TIP: How to drill your lag screws more smoothly.
Ivory soap can be used for more than cleaning. Soaps can be used as lubrication for screwing sheet metal or lag screws into wood. Take the screw and draw the threads of the screw across the soap to apply the soap. Be liberal with the soap. With lag screw, first drill a pilot hole smaller in diameter than the lag screw. Make sure to apply the soap at the beginning of the threads of the screw.
TIP: How to keep the strands of numbers 10, 12 & 14 stranded wire together.
When normally installing wire on the binding screw of a device (switch, etc.), you simply strip the insulation off, make your hook, then install around the binding screw, then apply firm clockwise rotating pressure of the screw on the wire. No problem when installing solid wire, but with stranded wire you will usually end up with the wire fraying away from the binding screw. This is not the best connection. Here is one way to keep the strands together.
First, strip completely off the wire about 7/8 of an inch to 1 inch of insulation. Next strip about 3/16 of an inch to 1/4 of an inch of insulation, but do not take this piece of insulation off. Slide the piece of insulation all the way to the end of the wire; keep about 1/16 of an inch of wire visible at the end of the wire.
Now make your hook and install wire on the device binding screw.
TIP: How to get a drill bit through carpet without making a carpet run.
Do not drill though carpet. Cut a cross + in the carpet with a utility knife. The middle of the cross is where you will drill. Keep the cuts small. When drilling, this will prevent the bit from grabbing on to a carpet thread and creating a carpet run.
TIP: How to hold a screw on the screwdriver.
An easy way of holding a screw on a screwdriver is to simply use a “holding screw screwdriver.” If you do not have one of these tools, there is another way.
Take a piece of black electrical tape. While holding the screwdriver and the screw with the screwdriver in the slot of the screw head, wrap the tape around the head of the screw and screwdriver together. Make sure to have more tape on the screwdriver than on the screw. Black electrical tape can be stretched to fit the unevenness of both parts. After installing the screw part way, simply pull the screwdriver away from the screw, the tape should come with the screwdriver. Use another screwdriver to drive home the screw. This way you can reuse the tape on the screwdriver for another screw. This tip works best with Phillip”s screwheads.