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dodgy extensions

wallace

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I've finished decorating my mother in laws house for my daughter and so started clearing a little outbuilding my father in law used to potter in. Imagine 100's of plant pots, push mowers, vintage brass plant sprayers. I also found lots of my tools he had borrowed.
I dont think I will be switching this on. He had extensions running all over the place, generally lengths of old wire taped together. One going to the green house and various lights dotted around the garden. I'm amazed he didnt zap himself.

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Sadly, I'm not in the least surprised. I've seen this sort of thing far too often.
 
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What's the matter with that Wallace? ;) :D Seriously though it looks nasty.

When we sorted the rubbish from my mother in law's garage after father in law died I for some reason put a meter over some extension sockets he'd wired up from the usual one original the builders supply and every one had reversed polarity and like yours he'd used tatty old wire including sme 1mm to 13 amp sockets.
 
"Make do, and mend" was ingrained into that generation. I found a biscuit tin of 'bent nails to be straightened' in my Grandfather's garage.
That was one of the first jobs he had me do at 17, straighten nails over his allotment. Its amazing what you put up with for a girl.

Bob, one of his bright ideas was to have some electric tube heaters of god knows what wattage in his green house, they were plugged into a socket in the kitchen. The socket and wiring up the wall started to melt. They also got a £400 electric bill. All for £100 worth of plants.
 
That was one of the first jobs he had me do at 17, straighten nails over his allotment. Its amazing what you put up with for a girl.
;)
Mine was far easier. My wife (girlfriend) was a student nurse at Newcastle RVI, her parents lived near Brighton and were up for a few days so my first meeting was in a pub where of course I offered to by drinks. Future MiL was easy "Cinzano" she says but FiL asked for barley wine. I was a bit naive at the time as rarely drank alcohol and was surprised at how small it was, "no I want a pint" say I. FiL was an instant pushover and I was skint. My wife used to drink Babysham in those days, it wasn't until after we were married she started to prefer gin. :rolleyes:

Bob, one of his bright ideas was to have some electric tube heaters of god knows what wattage in his green house, they were plugged into a socket in the kitchen. The socket and wiring up the wall started to melt. They also got a £400 electric bill. All for £100 worth of plants.
that's a bit shocking, no pun intended.
 
I have a couple of tins like that Andy, sadly I know when I'm gone they'll go straight in the skip. :confused:
 
I hate nails TBH and until yesterday had probably not touched that tin for years but then needed a couple of longish nails to hang the plates of a multifunction ladder on the barn wall. Screw heads would have been too large to fit through the holes in the plates.
I can’t ever imagine using floorboard nails though.
 
There was an auction a couple years ago of what must of been an old machinist/woodworker. There was loads of home built cabinets with some very nice machinist stuff in. I bought a home made surface grinder made from a wadkin crown guard support with a 9" grinder attached. I also bought quite a few plastic cases, each one with every size of panel pin etc. All labelled with one of them old punch machines. Its nice when you want a specific sized alan bolt, screw, nail, washer, roll pin, cotter pin, spring, o ring.:)
 
One thing I found in mother in laws which I am really impressed with is this little aldi/lidl drill. I've been using it for bits for the past year. I couldnt find its charger until I cleared the shed. It hasn't been charged in 18months and it was still going.

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We moved into a Victorian house that had been empty for several months and decided to paint everything white until we worked our way through it. In an alcove cupboard in the kitchen there was a long loop of 2.5a cable - someone obviously intended to put sockets there at some stage. I told my wife I'd stick a socket on the outside as there wasn't one near the hallway and it would tidy things up before painting. I plugged a radio in and went to the basement to pull the fuse. I pulled the first fuse and it went off, so I pulled the other fuses. I put the fuse at the other end back and the radio came on ............. all the tails were mixed up, the immersion heater and the basement lights on one fuse ...

I told my wife I'd sort it while she was away - she was away on a course for three days, and it didn't matter if I got cold or couldn't cook - and I'd call a sparky if I got stuck. I got my multi tester out and disconnected everything, finding out what fed what, putting everything back in the correct place with the correct fuses and labelling it all.
Job done, I went to the pub, where I met someone I knew. You bought 119? he said. Yes, it needs a lot of work. Well, there's one good thing at least, the electrics will be OK. Why do you say that? Because the guy who sold you the house is a qualified electrician.:LOL:
 
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Apart from panel pins I've not bought a nail in many years. This has given me all I need since the mid 80s when my grandfather passed away.
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Somebody should go to a college that has a robot building & AI degree course and pay the instructor to assign the students a class project to build a nail sorting robot.

BTW, when my grandfather died in 2007 one of the things we found in his nearly unnavigable shop was a half full keg of nails. I’m sure he’d had it since he’d built his first house in the late ‘40’s.

Kirk
 
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