet, with a new construction made of 3″ square steel tubing, covered in UPVC downpipe for protection, for vertical supports, 2″ and 3″ angle iron for horizontal supports, a wooden roof frame and corrugated UPVC roof and a UPVC facia.
I intended this to last forever. Well it lasted nineteen years without much attention but eventually the steel needed a little bit of paint and the screw caps holding the roof totally disintegrated letting the water in.
Originally I was very careful to clean the steel very well, with an electric wire brush, and paint it with black Smoothrite paint (like Hammerite). Some of the steel was then covered with Waxoil and the uprights with UPVC downpipe (used for rainwater normally). I wish I had covered all the steel with Waxoil, then none of it would have rusted.
This time I hope I have made a better job of it. Much of the Smoothrite paint was OK. So I rubbed down all the rusty patches with sandpaper. You would be surprised how good the steel was underneath the rust. I then painted it with a two part paint mix. This consisted of a brown resin and a coloured (in my case black) hardener. The paint sets really hard and is difficult to cut with a wood chisel. (I had to get some paint runs off.) I did most of the painting before the rains at the end of 2012. It was then left exposed over winter. A few areas needed a bit more paint before I could put the roof on but I though it had survived exposure very well.
I can certainly recommend two part epoxy resin paint. It is expensive: two litres (1 resin, 1 hardener = 1:1 mix) and a tin of thinners cost £80. The theory behind its great benefit is: ordinary paint has large pigment which bridges over the top of rust allowing moist air to remain in the rust and continue to oxidise/corrode. Epoxy paint has no large pigment and soaks right into the rust even though it is very viscous. It is recommended on web sites that deal with rust on vintage automobiles.
How to stop an annoying dripping sound coming from a rainwater downpipe
Last year I had new PVC guttering and square downpipes. From one downpipe in particular I could hear a regular dripping sound when it was raining while I was in bed and I found the sound of it very annoying. I climbed onto a first floor roof in the rain to examine how the sound was produced. I found water was running down the inside wall of the downpipe, on the side with the spout opening, until it arrived at the spout. The water then dripped from the top of the spout opening in the middle and landed on the bottom of the spout. This resonated up the hollow pipe making the sound loud.
Fortunately water dripping from the spout to the roof below didn’t make a loud sound. So I didn’t have to concern myself with that aspect of dripping water.
I realised that the way to stop the dripping was to ensure the water continued its downward journey to the bottom of the spout along a surface so it would not stop to drip. In my particular case I glued a piece of rubber sheet (left over from the construction of my flat roof) to the inside of the top of the spout. The width of the rubber sheet was similar to the spout width such that it was free to flap around when pushed by water descending the downpipe. This rubber sheet was long enough to pass all the way to the bottom of the spout. Now the water has four sides to run down to get from the top of the downpipe all the way to the bottom of the spout. The rubber is not sealed at the bottom so small quantities just leak away and heavy rain can just push the rubber sheet out-of-the-way like a flap valve.
I an a little concerned about what will happen to water coming down the downpipe if water around the edge of the rubber flap freezes it to the spout in a closed position. Maybe there will never be any water passing down the pipe under freezing conditions, and if there is it may melt the ice anyway.
Below is an explanatory diagram showing a section of the downpipe connected to the spout:
Employee carelessness poses security risk to businesses
Be careful not to allow access to your business data by Wi-Fi hijacking or mobile device loss. Read on by clicking here.
Drag and Drop Context Menu in Windows 7
After many years I have just found that there is a context menu specific to Drag & Drop in Windows (Windows 7 at least). If I have a folder full of files open in Windows Explorer I can click on a file with my RIGHT mouse button and hold it down then drag the file from that folder. Once the pointer moves over the desktop, or another window, a message attached to the pointer says “Copy to ….” or “Move to ….” or “Cannot place in ….“as demonstrated in the feature image on the left. If I release the RIGHT mouse button away from Windows Explorer on an application I can drop onto I am offered a context menu thus:
Right Mouse Copy/Move Context Menu
From here I can choose to Copy, Move or Create shortcuts to the file.
If I were to use the LEFT mouse button I would not be able to choose between Copy, Move or Create shortcuts. That would be determined by the receiving application.
This menu doesn’t replace the normal Context Menu obtained by simply right clicking (and releasing) the RIGHT button.
Fixing a Bed Headboard to a Wall So It Can Be Easily Removed For Cleaning
Headboards are usually mounted on beds using parts supplied by the manufacturer. Sometimes it may be best to mount a headboard on the wall. The wooden stalks and fixing bolts may protrude behind the bed and engage with the skirting board or wall and damage it or keep the bed away from the wall so that the space at the foot of the bed is too small. Without a headboard attached a bed can often be pushed up to the wall by another 20mm to 50mm.
The wall fixings I have designed are mounted towards the bottom of the headboard and allow two people (one at either side of the bed) to lift the headboard by 20mm and remove it.
When the headboard is attached to the wall it is rigid to the point that the top of the headboard cannot be pushed towards the wall any more easily that it could if mounted directly on a bed. In fact some beds have more flexible headboard fixings than these.
In the example I give here there are two pairs of fixings. Below you can see them mounted on the back of a headboard laying across a bed: … Continue Reading
Ring Automotive Heavy Duty Air Compressor – RAC900 (Portable Tyre Pump)
A few weeks ago I passed a friend in the street who was pumping his car tyres up on his driveway. He was very eager to show me his new tyre pump which was powered from his car battery. He explained how it had the following advantages over other tyre pumps:
1. It inflated tyres very quickly.
2. It was very well engineered.
3. It was very quiet.
4. It was Made In Britain, Leeds in fact.
He told me he had bought it from a local automotive shop but they had to order it for him since they didn’t stock it.
I was very impressed with what I saw. Away from a petrol station I still used a foot pump. I once bought an air compressor to inflate tyres but it was so noisy I felt inhibited from using it at home on the driveway in case I disturbed my neighbours. So I got rid of it.
The one my friend showed me is made by RING Automotive. See it at their web site:
http://www.ringautomotive.co.uk/uk/products/Cars/Tyre+Care/Air+Compressors/RAC900
I couldn’t wait to get one and found I could make a considerable saving buying it on line through Amazon. … Continue Reading
Another Way To Mend A Broken Zipper
Before I describe the way in which I fixed this zipper let me refer you to a site which clearly names and describes all the parts of a zipper just so you know what I’m talking about: http://www.qualityzipper.com/aboutzippers.html. This is a similar problem to the one I had before but it has a different solution because I didn’t lose any parts. See previous article on mending zips.
In the past the pull tab of this zip’s slider broke where it fits under the crown. I fixed that by soldering a wire loop to it. I then had to remove the crown from the Slider Body and squeeze it back on after fitting the Pull Tab in place. It may have been the removal and refitting of the crown that damaged it so that it later dropped off the Slider Body. Fortunately I caught all the parts when It happened. See the repaired Pull Tab below: … Continue Reading
My entire startup time has been reduced to 2 minutes
Some time in the last year I got a Crucial Adrenaline solid state cache to improve my Windows 7 Start-up time. That was controlled by NVELO Dataplex v1.1.3.0 and I questioned how good it was because it still took a long time to start, but if I left it for a while and came back to log-on to my desktop there was a noticeable improvement on the multitude of programs that loaded after log-on. So I continued to use it.
Well yesterday I was notified by NVELO of a new version of Dataplex v1.3.0.0. I followed the process carefully to perform the upgrade. After the upgrade and following restart there was a very long start-up time (5mins or more) while the cache was sorted out. Everything was OK but I didn’t restart again that day.
Today I started and the log-on screen appeared after 1min 25secs. I logged on by 1min 30secs and my extensive range of icons, toolbars and gadgets had all loaded within 2mins from switch on.
THIS IS FANTASTIC. It took at least 4mins before.
I think there was a problem before that I hadn’t realised. I don’t think it’s wholly due to the improvements in the new version.
Installing Internet Explorer 10 on a Windows 7 64bit Platform
I just found out that Internet Explorer 10 is now available for the Microsoft Windows 7 platform. So I went ahead and installed it. I previously had IE9 and my PC is a 64bit machine.
I downloaded the file from: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/internet-explorer/downloads/ie-10/worldwide-languages
This page advises how to check if you have a 32bit or 64bit machine (look at System Type in System on the Control Panel). Then you can choose your language and select the appropriate file for your machine from a drop-down box. See Microsoft web-page image below: … Continue Reading
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