pumpkinstrokemarrow

For the first time in many months I was moved to do some DIY today. The alternative was to learn about the vacuum cleaner with a view to getting some bits of fluff off the carpet.

The movement occurred when coming down from our loft and I brushed my back against the catch in the middle of the illustration. A catch which stuck out  from the frame of the loft hatch and which could do a serious injury to one's back should one fall back against it. Been wondering what to do about it for years, but today I was moved.

Mr Sod ruled some months ago that most of the second hand hardwood lying around the garage should be taken to the environmental waste transfer facility up the road, but there was still a bit left, amongst which I came across a bit of 4 by 2 West African mahogany, the sort of mahogany often used for window and door sills, and which probably started life in North London. Saw it down to 2 by 2 and cut it in over the catch. Two of the holes for fixing screws can be seen to the side of the catch. Maybe three hours for the whole job, quite enough to get me clear of the vacuum cleaner.

So I am now covered for falls down the hatch. Unlikely, at least, to tear a hole out of my back.

Two mistakes, neither of which is likely to be noticed by anyone other than a DIY type or a carpenter, and then only when the hatch is open and one is going up the ladder back to front. First, I did not scribe the housing for the top of the catch very accurately, so the clearance on one side is maybe 2mm while the clearance on the other is maybe 1mm. Never was much cop at scribing. Second, I quite failed to notice that the side of the hatch into which I was letting the mahogany was not symmetrical, with the left hand end point being of a different configuration to the right hand end point. The result of this is that while the four fixing screws are arranged symmetrically on the piece of mahogany, they are not symmetrical around the catch. Had I noticed, I think symmetrical around the catch would have been the better solution. Compromise probably not good, falls between two stools.

One stroke of luck in that it did not occur to me to check the clearance of the aluminium ladder which slides down out of the hatch once the door has been lowered, clearance which the piece of mahogany is eating into. But as it turned out, I was left with clearance of at least a millimetre. A miss is as good as a mile here, further movement being unlikely.

Now I can worry about the catch. A fairly lightweight affair into which one pushes the small shaped prong - maybe all of half an inch long - attached to the top face of the swinging edge of the hatch door. Push once to catch and push again to release, an arrangement which has always struck me as fundamentally unsafe - at least I have not stripped the catch down to check for some cunning wheeze. So if something gives way, the swinging edge will come swinging down and if one happened to be in range of this heavy chunk of swinging chipboard it might well be curtains. Quite a long shot, but Mr Sod is clearly abroad so maybe I ought to get around to it.

PS: notice the converted broom stick hanging at the bottom left of the illustration, used for the push once and push twice mentioned above.