philip in china Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 We all do stupid things from time to time. This weekend I made up some brackets to put a couple of hanging rails in a big walk in cupboard in the bungalow. I had already done exactly the same thing in another "identical" closet so knew exactly what I was doing so didn't really pause to think...... I made the brackets to exactly the same dimensions. The right angles would have made Pythagoras jealous. Brushed them and painted them an attractive petrol blue. Went to install them to find that the "identical" cupboard actually did not have a masonry wall. It is a sheet of 3 ply about strong enough to stick a photo up with gum! Back to the drawing board! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 Happens to us all. I made some custom trim plates for a client to cover some special electrical switches that required me to use a Uni-bit to drill the holes in the sheet metal. I laid out and drilled all the holes, cleaned them up and shipped to the customer. Fast forward a month and the customer calls to complain the plates don't fit - turns out the Uni-bit has a tendency to walk so all the holes drifted about 1/32, which is too much to allow the plate to fit over the knob after it's mounted in the box. That's what I get for assuming... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike BR Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 I made a set of wooden louvers to mount a fan in the gable end of my garage (shop). I looked at the studs in the gable end, and decided they were a mile apart (the garage was built before WWII), so I should just make the louvers big enough for the fan. I did that (not skimping on the width), and once I had them all dadoed and glued together, carried the louvers out to frame in and install. One glance, and I realized that studs weren't quite as far apart as I remembered, so things were going to be close. I climbed my ladder, lined the louvers up between the studs, gave them a couple of taps with a hammer, and they snugged right into place. I guess fortune sometimes favors the dumb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbeard Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 Well i had to install my wallsafe by bolting it to a brick wall. Drilled 3 holes no problem, imagine my surprise when i drilled the fourth and hot water came shooting out the hole!! lol it took me another 3 hours to mop up the water and fix the pipe. May have been better to invest in one of those contraptions that find pipes and wires in walls lol, thats the way we learn! sigh. Bb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt87 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 I was at the British universities annual smallbore rifle match a couple of years ago, shooting at 100 yards. The rifle had just been used by someone else shooting at 50 meters, so I clicked the sights up however many I needed (80 1/4 MOA clicks I think). So I'm on the point all set up and the RO gives the command 'commence'. I line up at the sighting diagram, breathe, and press the trigger. Bang. Look through the spotting scope, nothing. Odd, maybe I wasn't lined up properly. Try it again, nothing. By this point I am panicing slightly, and I look at my sighting card, when I realise I had clicked the sights the wrong way. 80 clicks the wrong way. So I frantically click the sights up a whole bunch of clicks, guesstimating 160 clicks, and I take another shot. It's on the paper this time but it's in the scoring area and about 18" low for the sighter. Both glad that I was on the paper and annoyed at dropping 10 points already (the hole in the paper was outside of the scoring diagrams) I made a calculation and readjusted the sight elevation, finally then hitting the sighter. I finished the detail just in time, but my groups looked like shotgun patterns and I finished about 5th of over 100 competitors. My lesson: Davy Crockett once said, 'first make sure you are right, then go right ahead.' I must make sure I do the first part before the second! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alphonse Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 Just got my new horizontal band saw blade...in a hurry to put it on the saw...took off the twist ties holding the blade and gave it a LITTLE PULL...IT WHIPPED OPEN TO FULL DIA. IN A SPLIT SECOND! STUPID>>>STUPID STUPID>>>no gloves...T-shirt...blade cat scratched 14 tooth per inch lines across the inside of my forearm, just missed my face, almost taking OFF my nose. BE CAREFULL OUT THERE! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Thompson Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 A few years ago I was wandering around a farm sale and noticed a large leg vice. I tried to open it and the screw moved out, leaving the jaws closed. As I picked it up the spring sprang into action and I suddenly realised that one of my fingers was between the screw and the moving jaw. I'll leave you to work out just how I came to notice this! My mate just walked away and came back with a cup of tea. As he said: ' There didn't really seem much I could say.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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