I don’t get enough context from your contextual example to say whether I could figure it out; “I’ll screw you to the wall, and use him as a rawlplug.” I can’t figure out the causal link between screwing “you” to the wall and “him” being used as a rawlplug, so all I have to go on is “use him as a rawlplug”, which really only gives me information based on the the word “rawlplug”, which has “plug” in it. So I’m back to just trying to figure out what the word “rawlplug” might mean, without contextual help.
If you said, “I’ll screw you to the wall and make you watch me take take a core sample out of his skull and use it as a rawlplug for my boat!” then I’d guess that a scientist was making the threat to do (likely fatal) surgery on someone “you” care about using his/her field equipment, and use the cylindrical bone fragment as a plug a hole in the threatening person’s houseboat. But I’m guessing that’s pretty far afield from what you’re going for.
“It means if you back out I’ll take a hammer drill and drill a 10 mm hole in a concrete wall, use a part of him as a rawlplug to plug the hole, and then screw you to the wall with a 4” screw."
Hmm… lesson learnt? Don’t use specialized craftsmen to deliver physical threats.
I dont’ think that’s what they are talking about. I think this is supposed to be the masonry/stone bolts that use a percussive charge. We may be talking the same thing. But I’m to stubborn to admit it.
Um, um, as you have it here the exchange just sounds pokey. I think this is one of those times when one is so besotted with a word that the action in the scene is obscured. Just give it up. . . .
In my memory (60+ years of it) is a hollow lead cylinder perhaps a inch and a half long, wrapped in (as I recall it) some sort of brown fibrous paper resembling thinly shaved tree bark. The rawlplug would be inserted into a hole drilled in a concrete or masonry wall, and one would drive a screw into the rawlplug, expanding it and thereby compressing it against the wall of the drilled hole, thereby securing the rawlpug by (rather immense) friction so that the screw could support the weight of some object hung from it.
There were several sizes – diameters and lengths – of rawlplugs, and one would select based on the weight of the object-to-be-hung, and drill an appropriately (diameter and depth) sized hole to accommodate the rawlplug and screw. Driving the screw (by hand) could be quite difficult, especially if a too-narrow rawlplug was selected or a too-thick screw was used. Selecting the correct size rawlplug was somewhat a dark art.
The purpose of the wrapping escapes me.
I believe that I may have installed several or many.
Having said all this, I expect that rawlplug is an archaic term, as I cannot recall its use past, say, the '60s.
When I built the present kitchen, we have now, seventeen years ago, these are what I used to hang the wall cabinets onto the walls:
For some reason it has never occurred to me to used them elsewhere, since.
Y’ wouldn’t think a primitive backwoodsman would know about such things … would ya!?
Well, I did build this house, all by myself with no adult supervision. And I used a s*tload of Tapcons to fasten cabinets and such to the concrete walls.
If I could figure out how to post a picture without overly wrinkling my brow, I’d show yez.
HEYYAHAB! D’y’ know how to use these or
one of theseAs a sailer of sea going boats and a builder of houses, with an artistic bent, or literary bent, I bet you’d be great at welded sculptures! Like Arthur Dooly! youtube.com/watch?v=Zf3SxOzuc8U
Wow, them bluescrews are about 10 times the price of a regular screw plus rawlplug combo (which doesn’t need a special drill bit). Youse Americans is fancy, like.
Thanks all for the input (except the New Zealanders and Canadians who contributed NOTHING).
Ha! Wrinkle your brow and show us! Sounds neat. That said, I’m concerned by “a s*tload of Tapcons”. That’s a lot. Just how large is your kitchen? This does bring to mind working on job sites, wrecking out old for new, and finding walls barely held together with enough drywall screws to handle a five-story lobby. Given your parsimonious expression I find it difficult to imagine you living in Tapcon-infested digs—you don’t have a grand kitchen do you?
Unless you’ve got a newbuild here … in which case most of your internal walls will be wood-frames with plasterboard, you’ve probably got very friable brick and plaster, and I think I’d probably trust myself more with rawlplugs, than with those there new-fangled, bank account-draining “tapcons”!
I tried pasting in a picture, and all I got was a lousy filename.
But, no, it’s not a “grand” kitchen. We cut all the wood for the beams and boards from our woodlot and hauled it to a local sawmill; the north, west, and half the east wall are dry-stacked concrete block coated with stack-and-bond, four inches of Styrofoam, and earth-bermed to the eaves. The south wall is mostly patio-door replacement glass. The whole thing sits on a concrete slab, which sits on six inches of styrofoam; all the concrete acts as a heat sink for heat from the sun and from the wood cookstove.
Because the walls downstairs are concrete, and so is the floor, attaching wood partitions, cabinets, bookshelves, stairs, whatever, had to be done either with lead sleeves and lags, or Tapcons. Tapcons aren’t that expensive, if you value your labor, and are more structurally secure on anything short of ¼-inch.
We poured the slab in 1979, moved in 1980, and someday we’ll finish. A grand house it ain’t–1500 square feet. More a hobbit burrow, I suspect, though the kitchen occupies half of the ground floor.
I tried dragging in a .png of the house, and also a converted PDF, but I still get only a file name. Vick-K can do it, but apparently it’s beyond my abilities. Or, possibly, not.
Verrrryyy nice!! Obviously backwoodsmen is misnomer for ‘clever buggar!’
You’ll never finish it though, cos, they do say, when a man’s home is completely finished, he has to move or else he’ll die. Don’t ask me who said it. I’ve been using it most my adult life as a reason for not finishing this or that. Or else , " Gi’me a break! I can’t do everything at once … can I."
Can’t see anything wrong with the piccy mate
Hard to find an outlet for Tapcons over here. All in the States. I think I’ve got two, from 17 yrs. ago in a box of miscellaneous screws, in the garage.
Well done there mate
Keep up the good work!
take care
Vic
?
or
As a sailer of sea going boats and a builder of houses, with an artistic bent, or literary bent, I bet you’d be great at welded sculptures! 
Like Arthur Dooly!
