I’ve been on a job as a sub for the past month or so working with plastic, steel, vynal, and aluminum for a new front stoop and overhang to create a ‘colonial look’. Even the columns, balustrod, and flooring…plastic. All of these materials are used for “low maintainence” purposes I realize but I think they look horrible and are just wretched to work with.
I have spent half a lifetime learning to work with the organic materials of plaster and wood to create beauty, and now I feel like a dinosaur. Fine joinery with plastics and vynal?…and the look, yikes! Aluminum is a close second.
I realize of course these materials are here to stay and I will have to work with them from time to time, but they do little for my optimism and really bring out my ever burgeoning curmudgeon.
Just curious what materials the rest of you don’t like working with but have to from time to time.
Replies
Jer, I do a fair amount of work with mdf sheet stock, and the dust is no fun. Sometimes Azek plastic trim, which isn't terrible except it's really floppy and the dust when you machine it sticks to you like crazy.
Don't like joint compound dust much.
Besides that, I usually get to work with a variety of nice woods, use copper for most flashings, play with concrete and natural stone and tile sometimes, so it's not so bad....
Mike
Fiberglass insulation. Seems like when we get to a job and have to put in or remove it, I didn't bring a dust mask that day. Even if I wear a mask, it still makes my eyes itch. Especially hate removing the old stuff that's dusty or black with mold!
Anything made out of particles/chips mixed with some kind of glue to make a board/sheet.
I do like MDF for it's flatness, relative stability, dimensional consistency, and ease of machining, but, the weight of it and the dust created when doing any kind of cutting to it plus the fact it dulls knives and blades real fast, means I don't use it very much.
I've had a few clients ask why I don'y use it to get them a better price I tell them It's costlier due to the above reasons.
I really don't like the MDF trim that builders are using these days. Putting a 16' long piece of 7&quarter inch wide base board on my MS stand with 15 or so feet of it hanging off one end really puts a strain on the rest arms. Had a builder ask me why I was breaking the base board to rough length before cutting it on my saw stand. He wasn't too crazy about it until I explained and showed him the most he was losing from the piece was 6" or less. He also saw me picking up and using the 2' or less drops that the other guys were leaving and never said another word.
I also don't like it cause it seems you have to be more carefull when copeing. It's easy to blow through some of the finer detail of the profile.
Jack
I too have a love/hate with MDF. I like its stability and the milling properties, but the dust and the holes left behind by some fasteners really turn me off.
I have replaced all the casing in my home with my own simple design I milled out of 3/4" MDF. Once it's in place, all miters glued and bisquited, primed sanded and painted, it's beautiful. Hasn't moved at all for 3 years.
Ugh... just taking a break from a weekend that's going to be spent making MDF cabinet doors and drawer fronts. Freaking shop looks like we had some kind of mutant brown snow on every square inch. I've gotta spring for a good air cleaner, can't be healthy even after vacuuming.
I too have a love/hate with MDF. I like its stability and the milling properties, but the dust and the holes left behind by some fasteners really turn me off.
Count me in. I like the way I can create just about anything from MDF but the weight and dust is a killer.
I'll chime in on the MDF, love/hate it. Hate the dust, like the flatness and flex or wavy walls. Sucks to cope but I can sculpt a good repair with water putty or bondo if need be. Nail bumps can be a pain, insuring the nail is set I'll swipe the bump with my plane and hit the whole run when disk sanding the joints. I hate when designers spec it for wet room baseboard and then the GC gives me grief when there is a plumbing accident or even just heavy water vapor, sheesh. I've found that scribing with an aggressive jigsaw blade rather than circular saw cuts down on the dust, same with block plane versus belt sander.
When I roofed asbestos sucked to demo and fiberglass insulation was the worst to be around, especially when you're sweating.
Thank goodness Aluminum siding isn't used much anymore, I hated that stuff. Fortunately, I don't often have to work with synthetics or man made materials. MDF is an abomination, I like the interior doors but don't ask me to make anything out of the sheets or use the moldings. Fypon and other extruded foam moldings, particle board, vinyl siding, PT lumber, fingerjointed anything, synthetic decking and parts, fiberglass insulation, Pergo and similar products, if you want to use any of these, call somebody else or sub it out. There's no sense in putting good labor into junk products.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
sikaflex 1A
sticky, sticky, sticky
carpenter in transition
> sikaflex 1A
> sticky, sticky, sticky
Likewise Sikaflex 15LM. I've been calling it "Stickyflex" ;-)
-- J.S.
acoustical sealant ...nuf said...
Just renovated a front porch in the city using all Azek. Six sheets of 3/4" and one 1/2". Had to rip it all down to get nonstandard widths for post and beam jackets and cap rails. The 4x8 sheets are heavy and the dust/chips cling to everything. Looked nice when finished, but man is that stuff annoying. Had to leave my watch off cause the fine dust would get underneath and rub the skin raw.
Another material I hate even more, is aluminum siding. I turn down some jobs if that stuff is involved; sheds my hands, difficult to work with and hard to renovate without looking like it's been worked on. And forget about matching the stuff up.
great stuff and MDF
also have a love hate relationship with FC siding
Three words:
Sheetrock, sheetrock, sheetrock
Erich
Durock sucks.
Thank god for Schluter products.
yup... Azek and Koma trim suck too.
Carpenter / Builder, Rhode Island
Things I hate to work with because of the mess/trouble/pain: Gyprock, cementitious backer board, pre-fab steel roofing, urethane foam insulation, melamine or veneered MDF for making carcases
Things I hate to work with for æsthetic reasons: Finger-jointed paint-grade 'wood'; vinyl- or aluminum-clad windows; stamped 'paneled' steel or MDF doors; continuous perf aluminum soffit panel
Things I refuse to work with (for either or both of the above reasons): Vinyl, aluminum, or fibre-cement siding. Vinyl sheet or tile flooring. MDF or PVC moulding. PT lumber.
Lessee, what does that leave me...?
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Yeah, you've pretty much wiped out the American suburban landscape with that list of materials.
you've pretty much wiped out the American suburban landscape
Oh if only we could and start over and do it right this time....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
>>>"Things I refuse to work with (for either or both of the above reasons): Vinyl, aluminum, or fibre-cement siding. Vinyl sheet or tile flooring. MDF or PVC moulding. PT lumber."If you don't use PT lumber what do you substitute for it? For exteriors or bottom plates on concrete I think you can't beat it.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
For exterior applications, I'll use cedar or hemlock, both of which have very high natural rot resistance--easily the equal of PT (and with a much longer track record to boot).
For sole plates on concrete, I don't understand the issue (unless you're expecting the plate to be sitting in water on occasion, in which case: see above). I've been putting ordinary framing lumber hard up against concrete for as long as I can remember. No callbacks in 50 years (that's about as long as I can remember, LOL); seems to be going okay so far....
Who the heck dreamed up this 'requirement' that you can't lay a piece of wood on top of concrete without shooting it full of copper juice first? I've got a feeling it musta been one of the lumber companies that produce the sh!t. I've seen it written into specs by kid architects who are barely as old as the idea of PT lumber itself. Dumbest thing I ever heard of. They're just doing it by rote, having no idea whatever that there are literally millions of buildings out there with plain old SPF plates sitting on concrete basement slabs, foundation walls, concrete block, yadda, yadda.
Is somebody gonna tell me that all of those buildings are in imminent danger of falling down because they were built before PT lumber got invented? If so, there's gonna be one big class action suit against Mother Nature....
I have seen--and repaired--a lot of rotted sole plates in my time; in every case the rot was caused by water...not by contact with concrete. I have never seen a plate or any other structural member that was rotted or in any other way degraded through contact with concrete.
(Okay, boys...fire away!)
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
The two things I currently hate to work with the most:
#1- Maple. This crap sucks to work with! it splits if you just point a nail gun at it, It's going to move and shrink in a few months, It splits if you just think about nailing it within 12" of the end, I've never seen a maple kitchen that didn't have at least half the doors twisting all over the place, It splits if you just look at it while holding a nail gun.
I pretty much hate the look of it, but I suspect that this is mostly reactionary due to how bad it sucks to work with (did I mention the splitting problem?) I for one am going to be so happy when the current popularity of Maple fades in favor of the next fad
#2- Steel siding. Man this stuff is a PITA to work with! I've been replacing a bunch of aluminum that was hail damaged with steel. (the closest match they could find) At least with aluminum you can cut it pretty easily. This junk fights you tooth and nail every step of the way. Besides, as far as I'm concerned, it isn't any better than vinyl for keeping water out (in other words, it doesn't) so you might as well just put vinyl on your house and save the difference toward the rot repairs you are going to be facing in 5-10 years.
> cedar or hemlock, both of which have very high natural rot resistance--easily the equal of PT
You're up North in Canada, right? It varies with location. Here in Southern CA, the old pre-PT sill plates are mostly redwood.
The need for PT also varies with climate. If you're too far North for termites, you don't need it as much.
The old PT wasn't as bad as the new corrosive crap.
-- J.S.
The old PT wasn't as bad as the new corrosive crap.
I haven't used the new stuff, so I don't have any gloves-on experience with it, but the old stuff had a much higher toxicity content. Supposedly the new stuff needs less toxic content because the chemicals they used are better at killing mould, rot, spores, etc.
The need for PT also varies with climate. If you're too far North for termites, you don't need it as much.
I haven't heard about insect resistance of the new vs. old, so I don't know about that either. But here's an interesting conjuction of coincidences: I spent most of today dealing with a major infestation of carpenter ants who had--natch!--tunneled their way into the urethane foam covering a foundation wall in an overheated and super-humid crawl-space. No ventilation, duh.
When the HO and I went down there on Saturday to do a quickie mudsill inspection following some major roof repairs I'd done for him, we heard the strangest sound...kinda like a gigantic bowl of Rice Krispies¯. Then I saw a couple of ants wandering about on the surface of the foam. Uh-Ohhhh....
Knowing what I'd find, I went back to the truck for a bigger flashlight, a can of Raid¯ and my machete (cause it's long). Man, when I reached out with the point of the machete and nicked the first chunk of foam out of there, ants just BOILED outta the wall. Musta been 8 or 10,000 insects in there, no exaggeration. Emptied a whole can of Raid¯ straight onto them and backed off till this morning. The HO was so shaken he ordered an full-blown inspection once I'd cleaned out that nest and re-foamed the wall....
Anyway, the result was the ants had eaten hundreds of galleries into the foam, but only a few into the joists and rim joist. Wish my camera wasn't busted; it was fascinating to see in a kinda gruesome way. But the damage was Not Structurally Significant. And, surprisingly, no water damage--not even staining--to the mud sill. Bone dry and clean under that foam. But that water coming through the hole they'd had in the roof had to have gone somewhere....
I found it on the first floor. This is a 16-year-old post-and-beam chalet with a 2x6 second storey T&G floor and exposed 4x8 joists. Every joist along a 20-foot section of the building wall was water-stained from where it disappeared into the trim back at least 12-18" into the room. Wallpaper's top edge was all peeled off the wall for the top 3-6 inches and the lateral edges of each strip of wallpaper were curled all the way down to the wainscotting. (You kinda have to wonder what these people thought was happening all those years. 2'x4' holes in roofs don't appear overnight, ya know....)
I just finished typing the four page report. He's gonna have some work to do. I might break even this summer after all....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
That's all well & good if you can afford cedar or hemlock as opposed to PT lumber. Not every HO has the $$ to shell out for that.
Clear CVG cedar can cause you to need to re-mortgage your left arm, but hemlock's not all that expensive. In fact, if you want 6x6 or above up here that are not PT lumber, you're gonna get hemlock, as that's all they saw for those sizes.
So what happens is, when they're sawing those not-so-big trees to take out 8x8s or 12x12's, they wind up with a lot of slabs varying from 2-3" thick with major wane on both back edges. If you get to the mill at the right time of year, you can pick up a truckload of these offcuts for not much at all, and either re-saw them yourself or get a private sawyer to do it for you. You wind up with some very nice lumber at about half the total cost of PT crap....
I've got a 75' tall hemlock 7 feet from my back deck which has died, darnit, and we're gonna have to take the top part down in little 2'-4' long pieces to avoid destroying half the house and yard. This is a drag because it means I'll lose the lumber value of the top half of the tree. I would purely have loved to mill that whole tree into 16' 3x8's for use as floor joists in a small cabin....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
What I can't figure out with the new PT is how it can be better for the enviroment than the old stuff. Look at what it does to the fasteners! Have to use Zmax or SS hangers, and SS is ridiculously expensive.
Young, poor, and eager to learn
"What I can't figure out with the new PT is how it can be better for the enviroment than the old stuff. Look at what it does to the fasteners! Have to use Zmax or SS hangers, and SS is ridiculously expensive."
I hear ya'. Supposedly it's the fact that the CCA stuff contains arsenic & if you got a splinter in your hand or foot, arsenic would get into your body. Has there ever been a single incident of someone getting arsenic poisening from PT handrails or decking?
Everytime changes like this are foisted upon us, we end up having to use something that is twice as expensive & works half as well.
I hear ya'. Supposedly it's the fact that the CCA stuff contains arsenic & if you got a splinter in your hand or foot, arsenic would get into your body. Has there ever been a single incident of someone getting arsenic poisening from PT handrails or decking?
I have not read one but some hear arsenic and immediately start screaming "BUT THE CHILDEREN"
that is what i think happened there, that or there were worries of arsenic buildup in the watertable etc... I think it was the "FOR THE KIDDIES " croud though
james
>>Lessee, what does that leave me...?<<
So.............where's the list?
<G>
I've been thrown into better places than this.
MDF and plastic mooldings..
Jer, I think it would be much easier for me to list the things I like to work with.
I basically hate to work with everything!
I like dimensional frame lumber though.
blue
Concrete, Insulation, fakeboard, masonite, plastic, asphalt shingles, Polyurethane anything, paint, silicone(caulk or implants) and anytthing that requires more brawn than brain.
basically I am a carpenter so I like to work with wood!
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
Witty tagline...
so, what about nails?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I Mortise and Tenon EVERYTHING, even shims!!"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
Witty tagline...
yeah, sure, if ytou were a REAL carpenter, you wood not knead shims!;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I knead bread not shims
;p"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
Witty tagline...
"...but if ya try some times
ya just might find
ya get what ya knead"
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
The only thing I REALLY hate to work with is stick framing.(-:
Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within. [Einstein]
I like working with Fypon Polyurethene trim and railing systems. Good stuff.
PT is one I hate. Irritating skin, and concernes and cost about fasteners.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Laminates,acrylics(e.g. plexiglass), and any hard plastics. They are unforgiving and not easy to repair, if need be.
Other than that, cheap products are better left on the shelf than worked with.
Ok, my list:
Anything that produces sub-micron dust: Crawl space dust loaded with urine and feces from cats and rodents. Attic dust full of bird poop. Blown in insulation full of mold and bird poop. Termite frass. Dust from sanding drywall. Dead birds, dead rodents, dead cats, live termites.
Anything that's heavy and brittle: Stucco, plaster, drywall, glass. Tile I have mixed feelings about.
Anything that's cheap and crappy: Vinyl, aluminum, fake flooring with lithographed pictures of real wood on it, any kind of particle board, be it OSB or MDF or whatever letters....
Oh, yeah.... Anything that's sticky and messy. Caulks, adhesives, roofing glop, felt, tar paper.
-- J.S.
Edited 7/26/2005 6:39 pm ET by JOHN_SPRUNG
put me down for vinyl siding- house and shop we bought a few years ago has acres of it. hate working with it- installing windows, etc, hate cleaning it- you wouldn't thing green stuff would grow on it, but here in NC it does, hate the cheap feel and look of it.
mdf? i'm one of the love/haters, too.
m
Concrete
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WWPD
Anything nailed to the ceiling by hand.
I installed a pile of embossed tin ceiling panels once at a Marie Calendars restaurant.
As usual, lay out was fun but hand nailing over head through pre finished tin was a bear.
Jack