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I see that fender is persevering with the acoustasonic. Now releasing a jazz master based offset model:

I'm still struggling to understand the point of these. Although I may be coming round as I no longer view them as a total abomination.

All of the reviews I've seen for them say they're ok if you can't decide between an acoustic and an electric. However from what I can see, given the price you could happily buy a decent mid range acoustic and electric for the same dorrah added to that they are very difficult for anyone other than a fender approved tech to adjust. Has anyone played one? Am I missing something?

If the cuts are most visible from the inside then it will be tricky to do a good cut with any power tool once the carcasse has been assembled and there is more of a chance of a cock up occuring if you make the cuts before assembly (it can be done though).

Jigsaw wise you could use a push blade and cut from the side that needs a neat edge, giving the edge of the cut a light sand with ~ 120 grit sandpaper. You could also try a laminate blade (very fine bi-directional cutting) in my experience you need to control the speed VERY carefully with these.

To be honest in this situation my preference for doing this or any other cutting where it needs to be a good, clean cut for example scribed decor panels would be a really sharp fine toothed handsaw. However your sawing technique needs to be good - keep your wrist, elbow and shoulder in line

Thanks to everyone else for the replies some handy info there.

Yes exactly the same thing happened with us, no notification from anyone else which is a bit weird. Nearly dismissed the EDF email as some kind of shit phishing attempt.

Thanks for that, I'd looked on money saving expert and obviously the amount of time I'm spending with my kids at the moment has rotted my brain to the extent that my ability to read stuff has been compromised.

Our energy provider ceased trading last month. Ofgem have appointed EDF as our new provider but we need to have a look around as we're pretty sure that they won't provide us with the same deal that we were on.

Finding it hard to find information as to what our rights are in this situation, does anyone have any pointers?

This metabo one is a good saw, from a decent brand, is under £140 and looks to be able to run on festool rails (metabo has their own brand available which would probably cost less).

Tap looks about 10mm of centre to the groutline.

I think people put so much stress under how dangerous it is.

Couldn't agree more. Most people don't realise that because asbestos is naturally occuring there are background levels of asbestos in the air that we all breath in every day, in a similar way to the background levels of radiation that we are all exposed to every day. Unlike radiation there is no data to say what level of exposure to asbestos is safe. Sadly this data will start becoming available in the next couple of decades as anyone who was in Manhattan in 11 Sept 2001 was exposed to a Massive cloud of the stuff and it takes ~ 20 to 35 years for asbestos related disease to become apparent after exposure.

Blue and Brown then your really getting into the danger zone on asbestos.

This. If you ever see grey-blue rockwool run away (while holding your breath) bin the clothes you were wearing and get in the shower this stuff is deadly

It could be.

But there are also a lot of other things that it could be. In the 50s / 60s there was a lot of stuff was thrown up with supposedly "innovative" and "forward thinking" choices of materials for example sheets of white asbestos as kitchen worktops because you could cut straight onto it without needing a chopping board as the fibres would expand slightly so the damage to the surface wouldn't be noticeable. Also given the number of skilled trades Vs the amount of work available there was issues in terms of getting some jobs done. It looks to me as if there is a top coat of plaster if I had to put a bet on what it is I'd say that it was some kind of hardboard based ceiling system (these were popular at the time) that someone has skimmed in the last 30 years to make it look marginally better.

In all seriousness I wouldn't let the potential presence of asbestos put you off. In almost all situations it is perfectly safe unless disturbed, even if it needs to be drilled risks can be mitigated. If I was asked to sort a problem in a ceiling like that where asbestos was present rather than removing it I would recommend to seal it on both sides with PVA then I'd board over the top and finish it with a skim of plaster.

Edit: I've said pretty much the same as @nefarious just in a more long winded fashion.

Plunge saws excell at breaking down sheet goods.

Some sites will drop a pallet of ply etc in the middle of where it needs to be and other than lifting the top sheet up to put bearers under it so that you don't cut into the second sheet you can process it there without the manual handling risks associated with moving a full sheet about the place. In addition to this processing sheet materials in a table saw can be dangerous and tricky, it's also very easy to get wrong (unless you buy a very expensive saw with a large sliding table). It's also possible to buy what festool call an mft (you can make your own without the festool hipster tax) that is designed to allow you to make precise, square, repeatable cuts quicky and efficiently Peter Millard shows how to do this well in a lot of his videos.

Table saws are excellent at ripping timber stock down to an accurate width. They also have a use with sheet goods; once you are trying to cut something that is thinner than the rails it's tricky and easy to fuck up so a tablesaw with a good fence will work wonders.

I forgot to mention with the plunge saw chat before a regular circular saw that can run on tracks is much cheaper than a plunge saw, much more versatile than a plunge saw and can do everything a plunge saw can. The main reason that I have my plunge saw is that the dust extraction is sooooo much better than a normal circ saw so if I'm working in an occupied house I'm causing fewer dust issues.

What @dbr says.

The scoring function is designed for very fragile laminates. These days laminates that are that fragile = cheapest of the cheap (so bad it's really hard to find them anymore). With pretty much any plunge saw as long as the front rubber piece of the rail isn't worn and is placed so that it is sitting on the work piece not the offcut (hope that makes sense) you're good.

With good quality boards a bluntish blade won't make too much of a difference, to give you an idea; one of the incidents that made me stop taking on apprentices was when I was doing some floor to ceiling book cases in specialist veneered MDF (about £350 per 10' X 6’ board) My apprentice somehow managed to put the saw down onto my rails and cut through them blunting the blade in the process. I couldn't find anyone nearby that had a replacement blade or rails in stock and was dreading making my next cut, but as long as I let the blade do the cutting instead of forcing it the cuts were all prefect in almost every way, the only issues being the cuts took longer and the end grain of the MDF was more prone to burning.

Is he going to be the first actual billionaire to run for president?

You can also get the Bosch saw which basically the same as the Mafell one minus a few bells and whistles (no scoring function and no flip down shroud for blade changes) but otherwise it's same motor, rails and chassis etc. All of that for 100 notes less than the festool, which in turn is ~ 70 less than the maffell (last time I checked at least). I have the Bosch and I love it. Still got my eye on one of these for ultimate lazy cutting - no need to even push the saw!

Alright then Lyle's golden syrup and feather the bastards.

To be honest I'd skip over the plaster patches an fix the screws into the wall with some R-Kem II (or similar) you could fix threaded rod in the hole so that you can remove it again or just permanently fix the screws into the wall.

Can we force all of the people who voted for this shitshow to register so that the rest of us can gather outside our houses at 8 every Thursday and give them a slow clap, like what happened in the first lockdown but y'know with more snarc, sarcasm and an even more heightened sense impending doom. Once we all get tired of that we could move on to tarring and feathering the cunts.

My neighbour has recommended this Dryzone stuff.

Is he a snake oil salesman? Damp proofing creams like that do very little and the people who sell it for a living usually will recommend that you put specialist plasters up inside (normally closely related to cementicious render). Don't get me wrong there are times where these products can be useful but it is normally a lot less often (by factors of 10s if not 100s) than is suggested by the salesmen. As far as dpcs go @TW is right and a house the age of yours will almost certainly have a bitumen based dpc (it will show as a black line of mortar in-between 2 courses of bricks) which is easy to spot and in some ways superior to a plastic membrane as will tolerate more settlement of the building.

To my mind you should do the following next:

1. Leave the trench as is but try to find the dpc if you have to scrape the parging away so be it looks like it needs repairing fairly soon.
   
2. Take off the damp plaster - it will need replacing anyway you should be able to do this yourself.
   
3. Leave it to see if it dries out after this, it should be noticeable if you can get a de-humidifier and run it in the room it should help
   
4. While it is drying keep an eye out for cracks in the render as it could also be a / the problem.
   
5. If this works leave the trench as is and try to find a way to divert the water collecting there away from the house there are a number of options such as pea shingle and guttering or ground drainage pipe. I have a strong suspicion that the clay soil is at least part of your problem.
   
   

Remember that eliminating damp is a process of elimination this will take time.

I have 2 uncles who are / were (one has retired due to reaching the cut-off age) criminal law judges (and silks before they became judges). Both rate the secret barrister very highly. Both of them have spent a large amount of time trawling through cases to try to find out who the secret barrister is (as has a lot of their profession). There is apparently a general consensus as to a handful of people it could be but the only person who really knows is the secret barrister. FWIW I think even if it were widely known in the profession who the secret barrister is everyone in the know would keep schtum because the book is seen as a very accurate and important critique of the way the legal system is at present, for example one of my uncles never wanted to be a judge but he was essentially forced into it when the government decided they weren't going to pay silk's rates for legal aid in criminal cases (this was the bulk of his work).

Given the work we will be doing involves 2 sides of the property facing onto a public highway and a change in the ridge height we knew that there was a lot of things that planning officers don't traditionally like because of that we went for an architect that I knew already who specialises in trickier projects from a planning perspective. Otherwise we would have probably got a structural engineer who practices as a building designer and saved ourselves some cash.

Can report now. We got this one because my folks got the same one 18 months ago, they bought theirs to replace a rangemaster that had finally died after 25 years of service Spare parts were still available for the old one when it died but it had become uneconomical to repair (it was going to cost more in parts and labour than a new unit).

My folks have the slow cooker one ours has a proving drawer but other than that they are identical. I have 2 very minor criticisms:

1. The door mounted roasting tray holder is shit as it doesn't hold a full size roasting tin so it's in the bin already.
   
2. The ovens can be a little aggressive, especially if you put a roasting tin Infront of the fan when using the fan forced oven (the fan assisted convection oven is better though).
   
   

If you are looking to buy any kind of range cooker I would highly recommend range cooker showroom in Pinner they are a small family run business, they deal directly with Rangemaster (as well as some of the more glam manufacturers like LaCanche) and units are manufactured to order, which isn't normally a problem. Unfortunately covid and our lovely, shiny and in no way whatsoever crippling blue passports mean the lead time is currently 5 months. When our old oven broke the lead time was 3 months; when we explained our situation to them they offered us a variety of ex display models with a full manufacturer guarentee, this may have caused more problems as it meant that my wife dithered for ~ a month before deciding that the spec wasn't right (even though some of the units had a very good discount) so we had to wait.

Cutwrights will cut you floating shelves from any of their laminates, birch ply or MDF (up to 35mm off the top of my head) they can also edge band the MDF with preparation tape (so the fibres don't show through), prime and drill the holes for you as well.

These are the strongest floating shelf brackets I've found. They come in different depths.

4.5 months without an oven and this beautiful thing arrived this morning.

Still waiting on planning, which was submitted late August. The decision was meant to be made by the 17th December and still no word. On the plus side we have had no objections but the architect says that there is no guarantee that the planning officer will not find something they don't like.

On top of this it is now likely that the decision will take a lot longer. According to the architect who is overseeing our application planning officers' performance is generally judged by the council based on a percentage of the number of decisions made on time. Therefore because the decision on our place has run over it goes into the "when I have time" to-do list subsequently I'm taking it in turns with the architect to phone the officer in charge of the application and cheerfully ask him if he's made a decision, we're aiming to be persistent enough to be mildly annoying and remind him we aren't going away without completely pissing him off.

The company I worked for at the time was told by the principle contractor who was told by the client that they were required for all work onsite that involved drilling into walls or floors. This was after someone accidentally knocked out an air traffic control server room with a services strike, luckily because it was a critical system there were/are multiple redundancies. It did however cause a certain amount of chaos.