Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today, on "Ask This Old House"...

Mark

There are a ton of different masonry trowels out there. I'll tell you which does what.

Kevin

This one is from London. Where is this guy from?

Mark

That guy is a Philadelphia trowel.

Kevin

Seriously?

Mark

Seriously. And look at this, you can see that's very hard steel...

Yeah Mark

...carbon steel. Bang, if I ever have to make a cut in place, that guy is going to help me do it.

Kevin

You could do it with your trowel.

Yeah. Kevin

Philly boy's got an edge.

Yeah. Heath

Nice looking fixture.

Brendan

Thank you. We love it, but the warning label here said that for houses built before 1985, that there's a risk of fire.

Heath

If you have an old house and want a new light,

it may not be an easy swap. Kevin

And...

Tom

This storage shelf can hold all of your tools and the parts to go with them, and I'll show you how to build it.

Kevin

Hi, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to a brand-new episode of "Ask This Old House." We have a lot coming your way today. We're going to be dealing with masonry, electrical and carpentry. Tommy Silva has got a "Build It," but first, Nathan, you have got some sanding to do.

It's a new kit. Kevin

Look at you, new toys. What the heck is that?

Nathan

Pretty exciting, something I picked up online for 50 bucks. It's actually targeted more for guys who do automotive body work.

Kevin

Oh, so these are profiles for, like, sanding blocks?

Nathan

Exactly, 20 different profiles, and you get a grip with it. You can put hook-and-loop sandpaper on it, but it's going to be great for sanding crown molding

or intricate profiles. Kevin

Alright. So that one doesn't quite fit in there, but with 20 of them, we're going to find something that fits in there.

Nathan

Exactly, concave, convex, makes it easy to hand sand.

Kevin

Boy, that is a perfect fit in there, right?

Nathan

Yeah, it's going to give nice, even pressure when you sand them.

Kevin

That is great. Alright. So I love it, but why not just... I mean, take a piece of sandpaper, fold it up and a little bit of that.

Nathan

Oh, when you hand sand you really can't deliver that equal pressure along the whole way. You're going to kind of hit some high points and roll over some edges, so it's nice to have the right profile. I always carry this little flat one with me, and it's great. You can see when I push it, I can get a lot of leverage on it. You get a nice even sand. If I try to fold this over in my hand to do it, I'm just going to get just the pressure point right down the middle.

Kevin

So you're going to get some uneven sanding right there, and certainly that's going to be exacerbated when you're trying to get into a profile like this.

Mm-hmm. Kevin

And then this guy, well, that's going to hit that perfectly as well.

Nathan

Yeah, it's a nice kit, so I'm excited to bring it to the job site and fine tune.

Kevin

So what's the deal? You've got different profiles and a handle that they attach to?

Nathan

Exactly, yeah, so I can pop this one out. Cut some hook-and-loop. Apply it to the back. Snap it in.

Kevin

Click it in. Good to go.

Nathan

Go to work.

Kevin

So I guess the final question is does Tommy know you have it? Because if he doesn't, you better hold onto it and hide it.

I'll keep it close. Kevin

Alright, man.

Thank you. Nathan

Yeah.

Doorbell rings

Thank you. Nathan

Brendan

Hey,

Heath. Heath

Hi, Brendan.

Nice to meet you. Brendan

Likewise. Come on in.

Heath

So what are we looking at today?

Brendan

So the light that I e-mailed about

is actually right here. Heath

Okay.

Brendan

So we've been in this house for about 3 years. I'm pretty handy, so I thought I'd replace this light fixture. We bought a light to replace it, and there's a warning label that I really wanted to have someone look at before we put it in.

Heath

Sure, let's take a look at the fixture.

Brendan

So this is the fixture that we bought right here.

Heath

Alright. Oil-rubbed bronze finish, the clear glass, the Edison-style LED lamps, nice looking fixture.

Brendan

Thank you. We love it, but the warning label here said that for houses built before 1985, that there's a risk of fire. This house was built in 1960.

Heath

Ah, got it, so what we'll do is start by taking the existing fixture down. We'll take a look to see what you have for wiring up there, but first we'll go downstairs, and you can show me where the panel is, so we can turn the power off.

Brendan

Great, follow me.

Heath

Alright. So we've taken the light fixture down.

Okay. Heath

And what we found in the junction box was pretty much what we would expect to find in a house of this age. It has this kind of cloth-covered NM cable, and the conductors inside are rated 60 degrees Celsius or about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Okay. Heath

The drawback to this is when you have a fixture that would take an incandescent bulb, people would often put a lamp in that the fixture wasn't ready for, something much higher that could generate a lot more heat. What would happen is because this one had a lower temperature rating, it would actually heat up over time. It could get brittle. It could crack. It could separate and fall off. Worst-case scenario, though, it could actually arc and cause a fire, and that's the last thing we want to have happen.

Brendan

Right.

Heath

So in the early '80s they actually changed the code to make the temperature rating of these wires higher.

Okay. Heath

And what they've done, is they've required the insulation on this jacket to be rated 90 degrees C, or almost 200 degrees Fahrenheit, 194 degrees. It takes a lot more temperature, and gives you a lot more selection as far as putting up fixtures and installing different types of lamps.

Brendan

So does it matter that these are LED bulbs? They're not going to get that hot, right?

Heath

No, the bonus is those really won't generate any kind of heat, but the only drawback is because of the type of socket it is, it still takes a standard bulb that you normally get anywhere, and there's still the potential for someone to put in something they shouldn't. Something that's way too strong, that still could overheat, so what we can do to solve this issue is we can splice a piece of wire. Pull the existing wiring back. Add a new piece of the newer wire, about 18 to 24 inches long. Put that in the junction box, and that'll let us install the new light fixture you picked out.

Awesome. Heath

Alright. We're going to start by getting these old wires out of the wire, and we have a little crawl space above us, and we're just going to push these up into that crawl space. Alright. So what we have here, Brendan, is we have the wires that we pushed up from the light fixture downstairs.

Yep. Heath

The problem we run into is they go in different directions, so they don't quite reach one junction box

like we hoped they would. Brendan

Okay.

Heath

It's okay. We can fix that. What we're going to do is put one wire into the first box. Bring these two wires into the second box. Put a jumper between, and then we'll run the new wire down to the fixture where it was before.

Brendan

Sounds good.

Heath

Alright. So here is the wire we pushed

down from the attic. Brendan

Okay.

Heath

This is our new one, and now we're going to install the new box. So next we're going to strip the jacket. Alright. And now we'll slide the wire through the cable connector.

Brendan

Okay.

Heath

And then we'll slide the box up. And now we'll put the ground screw in there. Now we're going to go around that ground screw

on the fixture bar as well. Brendan

Is there a reason why you're putting in a second ground screw?

Heath

In this case, where the box is metal and the box is already bonded, the fixture bar is attached with metal screws. That's usually sufficient, but in case the box was plastic, you'd definitely want to attach to this, and it's just a habit we've always had and a good little extra practice to do.

We're ready for the fixture. Brendan

Alright. Here you go.

Heath

Alright. And let's install the light bulbs.

Brendan

Alright.

Heath

And now the glass. It'll sit like so, and then we'll take the ring. Then put the nuts in place. Alright. The power is back on. Let's give it a try.

Brendan

Looks great.

Heath

It's a great-looking fixture.

Brendan

And I feel really good knowing that it's safe.

Glad we could help. Brendan

Awesome. Thank you very much, Heath. I really appreciate it.

Kevin

Nice job, Heath. Although, I've got a question for you. What is the 18-inches by? I mean, if you're still pulling too much power... What do you guys call it?

Heath

Amperage.

Kevin

If you're still pulling too much amperage over a wire, couldn't it heat up anywhere along that run?

Heath

It could, but the amperage actually isn't our concern and what we're trying to solve here. The issue with this is lamp issue and heat from the lamps and potential of over lamping. That's where we get the heat problem.

Kevin

Wait, so it's because the bulbs are close to that junction box? That's what's causing that?

Heath

Exactly because this is sitting right on the junction box and you have the heat source directly against it, it can actually heat up inside that junction box, make the insulation and the conductors brittle and has a breakdown.

Kevin

Ah, got you, so if the bulbs are farther away, we wouldn't necessarily have the problem.

Heath

Like a chandelier. If we had a chandelier with the bulb source so the bulb was actually lower, heat source is away from the canopy, not as much of an issue.

Kevin

And you might not see the label at all.

Heath

And they may not have a tag on it.

Kevin

Alright. So when you open up that box and you see the wire,

you know what's right and wrong. Heath

Right.

Kevin

How do I tell whether it's the right wire or not?

Heath

So the first thing to take a look at is this one is obviously old. We know right away there's no chance of that being rated for today's fixtures.

Kevin

And that's because of this sheathing here.

Heath

Because of the jacket and the way it's wrapped. Yeah, you can tell right off the bat.

Kevin

So this one is never good in this situation?

Heath

Not for this application, yeah.

Kevin

Okay.

Heath

Then they changed to this sometime in the '70s.

We'll see something like this. Kevin

Mm-hmm.

Heath

Non-metallic sheathed cable, type NM.

Kevin

Right, and it says that?

Heath

It does say that right on it -- "type NM."

Kevin

Right.

Heath

But it's still only rated 60 degrees Celsius,

same as the other one. Kevin

Right.

Heath

But in 1984, we went to this one.

Kevin

Well, how do you tell the difference between these two because they look a lot alike?

Heath

And the difference between these two is the NM versus the NMB. NMB -- 90-degrees Celsius.

Kevin

And the B is just, like...

Heath

Second generation, essentially.

Kevin

Second generation, okay. So if you pull it out and you don't see NMB...

Heath

You know that it's not good for this application. That it's 60 degrees C conductors inside there.

Kevin

And any wires we buy today are going to be rated for the 90 C.

Heath

Will have that "B" on there,

and it shouldn't be an issue. Kevin

Cool, great information.

Thank you. Heath

Thanks.

Kevin

Hey,

Mark. Mark

Hey, Kevin.

Kevin

Looks like you just robbed the trowel store. What is going on here?

Mark

Well, you know, you need the right tool for the right job, and that's why we have a lot of tools.

Kevin

Boy, do you ever. Alright. You going to walk me through them?

Mark

I'll walk you through them. Okay,

so... Kevin

Big boys.

Mark

These are the big boys. These guys are built for production, so when we have brick going into a wall, these are the trowels that we're going to use. This one here, it's a little bit smaller than that one, but that's called a London-style trowel.

Kevin

Really?

Mark

Yeah, and that's what we lay brick with, but the other one, you can see, it's much bigger. It's got a bigger heel, and that's going to allow us to grab more mortar, which is why we call it a block trowel. As you can see, I've got 16 inches on the block that I have to spread mortar on. Bigger trowel,

the more I get. Kevin

Got you. This one is from London. Where is this guy from?

Mark

That guy is a Philadelphia trowel.

Kevin

Seriously?

Mark

Seriously.

I was just kidding. Mark

And look at this, you can see that's very hard steel...

Yeah. Mark

...carbon steel. Bang, if I ever have to make a cut in place, that guy is going to help me do it.

Kevin

You could do it with your trowel.

Yeah. tough guy. Kevin

Philly boy's got an edge. Okay, so London and Philly. The smaller guys?

Mark

So the smaller guys, these two trowels really are built for speed. And if you get a mason to come to your house to do a little bit of repair work, you're going to look into his bag, and you're going to find an array of trowels.

Kevin

Mason is literally different than a bricklayer?

Mark

It really is. A mason is the guy that's going to come and do repair work, and, again, he's going to do the smaller jobs,

pour a little concrete walkway. Kevin

Generalist.

Mark

A bricklayer... Yeah, he's a generalist, but a bricklayer is a guy that's built for speed, and all he wants to do is make the wall red.

That's it. Kevin

What's this guy here?

Mark

So that is a pointing trowel, and we're going to use that for just small spaces. So if I have to extract a brick out of a wall because it's cracked or chipped, I'm going to cut it out, but I'm going to have to get in there with a smaller trowel.

Kevin

Little bigger, little rounder, what's this guy?

Mark

Okay, that's a gauging trowel, and, again, that round edge right there is going to help me get around pipes and tight areas.

Kevin

Get around literally anything you want, and then these guys?

Mark

These two are margin trowels. You can see they're slightly different, but, again, this margin trowel is going to let me get into a tighter spot than, say, this one is, but we like margin trowels because I can dip into a bucket and get my mortar. I can scrape... put it into a crack 2, 3 inches thick, and then I can drag this trowel down to give myself a smooth edge on the way out.

Kevin

It's going to be a big bag.

Yep. Kevin

Alright. And so these guys over here?

Mark

So these are specify for plaster or cement. They're finishing trowels, and, again, they come in an array of different sizes and different shapes.

Kevin

So finishing trowels... I mean, you can sort of see why -- big surface area. These are ones that you are going to be sort of spreading or smoothing.

Mark

That's right. You can get that particular trowel all the way up to 22 inches, 4 or 5 inches wide.

Kevin

So this has got square bottom, square top. This has got rounded bottom, rounded top.

Mark

Right, so different application. This is going to be used for a pool.

Kevin

Oh,

swimming pool. Mark

Yeah, swimming pool.

Kevin

Smooth edges and stuff like that.

Mark

Yeah, that's right. And you have to get to tight corners with that.

Kevin

Alright. And then this guy next to you?

Mark

This guy right here, again, is just a... It's the same type of margin trowel, if you will, but it's a finishing trowel. And, again, longer shaft, longer handle is going to allow me to get into a deeper spot than I normally would be able to with that trowel.

Kevin

And would you use both sides, square side and rounded side?

Mark

And, again, if I had a pipe that I had to get around and I needed to do it on my backhand, that edge is going to allow me to do it.

Kevin

Alright. And then the other one?

Mark

So this one here is what we call a duckbill trowel.

Love that. Mark

Right? It looks like a duckbill,

sure. Kevin

Yeah.

Mark

And, again, it's just going to allow me to get to places that I normally wouldn't be able to get into.

Kevin

And then finally?

Mark

So finally, this is my mag float.

It's... Kevin

Mag being what?

Mark

Magnesium, I'm sorry, magnesium.

Kevin

Oh,

okay. Mark

Yeah, so what I do after I screed my concrete, like I already did here.

Kevin

So this is still wet?

Mark

Still a little wet, but you can see you've got some marks and other things that are in the cement, so if I start to work my tool...

Kevin

So what... So magnesium is a good surface because it's going to be, what, tough and nothing's going to stick to it?

Mark

Well, with the magnesium is, again, it's going to allow me to float, and what it does is it actually brings up the cream, which is the water that's in the cement, so it's going to allow me to fill in divots. It's going to allow me to knock down some high spots. But if I do it in a circular motion, like this, you can see that everything...

Kevin

Here it comes.

Mark

...is starting to level off, and I'm starting to bring the cream up.

Kevin

Yeah, starts to glisten and get wet.

Mark

Yeah, and you just have to work it.

Kevin

Ah.

Mark

Now that is a magnesium finish right there. Some people will actually leave that because it's skid-resistant, but if you're doing a basement floor, you're going to let this set up for a little bit, and then you're going to grab your finish trowel, and all that stuff goes away.

Kevin

Oh, and there's the real smooth.

Mark

There's the real smooth. We'll let that set up for a little bit. We'll come back with the finish trowel, and all that will go away, and we'll have a glass finish.

Kevin

Beautiful. Alright, Mark. Thank you very much.

Mark

Alright,

Kevin. Kevin

I appreciate it.

Thank you. Kevin

May I?

Mark

Yeah, please.

Kevin

So, Tommy, we've got a "Build It" on tap for today. What'd you do, upgrade the tool collection?

Tom

Well, you know, I bought a kit. It comes with just about everything, but a lot of people have those kits, and they work around the house. They take a whole bag, and they do a project here and there. It's stuffed in the garage. You know what? I thought it would be nice if we built a cabinet. We could take them out of that bag and store them on a nice shelf, probably maybe 3, 4 feet wide.

Right. Tom

Maybe 3, 4 feet high, and put some compartments in it to separate everything.

Kevin

Not a bad idea. We don't always work on the job site. A lot of people work just out of the garage.

Exactly. Kevin

I recognize this. Made that old record cabinet out of this oak plywood.

Tom

Yeah, and you know what? I'm thinking we've got a lot of material around, leftover from projects that we've done over the years. I've got some pine. I've got some small sheets of plywood and this one. Why not cut it up, and make that cabinet out of this stuff?

Kevin

Doesn't have to be fancy for a garage storage.

Right. Kevin

Alright.

Tom

Let's get started by making a couple strips out of this sheet. The cabinet is going to be 4 feet wide, 3 feet tall and 1 foot deep, so that's what I'll cut the plywood down to. Alright. We're going to roughly hold these pieces together, and I'll be standing right here at the top.

Mm-hmm. Tom

We have our two sides, and the piece of scrap that we had out of pine, that will be one of the dividers. Now, I want to be able to make some shelves in here, configure them a little bit different.

Right. Tom

And I also want to be able to hang the power tools down at the bottom on some fingers.

Kevin

Off of like this?

Tom

Right, they'll slide right down in there. Now they can go that way, or they can go upside down. Doesn't matter, we'll just make some fingers there.

Kevin

And by fingers you mean what? You're going to cut some of this out?

Tom

Yep, we'll cut it out, and you slide the tool down in between the fingers.

Cool. Tom

Alright. Let's get that laid out, so we can cut them. Alright. We've got everything lined up, and we're ready to drill our holes. Now, the first thing we did is we put a sacrificial board underneath the finished shelf, so when we drill through it we don't blow out the grain underneath. I've also placed this board right here, so we'll center all of our holes, or have them in the right position from this edge, all the way down, and we'll just place our drill against that board like that and drill our hole, and every one will be lined up.

Kevin

And that Forstner bit is going to give us a rounded back to the finger?

Tom

Right, and once we cut the round holes, then we'll position off the outside diameter of the holes a straight line out, and that will create our finger.

Kevin

Smart.

Tom

Now we want to remove this piece right here, and that will create the slot, but I want to do one more thing first. I want to make the outside of each one of these fingers round, and to do that I'm going to use a cup. Place the cup on the line. Go around like that......and do it all the way down. It'll hold our tools like that, or, if we want,

it can hold them like that. Kevin

Nice.

Tom

Now let's cut the shelves down to size.

Kevin

Okay, last shelf, cut to length.

Yep. Kevin

Alright.

Tom

Alright. Let me show you what I think we have. We have our fingers here for our tools to slide into. A narrow space, which gives us a shelf right here, so we can put all of our batteries on here, and we'll get another narrow shelf so our reciprocating saw will fit in there.

Mm-hmm. Tom

A shelf up here, so you can put, like, trash bags or whatever else you have.

Kevin

Right, and then I see a circular saw, grinder down here on the bottom shelf.

Tom

Yep, yep.

Kevin

And then in here you've got the jigsaw.

Tom

Yep, so we can put some power tools there, maybe a nail gun, whatever we have. We'll make some dividers out of some 1/4-inch plywood to put in there, so we'll dado the top of this shelf and the bottom of that shelf, so the dividers will slide in place.

Kevin

Okay.

Tom

I'm going to dado one side of two shelves at the same time to ensure the dados line up perfectly. This jig will hold the two pieces in place and keep the spacing even as I cut. With everything cut, we'll assemble the cabinet. Since it's just going in the garage, simple butt joints will do the trick. Alright. Want to flip it over? We'll get the back on. Alright. Now I get two pieces of 1/2-inch.

Kevin

I like it, Tommy. I like the look a lot.

Tom

Yeah, now everything is organized. You know what you have. So if you noticed with these dividers, I pulled out one so we could get a wider router in there, but you can always put it back and make the space narrow again.

Kevin

Easy to grab the screw guns, impact drivers no problem.

Tom

Your batteries, reciprocating saw, trash bags,

whatever you need. Kevin

Well...

Tom

Whatever you want to put on it.

Kevin

...nice job.

Tom

Thanks. Thanks for your help.

Kevin

10 more, we'll have enough storage

for the rest of your tools. Tom

Yeah.

Chuckles

for the rest of your tools. Tom

Kevin

Next time, on "Ask This Old House"...

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Us electricians seem to have a language that's all our own. From a single gang old work box to a fan-rated pancake ceiling box, I'll help you figure out what we're talking about.

Mauro

And do you have paint on your old hardware? I will show you how to take it off.