DIY with function over finesse!!

[CitroJim]

Weed killer and gravel.........

That's one solution I suppose...

[Gibbo2286]

I had a mate who said "The best top dressing for a garden is four inches of concrete."

[Vic Evans]

And I checked... I can get 8 AA rechargeables with a charger for £17 from Amazon...

When my bulk stock of AA cells dwindle, I will go down the rechargeable route... Thanks for the heads-up Alasdair

All of the AA & AAA rechargeables I have are 1.2v against 1.5v for non therefore 6 x 1.2 would give you 7.2v against 9v for PP9.
I'm no expert but some of the 'things' I have that require batteries advise against using rechargeables so presumably some 'things' are more sensitive to voltage than others.
Just a thought

[mickthemaverick]

Now that give me an idea I spent some time yesterday tidying my garden and was cogitating what to do with it to make it a lot less maintenance-intensive...

It took 2 full days of hard work to get that sorted Jim so I'm not sure it reduces maintenance at all, just compresses it into one annual session!! So if you lawned it and had a battery mower, as we do, you would have 20 minutes every fortnight for 8 months, so 16 x 20 = 5 hours 20 mins against 2 days hmmm!!

[Paul-R]

Can I add to the suggestion of a Blue Circle garden?

[Paul-R]

And I checked... I can get 8 AA rechargeables with a charger for £17 from Amazon...

When my bulk stock of AA cells dwindle, I will go down the rechargeable route... Thanks for the heads-up Alasdair

All of the AA & AAA rechargeables I have are 1.2v against 1.5v for non therefore 6 x 1.2 would give you 7.2v against 9v for PP9.
I'm no expert but some of the 'things' I have that require batteries advise against using rechargeables so presumably some 'things' are more sensitive to voltage than others.
Just a thought

I bought a set of four AA rechargeables which give 1.5 V for my wife's digital camera a few years ago. They came with a special charging dock with plugs into an ordinary USB charger. I suspect they contain a Li-ion battery with voltage dropping circuit.

[CitroJim]

Can I add to the suggestion of a Blue Circle garden?

Maintenance-free except an occasional pressure-wash granted but uninspiring in the extreme, as is Stickie's gravel. Plus, I'm allergic to weed-killer. Badly so.

Mick, I think all new turf and a battery mower is the way to go - having thought about it during a run. Currently, mowing what's already there is not too onerous and if the mower was battery operated, an order magnitude easier...

And I checked... I can get 8 AA rechargeables with a charger for £17 from Amazon...

When my bulk stock of AA cells dwindle, I will go down the rechargeable route... Thanks for the heads-up Alasdair

All of the AA & AAA rechargeables I have are 1.2v against 1.5v for non therefore 6 x 1.2 would give you 7.2v against 9v for PP9.
I'm no expert but some of the 'things' I have that require batteries advise against using rechargeables so presumably some 'things' are more sensitive to voltage than others.
Just a thought

I bought a set of four AA rechargeables which give 1.5 V for my wife's digital camera a few years ago. They came with a special charging dock with plugs into an ordinary USB charger. I suspect they contain a Li-ion battery with voltage dropping circuit.

As a post-script to this, I've now 'converted' four PP9 batteries to AA Alkaline and fitted in three radios is daily use. Three as one of my Hackers uses two PP9s in series for 18v.

I also sourced a bulk stock of AA batteries for silly money and so far, all radios are still on their original sets with no signs of them running out any time soon.

The low ongoing cost of and long-life of these AA PP9s renders rechargeable cells pointless really.

These old 60s transistor radios, even the high-end ones like my Hackers and Roberts, are remarkably frugal of power consumption despite sounding very good with loads of volume. One wonders about progress. A 90s radio I have with an LCD display, memories, a clock and RDS absolutely eats batteries! As do most DAB radios in my experience.

One of my twin-PP9 Hackers I run off the mains via a small plug-top power supply. Not that it really needs to be but against that it's switched on at 4AM each morning and goes off about 8PM if I'm home all day...

[mickthemaverick]

Having got the Elstree decking looking so nice I decided to finish the job off with a new pot stand to cover a somewhat rough part of the house wall with soil pipes and drain pipes etc. It came out pretty well and , more to the point, my friend was very happy with it!!

MTMO

[mickthemaverick]

Having now equipped myself with three different systems for plastic repair I made the mistake of mentioning them to SWMBO. "Oh great" was the reaction, "See what you can do with this then" she laughed at me. Well we all know a replacement can be had from Poundland for peanuts but I can never resist a challenge so I shall see what I can do tomorrow and report back here!!

MTMO - Squeezed too hard while sweeping the decking!!

[MattBLancs]

Ha ha, I've done a hand brush with my hot staples already!

I'm going to have a go at this next time I've got the machine out. Again, so cheap as to be "what's the point?"

A bit like the famous "we choose to go to the moon" - not because it is easy, but because it is hard!

(And also it'll tell me about failure modes about this hot staple technique= make better "meaningful" repairs to other stuff going forward)

[mickthemaverick]

Refitted broken pieces with Plastex and two staples inside to secure strengthening rod and then bound with handlebar tape for comfort!! She's happy and impressed and I get a free lunch!!

MTMO

Job jobbed!!

[CitroJim]

Superb

[mickthemaverick]

My neighbour took her PC into a local computer shop to have a new, bigger, hard drive installed. After bringing it home she found it would often not turn on and then after giving it errr attention with the human hammer it would sometimes come to life and then maybe stay alive or die again. She brought it round to me to have a look and this is the result of my discovery and fix thereof when I opened it. They had literally left the new drive hanging in the breeze so the connectors were working they way off!! The temp fix is a bit heath robinson but it works while I try to find a suitable mounting cradle for the new drive!!

MTMO

[CitroJim]

Cowboys come in all guises

SSDs can be a little larger than the OE hard disks so sometimes won't quite fit the mounting cradle without a bit of 'modification'. Looks like they just binned the cradle and/or lost all the little screws...

Your workaround will be good Mick

[CitroJim]

In between lots of work on Strawberry today, I rehabilitated a very rusty Record No. 2 vice rescued from the same mouldy garage where Alasdair's Ratantia had lain for many years...

A good bit of cleaning and lubrication saw the vice come good and now it is earning its living again on my bench

The lovely patina has been preserved and I have no plans to have it repainted

It's replaced my little Record No. 1 which in reality was not quite big enough for the majority of tasks to which it was put.

It'll be kept busy...