Being a handyman? a nescesity.

Picard said:
I know them as "Saddles".
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I checked the pack I have here - at Mica they're called "Cable clips (round)". But that's their name on the price, package doesn't have a name.

I usually call them "those white thingies that you hammer in to hold the cables".

But I believe teaching/learning DIY skills are important. I had to learn them out of necessity while growing up. That, and I couldn't bear to watch my mother with the usual high-heeled shoe hammer and butter-knife screwdriver set. :D Although I too was limited by tools and cash and had to make do.

If you have a bit of common sense, are a logical thinker and enjoy solving puzzles, then you can pretty much do anything 'DIY' if you just apply your mind. I've done most things, except welding - would like to learn to do that, but haven't had a need to yet.

My late grandfather taught me how to do various things on a car - set timing (had to do it by ear sometimes) change brake pads and the usual plugs, bla, bla. But that's the one area that I don't mess with these days - send them in for a service. :)
 
I used to take apart all my toys etc. I think at about 18 I got a sudden urge to buy power tools and I'm still busy trying to figure out how to use all of them ;) Just bought a house so lots of opportunity now!
 
I hate having to do handywork, since I'm clumsy, but somehow I've had to:

- build shelves for the garage (had some Tim-the-toolman help)
- Build a roof for the patio
- Fix the toilet's cistern
- Repair the kitchen fluorescent's fitting
- Fix shower doors

These jobs tend to be a mix of using proper tools and some creative thinking.

I used to fix small things on our Ford when I was a student (oil changes, plugs, a solenoid) but now I prefer to pay our trusty mechanic to keep my car in running condition
 
I'm into property development and my father is an architect, so I can pretty much build an entire house on my own.

I think it's essential that a man knows these things. It's something I've noticed quite a bit these days. Guys don't know much. A good number of guys don't know much about how their car works, I've seen many a guy standing on the side of the road with an AA vehicle next to them? What gives? I would never call the AA. I make my own plan. Get your hands dirty or you'll never learn.

As a hobby I restore old cars, I've already rebuilt 3 engines with the help of some mates. I fix everything in my own home, including installing DSTV, telephone lines (TELKOM BASTARDS!), replacing shower doors, painting, etc, etc

It's sad, there are men these days who have better manicures than women, they use more moisturiser than women and they cry like little girls when something happens.

Grow some hair on your chest damnit!
 
OP: Strange you mention that - I've often found that it's mostly my english friends who never did any handyman work while they were young.

I still remember my neighbour getting all the lego / dynoriders / whatnot toys he wanted, while my dad gave us his wood collection to play with - so we built our own forts etc, but had to pack it away at the end of every eve.

My dad's got an entire garage filled with every tool imaginable. Telkom gave him the boot after 30yrs of service & so he had to become a handyman by trade. Him and I built our palacade fencing & gate, rebuilt a flat roof + ceiling in our house over a weekend, did pretty much everything there is. We even rebuilt my mom's old Opel into a new rustfree shell a while back.

Heck, just this weekend we unblocked our sewer line with rods. Not so kief getting poo on your hands, but yar. Part of the job.
 
My dad grew up in boarding school, so he can't do anything remotely handy man like.
My mom is a champ when it comes to fixing stuff around the house though!

Most of my guy friends would not know which way to even hold a drill, but my boyfriend can fix just about anything... I think its mostly an attitude thing... :D
 
Voicy said:
Heck, just this weekend we unblocked our sewer line with rods. Not so kief getting poo on your hands, but yar. Part of the job.
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Oh sheet, you just brought back horrible memories from 3 months ago on a mates farm :sick:
 
ponder said:
Oh sheet, you just brought back horrible memories from 3 months ago on a mates farm :sick:
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hehehe...

For those who don't know ... sewage rods are a ton of fun. They work like oil drills where you have to fix a steel rod to the next as you go further down. The links literally get filled with crap that you have to undo with a spanner set.

You get 2 ends ... the scrubber and a plug one. I remember years back my boet was standing over the manhole and my dad pulled the plug out with force, it created such a big vacuum that this spray of sewage flew up and hit my bro square in the face :D
 
For me it is a great plus that a guy can do stuff around the house. But I can do most stuff myself. Thanx to handy man dad.

I have been in the nastiest fights over my ex being an total idiot when it comes to doing things around the house and i could do everything. He said it makes him feel less of a man.

Of course I told him that he was right it did.... and the fight began..
 
RustyPrincess said:
My dad grew up in boarding school, so he can't do anything remotely handy man like.
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So did I (I hated BS [although my brother liked it]). I thought the opposite would be true. I was a term boarder (you only went home for the holidays). In hindsight it was a good thing. It inculcated the prevailing value system (pretty good), taught courtesy and manners (a bit ‘olde worlde’ now), forced a fixed homework time on you (no weaselling out of this) and you became comfortable with institutional living. There were many other things as well. On balance, it was a good thing although I didn’t like it at the time. I recall taking-apart alarm clocks (and keeping the bits) and building ‘gunda-gundas' out of cotton reels. You were thrown on your own resources a good deal. Being a DIY type helped.
 
Morgoth said:
so how important do you think it is knowing your basics fix-it-myself fundamentals?
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Extremely important (IM not so humble O)! ‘Hacking’ is something to be aspired to. I aspire to hackerdom. They are my heroes. Originally (settle-down children) in my day there were phreakers, hackers and crackers. Phreakers probably came first.

Phreakers. Underground magazine of choice – ‘Mondo 2000’ (now defunct). Editor R. U. Sirius (contributions were anonymous – it **was** illegal). There was no programming in the magazine but because early acoustic modems were phone connected, phreakers segued into computers – mainly Unix (good for networking and the preferred language of the universities and defence computers connected to the network).

This is where ‘dumpster diving’ originated. This has an honourable history. The Phone Phreaks – the initial true programming hackers who hacked the American phone network regularly – used to dig in dumpsters outside AT&T and other phone companies for equipment manuals, passwords and other clues.

Something they want to keep quite but Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (the Apple computer people) were celebrity phone phreaks of note and sold the ubiquitous ‘Blue Box’ at college. The Blue Box was a tone generator that gave the user free long-distance calls. The famous ‘Captain Crunch’ whistle came free with breakfast cereal. When blown into a telephone, it generated a tone of the exact frequency needed to hack the phone network.
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Hacking. The media is largely responsible for bringing the good name of hackers and hacking into disrepute. As I understand it, hacking does not necessarily involve computers (although it is mainly that now) but can be any ingenious ‘plan’ (usually technical). For example, a guy’s fan belt on his car broke. He used his girlfriends pantyhose as a temporary fan belt to limp to a garage. A good hack.

Cracking. Then there were the crackers. Most of them crack software. They dissamble exe's and change the assembler code that checks for CDs or serials or something and they change it. The baddies. This is who the media refers to when they fling around the term ‘hacker’. There is no malicious intent in a hacker. Given a computer system – a hacker will break-in to demonstrate his talents and may leave a rude message as proof. A cracker will leave viruses, delete files and, if it’s a DOD computer, sell military secrets to the enemy.

The moral of the story children, is that it is important to know your basic fix-it-yourself fundamentals.
 
My wife says I know how handle my tool just fine!! he he ... :D

But seriuuuus, I got a good tool collection, put my own gate intercom in. Service my own cars... can do some plumbing... u gotto know this type of stuff when you have your own house...
 
Morgoth said:
so how important do you think it is knowing your basics fix-it-myself fundamentals?
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IMHO, its worth it.
E.G. had a blocked sewer, called the plumber, and he unblocked it enough that it drained out, (R550) but 1 week later, same problem, so i went and bought plumbers rods (R850) and after 2 hours of work unblocked and unplugged the sewer drain that was full roots, bits of cement, and other debris.
So saved myself money as the plumber charges R550 per hour, and i can now do it in the future in case it happens again.
At my school, all guys did basic "workshop", therby learning basic skills WRT power tools and handy tricks.
If you live alone or own your own house/flat, i beleive it is a worthwhile skill to have for both males and females.
 
Voicy said:
I remember years back my boet was standing over the manhole and my dad pulled the plug out with force, it created such a big vacuum that this spray of sewage flew up and hit my bro square in the face :D
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LOL Shame. :D

I was unblocking our sewage pipes too once and used that black pipe used for irrigation systems (all I had at 20:00). Fed the whole length of pipe in and felt the blockage. Got carried away trying to hit it loose that I didn't cover the hole at my end of the pipe. A nice gush of water came up the pipe and got me in the face too. :sick: No solid bits luckily.

But DIY can really save you money. My wife likes to make things like funky lampshades, cool designs for coffee tables, kitchens, etc (I have to do the hard labour) and buying things like that is expensive.

My wife wanted these 4 desks/tables for our home office area - they were about R1000 each. I managed to build them from scratch myself for about R300 each. In a previous house, what the electricians quoted about R3500 to fix, I did it myself for about R400.

And recently my neighbour's builders severed my phone lines (and I wasn't going to wait around for Telkom). So got the torch and tools and reconnected my phone/adsl line at the street corner. A few months ago I would never have attempted that, but just before, I decided to see if I could extend my phone line to a new section of my house (Telkom said it would take a while to get a techie) and it was easy. See, DIY saves you time too. :)

Fixed a dripping tap and another that was difficult to turn, this Sunday. And I used parts from another 2 old taps, so it cost me nothing. Besides a bit of thread tape that I already had.

Gives a sense of satisfaction too.
 
elysian said:
LOL Shame. :D

I was unblocking our sewage pipes too once and used that black pipe used for irrigation systems (all I had at 20:00). Fed the whole length of pipe in and felt the blockage. Got carried away trying to hit it loose that I didn't cover the hole at my end of the pipe. A nice gush of water came up the pipe and got me in the face too. :sick: No solid bits luckily.

But DIY can really save you money. My wife likes to make things like funky lampshades, cool designs for coffee tables, kitchens, etc (I have to do the hard labour) and buying things like that is expensive.

My wife wanted these 4 desks/tables for our home office area - they were about R1000 each. I managed to build them from scratch myself for about R300 each. In a previous house, what the electricians quoted about R3500 to fix, I did it myself for about R400.

And recently my neighbour's builders severed my phone lines (and I wasn't going to wait around for Telkom). So got the torch and tools and reconnected my phone/adsl line at the street corner. A few months ago I would never have attempted that, but just before, I decided to see if I could extend my phone line to a new section of my house (Telkom said it would take a while to get a techie) and it was easy. See, DIY saves you time too. :)

Fixed a dripping tap and another that was difficult to turn, this Sunday. And I used parts from another 2 old taps, so it cost me nothing. Besides a bit of thread tape that I already had.

Gives a sense of satisfaction too.
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Telkom would have known about a breakage straight-away. Whether they would have chosen to do something about it is another matter.
 
Picard said:
Telkom would have known about a breakage straight-away. Whether they would have chosen to do something about it is another matter.
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Yeah. I should go check if Telkom has subsequently come to fix it properly. Maybe tomorrow. :)

About a week earlier, my phone stopped working, we notified Telkom and they had done nothing about it for a day. My wife needs adsl for work, so I decided to have a look where the guys were building and noticed the concrete housing for the wires was open and full of water. I dried it, closed it and the phone/adsl was working. Then this happened where they actually severed the wires and I wasn't going to wait for how long this time, so fixed it. There were other wires that were severed too, but I checked with my other neighbours and their phones were working.
 
I remember a few year ago, my dad phoned telkom, asking them to remove 2 telephone lines, anyways it went on for a few weeks, resulting in him doing it ( he was against moving there property or something), so about 3 years after the first phone call was made the telkom Technician stood in front of the house said someone phoned about moving a line :D
 
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