DIY with function over finesse!!

[myglaren]

Oh dear

Speaking of warm in the garden, it isn't really but the heat-o-mometer was showing 31°C half an hour ago.
10° out of the sun though.

[CitroJim]

Pleased I inspired you Mick! Those look well chitted They'll be fine

With such awful weather all through March, it's really not been very possible to get much done in the garden...

I was pleased to find I almost have rhubarb ready for harvest!

[mickthemaverick]

Not really traditional DIY but a funny thing happened to me on the auction site this week. I was having a general browse and I came across a number of pillows which looked very good. I have six pillows on my bed as my acid indigestion issue frequently has me sitting up for half the night so I need them to prop me and stop me falling over when I do drop off to sleep. However my pillows have been nearing the end of their useful life for some time but it is not the sort of thing that I usually bother going hunting for. So these lots came up, pillows by Hotel Grand which retail at £40 a pair. So I chucked some bids on and ended up with six pillows for £42!! Result!! I went and collected them yesterday and this morning's routine weekly linen change saw them put into use!! errrrrrrrr may have overegged the pudding!!!

Spoiler: show

Own work

[CitroJim]

Just one of those would be too high for me!

[mickthemaverick]

Another sorry tale to tell I'm afraid. While at an auction house the other day I noticed a crate of £1.00 items which had not sold in the preceding sale. Having a quick poke around inside the crate, which was about 4ft square and 5ft high, I came across a Hozelock Spray Gun with two connectors still in its original bubble pack. As our own gun has been dripping for a while I decided to snap up the bargain and duly added to my invoice for plants which I was about to pay.

After a run out for an excellent lunch and visit to my friend in Elstree I came home and decided to go and give the newly planted fauna, bought at the auction and planted yesterday, a drink. I broke out the new spray gun thinking how nice it would be not to have the water dripping on my shoes , and then I attached it to the hose and turned on the tap:

Own work

Obviously I quickly turned off the water again and examined the gun to find the front seam had split!!

Own work

Wishing I had only attached it without testing, SWMBO would be the next user , I duly threw my pound into the plastic recycling bin and ordered another one for the full price from ebay!!

[CitroJim]

Oh What a crushing disappointment Mick Given the huge outlay I'd have tried salvaging it with a bead of Araldite but thinking on, a pack of Araldite is possibly more expensive!

[mickthemaverick]

Oh What a crushing disappointment Mick Given the huge outlay I'd have tried salvaging it with a bead of Araldite but thinking on, a pack of Araldite is possibly more expensive!

Aah you have rumbled me there Jim!! I did in fact try plastic welding the seam with cable tie as filler and managed to seal it quite well. To be safe I then wrapped it with my T Rex ferociously strong tape:

Own work

Once completed it didn't look great, I refer you to the thread title

Own work

So "Brilliant" I thought and tested it again:

Own work

So now I had already invested too much time energy and material so I moved to the scrap it and re-order phase!!

[Paul-R]

Make sure you keep the O-ring off the connector as these do wear out. Gotta be worth a pound just for that.

[mickthemaverick]

Already in my hose spares drawer thanks Paul, as is the trigger spring and locking lever!

[CitroJim]

It really didn't want to be repaired did it Mick

Make sure you keep the O-ring off the connector as these do wear out. Gotta be worth a pound just for that.

Very true and definitely worth keeping...

I had to buy a pack a while back as they are an odd size and none in my box of assorted O rings would work...

[Gibbo2286]

Mine popped when I left it out in the frost with water still in it, bought a cheap replacement from Home Bargains.

[mickthemaverick]

As we have finally had a few dry days I decided it was time to tackle the problem which is a by-product of SWMBO's bird feeding activities:

MTM Original

This picture only shows a few pigeons at that moment, the rest having been scared by me looking up at them. Usually there are 30+ up there for much of the morning and again later around teatime. I am fed up with the mess they make on the roof and blocking the gutters which I have to clean far too often!!

I discussed the options with SWMBO and apparently the 12 bore was not allowed! I looked around for various methods bearing in mind that we don't really want to scare off the other birds as well, we just want to keep the pigeons off the roof. We already have a decoy owl on the shed which does keep them off there but I don't have an easy way to get an owl or falcon into a position where it might work.

So I came across the fact that pigeons are scared by flickering and sparkling lights which seemed a fairly ideal method to cover the roof. Looking around the market I discovered a tape which is made specifically for the job:

Reflective tape

I ordered three rolls and then started thinking about how to use it. After a little 'out of the box' thinking I came up with the plan of running a line across the ridge of the roof and trailing tapes from it which would lay down the roof but shift and twinkle in the breeze. This picture shows what I mean, the line is orange and the tapes are green:

MTM Original

The idea immediately gave me the problem of how to fix a line in place and what to anchor it to. Looking at the house I saw the TV aerial mast mounting as a point I could get a line round and then run along the ridge, over the apex to keep it there and down the gable end to secure on a suitable anchor. As you can see the gable end has our walkway roof so I could not get a ladder in there to get the line in place. As you will see the initial line is now through the aerial mast and across the roof and will be moved up to the apex after I have attached the tapes, which I have not got yet.

MTM Original

MTM Original

Given that I have no roof ladder or desire to get on the roof I had to devise a way of getting the line through the gap between the chimney and the mast above the mounting bracket and then back through the gap below the bracket so that I could then form a loop in one end and pull the other end through it to secure it to the mast mount. Of course before I pull the rope up to that point I have to fix the tapes to it so for the moment the line is in place ready to be taped and pulled up to the apex! You may be wondering how I got it there and this is the answer:

MTM Original

MTM Original

I put the ladder up the back wall and then took my improvised 'push me pull me' hook tool up with the line. I put the line over the 'push hook' and then carefully poked the end of the tool through the gap above the bracket. Then by spinning the tool I was able to drop the line over the bracket, withdraw the tool and then put it through the gap below the bracket and hooking the line with the 'pull hook' pull the loop I had dropped down to me. Sounds easy but it wasn't!! My first couple of attempts I couldn't get the tip through the gap because the whole tool was too bendy and over the distance I could not get the tip high enough.

Persevering I added more bamboo canes taped along the tool to stiffen it until it could be pushed through the gap. I also had to cut down the push hook so that it dropped the line easier once in place. Sadly my troubles didn't end there because the line's own weight was pulling the line straight down the roof as soon as I dropped it. In the end I threaded a ring spanner along the line to the loop end and put the 'push hook' through that, which worked well. When I poked it through the gap and rotated it fell onto the tiles holding the line taught between the tile and the bracket enabling me to hook it and pull it through the gap and back to me. I then tied off each end of the line ready for the next step when the tape arrives!!

Watch this space!

[CitroJim]

That's a great plan Mick... And may it work brilliantly... Pigeons are a bit of a pest - some call them flying rats - and we have loads here, to the extent they are a plague... They seem to love a roof with PV arrays on them and one neighbour - before the PV arrays had chicken wire on their edges to prevent pigeon ingress - was plagued by them. They used to form a solid mass on her roof...

I believe the space under the PV arrays were perfect for nesting and sheltering from the weather... And nice and warm for them I expect.

Most creatures seem to have a purpose in nature, even the despised wasp, but pigeons... I think they may be the exception that proves the rule...

[myglaren]

Lots of them here and often camouflage my car to look like a midden.
There's a bloke a few doors away that breeds them too.

They never interfere with my solar array, or seemingly any of the others, I can see several and all unmolested.

[Paul-R]

Most creatures seem to have a purpose in nature, even the despised wasp...

Wasps are really the gardener's friend. They are carnivores and will take a lot of caterpillars to feed their grubs.