The Miracle Cure

I drove to Watford today (someone has to do it) and the roads were eerily quiet. I have rarely seen so few cars on the M25 during the working day. Surely Swine flu hasn't caused that much panic?

The purpose of my visit was to look at the Socket and See range of electrical test equipment from Kew Technik. The number of test meters and detectors now required to comply with the IEE 17th Edition Wiring Regulations has grown dramatically and there are even test meters to test the test meters. The good news is that, in real terms, this equipment gets cheaper and cheaper.

Electronic measuring has hit the building industry in a big way. Last week I was fitting a kitchen and the first thing I did was to set a datum line all the way around the room with a laser. It was a very nifty self-levelling rotating laser from DeWalt. I had another laser to set the right angles and yet another Irwin Straight Line laser to line up the fronts of the units. O.k I could have done most of these jobs with a tape measure and some string. You are either a techie or you ain't. As you might expect with all these electronics the worktops were all perfectly level and square which is more than can be said for the room. Fitting worktops and a four metre worktop is a sure way to find any discrepancies and to some extent it is best to ignore the room and set the whole thing out and then adjust the room to it. These days this is easy to do with dot and dab plasterboard set over the units.

My mate Steve Farrow came round in the evening after a long day's work elsewhere to cut the mason's mitre on the worktop. This is another job that requires precision measuring and cutting. I have worked with him a lot over the years and have seen how to set up the Trend jig and DeWalt router so many times that I am fairly confident that I could do the job myself but a worktop is an expensive item to mess up so I chicken out and get him do it. With the aid of a colour matched adhesive he achieves a virtually invisible joint and my impression is that he enjoys it. He certainly takes pride in his work. He started out as a machine shop engineer and won the national top apprentice of the year award. He brought this discipline with him when he moved into the building industry and whereas to a lot of builders a millimetre here or there is not a concern to him a millimetre is the difference between a good job and a bad one.

When he had done his bit I had to cut in the sink and hob. It is fairly straight forward but I know how easy it is to make silly mistakes such as drawing around the sink and then measuring in and marking the cutting line only to then start cutting on the outer line, and, if I messed up my bit he would have to do his bit all over again.

The Franke Laser sink is unusual in having a mere 10mm lip instead of a rolled over section so my cutting had to be spot on. The sink sits virtually plush with the worktop. I was nervous cutting it in but I knew I just had to concentrate. I have never been that good at using a jigsaw and for a long I couldn't understand why. My trouble was that on a deep cut the bottom of the blade was liable to go its own way so even if the cut was on the line at the top it could be 10mmm out at the bottom. I came to the conclusion that my cutting got worse when I began using bimetal blades rather than the old fashioned kind that snap. The good old brittle blade is a lot stiffer and stays in the roller wheel and remains plumb even through a 40mm worktop. The bimetal blade bends like toffee and goes its own way. The other thing is to use a new blade on every cut out.

Of course all this cutting creates a lot of dust so when I went out for the new pack of jig saw blades I also intended to pick up some dust mask. The merchants were completely out of stock. "Swine flu" said the young lad, "It won't do them any good but you know what people are like. We have also sold loads of latex gloves."

So Steve and I breathed in the dust that evening. The air was thick with the fine particles of saw dust and, unlike natural softwood, this reconstituted wood dust is loaded with chemicals which sting your eyes and give you sore lips. Though it can't have done us any good it is difficult to imagine that something as minute as a spikey little flu bug could move very far in it. If you sneezed, the dust would act like blotting paper. Am I on to something? Never mind your drugs and disinfectants. How much for a bag of finest sawdust guaranteed to cure all known ills?