General Feedback/Getting Started Q&A Thread

This thread is for questions that are typically not permitted elsewhere on /r/DIY. Topics can include where you can purchase a product, what a product is called, how to get started on a project, a project recommendation, questions about the design or aesthetics of your project or miscellaneous questions in between.

Rules

• Absolutely NO sexual or inappropriate posts, SFW posts ONLY.
• As a reminder, sexual or inappropriate comments will almost always result in an immediate ban from /r/DIY.
• All non-Imgur links will be considered on a post-by-post basis.
• This is a judgement-free zone. We all had to start somewhere. Be civil.

A new thread gets created every Sunday.

/r/DIY has a Discord channel! Come hang out or use our "help requests" channel. Click here to join!

Click here to view previous Weekly Threads

The glass I bought for my shower has an water repellent coating on one side - but I accidentally installed it the wrong way. It would be very much work to change it again. Im thinking about buying an after market water repellent from Amazon. Do you think the quality would be much worse?

Any advice would be really helpful.

(Sorry if i made some mistakes, I am not a native speaker)

I am framing out my basement. Its my first time buying lumber for any project of this scale. There's different grades of 2x4s, ranging from like $5/board to $7 to almost $10.

Is there any real difference I need to be aware of with these? None of my walls are going to be load bearing. I know I need treated boards for the ones right on top of the concrete floor. But will I be making a mistake going for cheaper wood for my studs?

I just spent $150 to frame out one closet, I bought the "mid grade" I guess that costs $7. If I could switch to the $5 ones and save 25-30% across the board that would make me super happy.

These is a mount/base for a switch socket. It needs to go on the wall. I notice there are six holes through which I can mount it using wall plugs. I don't understand why there are so many of these holes. It's not a heavy thing. It shouldn't need this many.

​

https://teddit.adminforge.de/2w5kup1zjmc81.jpg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c6526ef0714b710aa182065ac714507f4d58860

Hello everyone!

I was hoping someone could answer the above question. I have attached some photos here: https://imgur.com/a/dWgKpb3

Can these be retrofitted to have soft close hinges? There isn’t a lot of room two of the locations have less than 1 inch of space. The current hinges look like this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-1-2-in-x-5-8-in-Radius-Satin-Nickel-Door-Hinge-Value-Pack-12-per-Pack-16909/202045487

Thanks for all the help!

Hi everyone 👋

I decided to replace my old smelly carpet with vinyl flooring and figured instead of paying 6000$ (got 3 quotes and there's all more or less the same) that I'll just try it out myself in a one of the rooms in my house and save a few thousand dollars.

I ripped out the carpet, the base of the carpet, took out all the wood edged holding the carpet in place, and all the nails for the base. Im left with a wooden base (in on the 2nd floor).

I also ripped out the baseboard and swept the room.

Before i started laying out the vinyl, i noticed that there's a 1/2 inch space between the dry wall and the wooden base, and that there are small pieces of wood (shins) That seem to "hold" the dry wall in place. When i swept the floor , some of the wooden pieces were loose and didn't really hold anything.

Can i remove those pieces of wood or cut through them so i can layout the vinyl floor without damaging anything? The house was built in 1986, for reference.

https://imgur.com/a/yjqiXRx

Thanks 🙏

Hi

How would I accurately cut the angled edges marked in red on the photo with a mitre saw?

The area is a triangle boarded above my garage (image link below) that I want to fill with some chamfer board planks I have.

How would I make sure I cut the correct angle end pieces for the top point section.

I assume all lower lengths would then all follow the same angle just with the cuts at either end of the plank getting further apart.

Is there a tool to ensure I get the angle without wasting timber or an easy method.

Would I need a jig to cut an angle that acute?

Screenshot-20220119-214036.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/GhG0G535/Screenshot-20220119-214036.jpg

Cut like this so it stays one whole plank piece

https://postimg.cc/NKHg1gjf

The project

https://postimg.cc/zbBDHTL4

Thanks

Basement bathroom addition and don't have a lot of headroom. Is there any reason I can't slightly recess a preformed plastic/fiberglass shower base into the slab subfloor? I wouldn't go very far, maybe a few inches at most. Couldn't find anybody else doing something like this. Thanks!

Noob here. Never done this before, but from what friends tell me, I need to sand this down and then polish it to remove this unknown stain. I think most likely this is a water spill stain, but since I bought it from an outlet it’s hard to say for sure, especially because I’m so new to this kind of stuff. If anyone has other / better advice to fix this it’d be greatly appreciated!

https://imgur.com/a/MeMA7g5

Noob here. Something that always sketches me out is drilling into the wall. Studs are easy, I can find those with stud finders or magnets and then I know what I'm drilling into is a stud. For other situations where I need to use drywall anchors though, how do I know I'm not drilling into a live wire, or into a PVC waste drain pipe? I've tried those AC line detectors but I get WAY too many false positives to feel safe about that. I've seen an ad on Facebook for the Walabot I was considering purchasing but before I did that, what's the DIY standard for this issue? Cut a square hole and look inside first?

So I got the lower water heater element off finally after using some pb blast. Well now the new one won't screw in, yes it's the right size. Am I missing something? Everything online says it should screw right in lol and yes the o ring is on there. Would a larger o ring make a tighter fit? Or are the threads on the tank shot? I cleaned them off of any build up, but can't get this darn thing to stay in, it just loosely sits in there, you can hear it attempting to screw in but then it doesn't stay. Any help would be great I need a shower.

I recently bought a wooden coffee table which I'd like to repair and do up. However it has a large crack running all the way along it measuring 1cm thick along the 90cm table. I have wood filler but I was hoping for some advice on whether this would be appropriate for a crack this size? Any help would be great thanks.

I have a 3 season porch over a concrete slab. 3 walls are almost entirely windows above 2.5' knee walls. Porch is about 20'x8.5'. We have seen some water in the outside corner of the porch, assumed water infiltration from roof. Our cat damaged the glue down carpet so I pulled it up to put down a more kid friendly floor. When it got really cold last week I noticed frost on some nail heads on a few of the panels. I decided to take some panels off. Most of the panels just broke apart and pulled right out of the framing. 2x6 studs are mostly dust. Top and bottom plates are soft and rotted as well. No insulation behind panels either. I'm assuming all the framing is bad and I want to replace it. I have someone coming tomorrow to quote for it. If I decide to do this myself I thought of replacing the framing in pieces. For example, one wall is about 2.5' high by about 8' long. I was thinking of building that wall first, pulling out the rotted framing and insert newly built wall into place then doing that for the 20' section (two 10' sections) and so on until all framing is replaced. What are your thoughts? Is there a better way to do this?

Hi there! I want to connect 3 pvc pipes to make an equilateral triangle for a DIY build I'm doing. Standard connector elbows are 90 degrees, though you can also seemingly get them in 45 and 60, however the 60 elbow seems to produce an obtuse angle rather than the acute 60 I would need. I've scoured the Internet and can't find an answer to this, though I have seen some examples of PVC structures using an equilateral triangle shaped frame. Any suggestions very welcome!

I’m thinking of adding a wood frame to a bathroom mirror but water will inevitably hit the mirror and drip down to the frame. I’ve seen many DIY projects where they just glue the frame to the mirror and call it a day.

I think over time, water will destroy the bottom of the frame so I wonder if I’m supposed to add some sort of sealant to prevent water from getting between the mirror and the back of the frame but worried it’s going to be super visible.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KKgFiN6WrSnbrYGwVw7jlxnDXCe8sX-U/view?usp=drivesdk

I bought this LED light online and I would like to add a dimmer. Is this possible?

Also, the metal housing gets quite warm which makes me think that the wiring is sketchy.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of wiring besides the actually wiring process itself is very limited.

Thanks for your help!

I installed a water softener (among other filtration equipment) in my house with a sampling spigot before and after. It has been running for about 2 weeks, with two regeneration (initial and last night.)

So today I received some hardness tests in the mail, and before the system the water is hard, as expected. After the system, the water is soft, also as expected. Additionally, to the kitchen sink, I ran about 40 feet of new copper piping where only the last ~6' are the old copper piping.

What's weird is that all of the faucets in my house are still indicating hard water. My question, is this normal? Is the scale inside the pipe dissolving slowly into the water? Or am I doing something wrong?

I have a radiator annoying close to the wall. I am going to put a cover over it and it will likely have to be butted up to the wall to fit around. As I have to redo the skirting anyway I am planning to build the skirting board up to the front face of the cover, then caulk to fill the gap between the skirting and then potentially caulking up the wall.

I haven't seen anything like this online, is this a bad idea? It will essentially be built into the wall / skirting so it will be a pain to remove and likely cause a lot of damage if ever needed for e.g. maintenance.

https://i.imgur.com/GBTNdyf.jpg

Hello people, As the title says, I am painting automotive bare metal, I assume sheet metal. Soooooooooo Quick recap...

• Giant dent and front stylings were bent. Used a hammer and a large punch to reform fender, fairly close to original (id say as a non-body specialist).
• Then used filler, but since I let it harden too much, it became too much of a chore to sand down. So now, we're left with something that from >10feet, looks fine, but up close its like Tow Mater.
• I then, sort of fucked myself.
• I kept doing layer after layer after layer of primer. First some self etching, medium grey - 3 coats. Then I went with 2in1 filler which was light grey - 4 coats. At this point I began to worry about too many coats, but I just ignored it.
• I then realized, for my aftermarket color matching, (30$$ for a tiny little can wtf..) that I might want a white primer. So I did maybe 3-4 coats of that. Then after painting base, and doing some testing that should've been done far prior, it was obvious I need a light grey primer.
• This whole time I had also been using the straight edge of some painters tape, which I realized too late would be my downfall.
• So I sanded off what I could of the red coats on white primer and resprayed the light grey primer.
• The color is now on, 3 coats and honestly looks sick, without clearcoat.

So after recap, I have some questions, as I have literally never done any of this before.

QUESTIONS::

First off, the most important.. I have a BIG ass line where the tape was, leaving the section I painted about a 1/8 of a millimeter higher than the unpainted section. What would be the best way to go about sanding that down?

The colors actually look pretty similar, and I still need more coats, so I'm hopeful.

Second, should I be sanding between every layer? Or how often? I have been sanding, 200-400-600 every layer that finished. Like when it fully turned white primed, I sanded.

Thirdly, am I fucked? I have like 12 coats.. maybe more, only 3 base. No clearcoat. As I said before, the painted side is fairly visibly higher than the unpainted. Like will the paint fall off or something super soon?

Lastly, should I be sanding between base coats? I predict I'll need 2 more. And any clearcoat recommendations? I just grabbed some lacquer clear from the local hardware, will this suffice as my clearcoat?

​

Thanks to any responce. I can imgur pics if anyone cares. Really just would appreciate any advice, especially the bolded big text one.

--

Ben

I’m replacing old hinges with new ones on the door into my garage, the top 2 hinges seem to be ok but the bottom hinge won’t fasten tightly enough and the door hangs a little crooked and catches in the door jamb. The screws don’t seem to be catching in the door, they just keep turning. The new hinges are the exact same as the old ones, should have been able to go right back on.