Stupid poxy little tin galvy nailed clips in oak.

[thatbloke]

You know those little tin clips, they loop around the cable through a loop like a belt and are nailed?
How the hell do you remove the nails without damaging the timber underneath? I dont want to hack away at 500 year old oak and elm timbers to try and remove them , any tips from the pro's guys?
The whole cottage is surface mount and these bleedin nails are everywhere.

 

[Alarm]

Carefully, very carefully.


Oh yeah, using pincers.

 

[RF Lighting]

Grip the pin with the end of your sidecutters. Lever the pin out by pushing the handles of your cutters towards the beam. When you get to the point where the chunky bit of the insulation on the hadles is against the beam, whack the very end of your cutters in towards the beam with the part of your clenched fist that you'd bang on a table in anger. The pin will just pop out. You may want to use a wallpaper stripping knife between the cutters and the beam to protect the wood if it shows any sign of damage on the first one you do.

 

[xr4x4]

If the cables being replaced, then use the cable itself to pull the clips out.

 

[Alarm]

Either way its going to take a while.
And will look like an attack of symetrical woodworm

 

[EFLImpudence]

I thought all woodworm were symmetrical.

 

[Alarm]

They are with two M`s

 

[bernardgreen]

Some times but not always the difficult ones that defy all attempts can be loosened by being heated with the tip of a soldering iron and then being allowed to cool.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

They are with two M`s

Which flavour?

 

[thatbloke]

Thank you chaps , the soldering iron seems like a good idea as the oak will have shrank around the pin , it being such a nice dry summer.
I will give that a whirl.

Now to replace the clips , is there a more discrete way to do this rather than use he big plastic ones?

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[TheGayOwl]

Either way its going to take a while.
And will look like an attack of symetrical woodworm

Ha ha!

Reminds of being in a beer garden yrs back; there was a tiny little worm type critter (about 8mm in length) crawling across the table in a zig-zaggy all-over-the-place motion. It then went through some spilt beer and crawled away the other side in a perfectly straight line leaving a trail of beer in its 'wake'! I was amazed by this. I wish beer accorded me the same response!

 

[sparkwright]

Thank you chaps , the soldering iron seems like a good idea as the oak will have shrank around the pin , it being such a nice dry summer.
I will give that a whirl.

Now to replace the clips , is there a more discrete way to do this rather than use he big plastic ones?

Then why are you removing them?

 

[Alarm]

Thank you chaps , the soldering iron seems like a good idea as the oak will have shrank around the pin , it being such a nice dry summer.
I will give that a whirl.

Now to replace the clips , is there a more discrete way to do this rather than use he big plastic ones?

Then why are you removing them?

Because he is THAT sort of BLOKE

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Now to replace the clips , is there a more discrete way to do this rather than use he big plastic ones?

You've already got the discreet type....

But removing and then replacing? Isn't "leave it alone" an option?

As others have said, Pyro would be good, but not easy to install.

Could you put a wooden moulding up along the top of the beam with the cable behind it?