Be Excellent To Each Other

If I've got to drill a few holes in a bit of metal (for mounting a stereo in my car, irrelevantly) what equipment do I need?

Clearly I need a drill, I'm not that dense. But will standard drill bits work or do I need special metallurgist ones or something? I expect some goggles and a vice would be helpful too, natch.

Anyway, ask your stupid questions here and (hopefully) people will provide answers to them - we all have things we want to know but are too afraid to ask, lest we highlight our immense ignorance of the things in question.

Great thread idea.
I wish I could help you with your drilling issue, but I do not know the answer to that one, sorry.

Reserved for later..I found someone with the answer.

All you need is a drill bit that is suitable for metal. Ask at your local hardware shop and they'll probably sell you a small selection of metal drill bits for under 10 quid.

You want one of the following:

Cobalt > Titanium Coated High Speed Steel > High Speed Steel.

Basic HSS will drill most metals you'd find around the house, and you can get them from any DIY shop.

What Craster said. If you're buying a drill as well, I'd recommend a Bosch any day of the week. Black&Decker seem to be quite highly regarded, but I've always used the Bosch stuff. Same goes for my Dad, who has considerably more experience with this sort of thing.

Your father has sense, I've heard many a grumble and complaint about Black&Decker from mens that use these things.

Mine's a Bosch, and it's an excellent drill, but it's not quite torque-y enough to use as a drill-driver, which is a shame, as I'm lazy.

I've spent most of the weekend trying to hang a couple of doors, which is the most bastardly thing ever. I have screwed and unscrewed the hinges at least 50 times while trying to get it straight. I've also rehung a couple of doors that I did last year which haven't closed properly and/or closed without squeakingly loudly since. All fixed now, so I've spent a surprisingly long time opening and closing my doors, wonderously distracted by the improved performance.

Hanging doors is one of those things that I'd just get a bloke in to do. Fucking nightmare.

You can use Goattracker on your PC.

I vaguely remember Steve "Creatures/Mayhem in Monsterland" Rowlands recommending something called "USA Music Assembler", or something.

ED: things, and a well documented thing

I think B&D are trading on their name a bit these days, at least the low end DIY stuff. However, if you were considering a cordless drill, I am very impressed with the DeWalt 12v model (a B&D subsidiary). It's a bit old now which means it's usually discounted, but you'll get a very good quality powerful drill and two batteries for about 80 quid. I own 3 of these now, thought I'd stock up before they are discontinued, but the oldest refuses to wear out.

Anyway, are you sure you need to drill holes to fit a radio? If it's just for the mounting bracket at the back, just leave it out, more trouble than it's worth. The side clips on a DIN mount radio are normally quite adequate.

Oh, and if you are drilling, use of a centre punch will make you feel like a professional craftsperson.

Sent from my iPhone.

The iPhone can interface with the drill? That's some sophisticated stuff!

Was there a kettle once that could be operated from your mobile phone (in that you could text it and it would boil, in case you couldn't wait the whole 120 seconds after walking through your front door to drink some tea)?

That's rather dangerous. What if it had no water in there?

I don't know, Dimrill, but it's a good point. Usually dry kettles just burn themselves out - it shouldn't be too difficult to implement some kind of minimum level float that would only allow the power switch to function if the float recognised water in the kettle. I'm surprised kettles don't have these. The text-kettles were a reality after all, not something I just imagined when I was bored.

Between us all I bet we could design the best kettle in the world if we put our minds to it.

Yeah, I know all about smelting being a big beardy giant dwarf n all. To the mines of kettle!

I think I have seen USB kettles before now... Also, I have a song about a kettle that you might want to use?

Well I was going to go for the good old dwarf standard of "gold gold gold gold etc" but with the words replaced with "boil boil boil boil etc"..

* Dimrill sits down and starts singing about kettles.

The slot in a Toyota Celica is a double DIN sized one, as the stock radio unit is a double DIN unit.

Consequently the brackets in the car (one on each side, not a mounting bracket at the back) are inadequate and the fascia adapter that I have (to allow me to use a single DIN unit in the double DIN sized hole) has screw holes on it that don't line up with the brackets - hence, needing to drill.

I've already exhausted all the other possible options on this one unfortunately.

If you don't already have a drill it seems likely that you don't have much call for one. In that case and if you can't just borrow one then just get one from Aldi or B&Q's el-cheapo range for about £15-30. It will easily be up to this job and probably most others you're likely to do. Although with moderate use it will be outlasted by a quality one, if you aren't much of a DIYer it will probably last you forever. Same goes for drill bits really, get to a market stall that sells tools and buy a set from there, you'll get a perfectly adequate set of drills for a fraction of what B&Q or any other DIY shop will probably charge.

I already did this a few years back while working in a shop in Canterbury, in a bid to impress one of the weekend girls who I quite fancied. Plus there was nothing else to do that day.

It was the Bookvey Industries 2004 Hover Kettle, and I think I sill have the schematic stashed somewhere in one of my many, many folders of hastily scribbled gibberish. Its best remotely realistic feature was a water level indicator that had adjustable units - slidey plastic bits that you could set yourself at, say, "two cups" or "one full pot" as you saw fit, instead of relying on the arbitrary size of the designer's cups, or useless litres, and detachable heating element for ease of descaling or removal of the filter should you drop it in while faffing about.

That and the self-destruct mechanism in case your kitchen were compromised. And the hovering device, obviously.

We went on to design a radio-controlled crisp packet that opened itself automatically when you whistled at a particular frequency, but it never really got anywhere as our hearts simply weren't in it.

Why, on those kettles that measure water in 'cups', is the level never even close? Two cups of tea? Make sure you fill it up to '9'.

They are standard 'cups' (a cookery measure) and an alternative to measuring in pints or litres - they don't correspond specifically to cups you'd drink from. A cup is significantly smaller than a standard tea mug.

Not in a place I used to work in, they weren't. 30p price difference and everything...

Yeah, but it's a silly measure. Why would you have a standard measure based on something that is a different size everywhere you go? It's like measuring distance in pieces of string.

I don't know - I always took it to be more of an American standard measure, I think.

Top tip:

After boiling an egg, to deshell it quickly, put the egg on a hard surface and press down with your hand. Roll the egg over the surface quickly. Lots of small cracks will form and this makes the shell dead easy to get off.

THIS.

Even down to the Dad thing.

B&D are little better than own-brand Homebase equipment. Dad swears by Bosch, as they've always been great at repairing or replacing his equipment the few times it's gone wrong. Where as he just swears at the B&D stuff....

Yes. 237 of your earth millilitres, says Google. It is a reasonable measure to use when cooking though, because provided you use the same cup, everything will still be in the correct proportions.

In terms of markings on kettles, am I the only one who spends two minutes with a permanent marker to add a new and accurate scale for mugs (up to a maximum 4 mugs) and extra marks for 1 teapot and 1 cafetiere worth?

Assuming that all of your ingredients are measured in cups. If you're cooking a cup of rice and a pound of diced lamb, then the size of the cup will affect the ratio of ingredients.

I neatly avoid that problem by not dicing, nor eating, lambs.

Although given that there's 2 cups in a pint, and one pint in a pound, you could clearly cook 2 cups of lambs to meet the suspiciously non-uniform units of that recipe.

But other than that, yes, obviously.

yes, and what Craster said.

My drill is some brandless wonder that I bought from homebase a few years ago. I've drilled into practically every wall of my house with it and, well, it's done the job. It drills the hole in the wall/wood/whatever. It's chunky and substantial, what more do you really need?

I also bought a workbench from B&Q for £9.98. Shockingly naff, you might think, but after putting it together (comes flatpack) it actually does a pretty bloody good job of holding my mitre saw and the various bits of wood I've had to cut recently. I've cetainly got a fantastic level of usability/cost ratio out of it anyway

A couple of years ago the only tools I owned were a few screw drivers, a hammer, a drill, and a couple of odd drillbits. Now I have pratically every variation of tool known to man, and two giant toolboxes to hold it all in. Despite all this I remain fairly parlous at DIY.

I have spent over £1500 at B&Q (it's the nearest) in the last year or so. I wrote to them informing them of this (i.e. look, I'm an ace customer of yours) while asking them if they'd like to sponsor me in some way, either by cash, or a voucher I could auction, etc. What was their response? 'We've allocated our charitable giving this year, No' via a standardised letter that wasn't even altered to include my name. An extremely generic rejection that speaks volumes about whether B&Q actually give a toss about their customers. Grrr.

Actually must pop there later to buy some more screws, the screw-selling bastards.

Top tip: Spend two minutes with a permanent marker on a new kettle to add a new and accurate scale for mugs (up to a maximum 4 mugs) and extra marks for 1 teapot and 1 cafetiere worth.

That was just to see if you were paying attention. You were.

I couldn't draw on my kettle. Luckily I have the mystical ability to know exactly how much water to boil for whatever I want it for. Craig used to be terror for overfilling the kettle but ow he has honed it to a fine art

London bars FTFY both.

I bet you could. Mine has dog ears on it too, albeit badly drawn ones.

I'm off to scribble on all my kitchen equipment.

I assume you now have a penguin kettle and toaster.

Or Monkey.

How the hell do bees actually make honey. I could look it up but I was wondering if any of you know?

They eat nectar, and poop honey. Honey is bee poop.

Bees cry honey - it is bee tears. Don't worry, though - they are joyful tears at all the pretty summer flowers.

Sometimes, I wish I was you, Mimi.

They fly down to Tesco, distract the staff and then nick a few jars.

It is odd though, isn't it? Do spiders make gravy? Do earwigs make chutney?

[/Izzard]