Hanging pictures

jwoods · Post by **jwoods** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:21 pm

Am I missing a trick with these silly plastic Finnish picture hooks? The ones that have 4 nails sticking out of them?

One would assume you hold it against the wall and hit it with a hammer? I've just ruined 5 of then, the nails wont go in! They just snap off and catch people in the eye!

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Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:29 pm

Sä et vaan osaa

...or then you got a rock in the concrete wall like I have....

jwoods · Post by **jwoods** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:33 pm

It's actually some really soft fibre material, not too sure what it's called... Some kind of sh1tboard.

Looks like I might have to resort to a good old-fashioned British nail

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:45 pm

So what gives - you got a carpetted hammer?

I can't use "big bertha" on those, they need the small hammer (what'yall staring at of course I got... 3 hammers in the house). Should go well in the fibre stuff...

jwoods · Post by **jwoods** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:01 pm

God knows! They just don't seem to want to pass through the plastic.

You're probably right, I probably just need to buy a smaller toffee hammer.

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:09 pm

Gentle taps... I get trouble getting them into concrete, drywall is easy. The "trick" is you tap them halfway trough to a piece of wood (the cut edge so you can get out) halfway, and then use say a 2-euro coin to "disperse" the force so as to hit all the 4 prongs at once. Or then use a... hrm... don't know the name of it... like an extra handle that has a metal piece in the middle you use to hit nails on the head you don't want to spoil the wood?

Mattlill2000 · Post by **Mattlill2000** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:24 pm

Do yourself a favour and drill a 5mm hole into your wall and install a plastic plug readily available at hardware stores. Then you can screw a screw into the plug and presto. If you don't have a drill, you can buy a drill with the impact accesory for about 25 euros, and the 5mm drill can be had for about 3 euros. A packet of 5mm plugs can be bought for about 2 euros. Maybe more expensive than those stupid things your battling with but once you have a drill at home, its amazing how useful it can be. eg. buying screwdriver accesories for it and using the drill to screw in screws instead of "armstrong" power. Don't ever use those stupid pin things for drywall as they will eventually fail, making your precious hanging article worse for the wear. For drywall they have really neat plugs that you can screw into the drywall, (with a new shiny drill?) and then screw a screw into that. They are also very cheap. If anybody out there know what I'm talking about and have access to some pics that can explain what I'm trying to explain, thanks.

Rob A. · Post by **Rob A.** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:40 pm

Here's a link with pics that should give you some ideas...

http://www.technox.pl/en/katalog.php4?k=3

There are lots of things to try...depending on how heavy the object you're hanging is....

If it's really weak material you might want to try what they call here a "butterfly ...something??? ...can't remember the whole name..

....Basically it's a two-pronged, spring-loaded piece of hardware with a screw running through the middle. You drill a hole in the wall, insert the whole thing into the hole...the prongs open up behind the wall, then you tighten... These come in a variety of sizes..some quite large for fairly heavy objects.... There are disadvantages, though ...if you remove the screw, the prongs fall off behind the wall... There are other variations that can be re-used... the link above has some of those, if you can visualize the action of the items shown...

Unless it's wood, hammering on walls never seems to be a good idea...

Hank W. · Post by **Hank W.** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:24 am

And if you are renting, making holes isn't either.

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