I have a wall of windows across the back of the house, and the sun pours in, particularly in winter. There are shades up now which are perfect for summer but not in winter when the sun is lower in the sky. So the idea is to keep the current shades and add a second set on the back side of the wood valence over the windows.
The valence is 35 feet long (two boards, joined) and would need 4 guys to lift or take down because of the length. There are other valences in the room (and house) which match, so replacing is not an option.
Therefore, I need to put roller shade brackets on the back side of the valence without taking it down. The second shade will fit, but how do I screw the bracket in? Or more to the point, how do I get the screw started with such a narrow space to work?
I have a right angle (Ryobi) drill, but by the time the body, drill head, and bit are in it’s already too big. (I can almost “scratch” a start by going at an angle, but that won’t give me any precision in getting the hole where I want.)
I can get a hex head screw in with a small box wrench, but I have to get it started first, and I’m stumped. Has anybody ever heard of a handle/with/bit or anything else hand held that could poke a little hole for a (little) screw to get going?
I have a Dremel but didn’t know there was an angle bit, I’ll look into that. Thanks. Problem with self-tapping is that the wood is just about 1/2” thick. By the time they get the “tapping” part of the scre out of the way there’s almost nothing left to hold it in place. I already looked at that one.
What is above? Maybe you could mount the bracket to whatever is above instead of to the side (the valance). May need an L-bracket of sorts, but still might be easier, especially if you can get 3/4" or 1" screws into it!
Ha! I couldn’t find this post until I remembered I’d put it in the wrong place. So here I am with the results of my quest. Partial results, actually.
Based on Mark’s suggestion of a dremel, I remembered from my deep distant history that I had bought a DeWalt right angle tool, even though I already had the Ryobi right angle drill. (When I see some weirtd tool at a flea market or pawn shop sometimes I can’t help myself.)
Anyway I was able to get the Ryobi between the valence and wall, but barely, and with a shortened bit able to get a starter hole where I wanted. (Double stick tape bracket to inside, level bracket, start holes).
I couldn’t use the Ryobi because it has no speed control and I could barely fit it with a 1/4” of the shortened bit protruding, but the DeWalt fit fine, and I used it to put in the screws. (I tried the first by hand with the super-short hand screwdriver, but that cramped up my hand, so “power tool kludge” it is.)
I guess I should have included the Ryobi right angle thing in the pic but didn’t think of it. This is a battery screw driver coupled to the DeWalt right angle bit. It, however, only takes a standard hex fitting so I couldn’t use it for drilling, but for sinking screws, perfect.
I say partial results because I’m not sure the valence can handle the bumping and grinding of a long shade being pulled up and down. Plus the Mrs. Hasn’t seen it yet, so there’s that…
I can’t believe that I forgot to mention something! My memory seems to be slowly declining. My hand also cramps up somewhat often while using many hand tools lately. And I just recently (on Feb 6th!!!) bought this little item on Amazon. I’ve only used it twice so far, once to assemble 8 new kitchen chairs. I don’t know why the screws HAD TO BE almost directly below the crossbars so a long screwdriver would be difficult to use. And once just to tighten a screw on my pool pump motor cover in a relatively tight area. I also have some “stubby” hand screwdrivers that could do it, but of course i wanted to try out my new toy…tool.
It’s a nice tool, but feels a little rickety for heavy torque cases, but for simple tightening in low clearance areas, it appears to work very well. And, the main reason I bought it, it may avoid some hand cramping.
Here’s a couple tools from my WeCo work days that may have helped, the ratchet wrench (Chapman?) is small, we used them for all the allen screws in the Ess switch racking, the other is a security set we used on cell sites, all are 1/4” hex, short bits, plus I have quite a few 1/4” hex shafted drill bits, that should be shortened if needed, use, dispose, whatever… The Wiha set isn’t cheap, but handled anything we ever used.. So, stuff is out there, but glad you got it fixed up…
We had a lot of specialized tools, plus some, like you I picked up over the years at local flea markets… Now, after 20+ years retired, they are getting dusty…
