Handy man guides

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go birds
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Handy man guides

Post by go birds »

Does anyone have any recommendations on "handy man guides". I did a quick search and there seems to be a plethora of options to choose from, but was wondering if anyone had a handy man bible of sorts they can recommend.

I recently bought a house and while it's only a year old, I have fears that things may or may not start going awry soon. Due to limited options in colorado (and everywhere), i had to move fast on something.

Anyway, with all that said, i am definitely not handy, so I'm hoping to get ahold of some good guides to reference when [expletive] starts hitting the fan.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by CardsofSTL »

Normally if I don't know how to do something I just search Youtube and can almost always find a how to video. That might be the best option.

This book is pretty handy however

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Popeye_Card
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by Popeye_Card »

Yeah, honestly YouTube is going to be better than any book these days.

You can also ask the collective wisdom of GRB. There are several among us who are pretty handy.

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Leroy
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by Leroy »

I get all my handys down by the dock.

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ghostrunner
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by ghostrunner »

The problem I often have looking things up is not knowing what to call what I'm doing. Right now I'm trying to join a 2x4 to another along the edge at the corner. The vertical posts are cut at a 30 degree angle so the top pieces will slant downward, making a roof. We bought some L shaped metal pieces to join them and I thought I'd put a couple screws in at an angle too, but I have no idea if that's the best way to do it. I don't know what to call any of this. I probably should've taken some kind of basic construction/woodworking class long ago.

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letsgocards89
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by letsgocards89 »

A "here's a list of things you have to do to maintain a house" type of book would be cool. I hate when something happens that I have to go fix and when I tell someone about it they're like "oh you didn't know you had to do that?" It's one thing to watch a youtube video and do your own repairs and a whole other to cause the need for a repair because you didn't know about necessary maintenance tasks.

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Re: Handy man guides

Post by Leroy »

The high schoolers that work at Menards are very knowledgeable.

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Popeye_Card
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Re: Handy man guides

Post by Popeye_Card »

ghostrunner wrote:
May 12 21, 8:38 am
The problem I often have looking things up is not knowing what to call what I'm doing. Right now I'm trying to join a 2x4 to another along the edge at the corner. The vertical posts are cut at a 30 degree angle so the top pieces will slant downward, making a roof. We bought some L shaped metal pieces to join them and I thought I'd put a couple screws in at an angle too, but I have no idea if that's the best way to do it. I don't know what to call any of this. I probably should've taken some kind of basic construction/woodworking class long ago.
Are you talking about toenailing?

There are all sorts of ways to securely screw things together. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that drywall type screws do not have a whole lot of shear strength, so if there is going to be a lot of lateral load on the screw you may want to take a different approach.

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Re: Handy man guides

Post by Popeye_Card »

letsgocards89 wrote:
May 12 21, 8:49 am
A "here's a list of things you have to do to maintain a house" type of book would be cool. I hate when something happens that I have to go fix and when I tell someone about it they're like "oh you didn't know you had to do that?" It's one thing to watch a youtube video and do your own repairs and a whole other to cause the need for a repair because you didn't know about necessary maintenance tasks.
The Family Handyman has a number of decent books, some of which cover general periodic house maintenance.

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Re: Handy man guides

Post by ghostrunner »

Popeye_Card wrote:
May 12 21, 9:27 am
ghostrunner wrote:
May 12 21, 8:38 am
The problem I often have looking things up is not knowing what to call what I'm doing. Right now I'm trying to join a 2x4 to another along the edge at the corner. The vertical posts are cut at a 30 degree angle so the top pieces will slant downward, making a roof. We bought some L shaped metal pieces to join them and I thought I'd put a couple screws in at an angle too, but I have no idea if that's the best way to do it. I don't know what to call any of this. I probably should've taken some kind of basic construction/woodworking class long ago.
Are you talking about toenailing?

There are all sorts of ways to securely screw things together. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that drywall type screws do not have a whole lot of shear strength, so if there is going to be a lot of lateral load on the screw you may want to take a different approach.
Don't laugh, but this is basically an outdoor cat shelter so they can go out the window when they feel like it, unsupervised. So this is a roof with no load. The part I'm talking about is like this. It's meant to show a downward slant:
[SHOW]
Image
Since I haven't seen that done anywhere else, I'm guessing it's pretty unorthodox. We had some wood laying around already and are trying to keep it simple. I just want to affix the top piece lengthwise over the two vertical posts. Figured I could do an angled screw from the back and maybe brace the sides. All I have is a handheld circular saw, so not much to do any fancier cutting with.

Sorry to hijack your thread, gobirds

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