Posted on 08/07/2006 6:58:08 AM PDT by Hydroshock
1. Hot on the left.
2. Cold on the right.
3. $#!+ flows downhill.
That stuff can kill you.
I am the world's most careful electrician, I learned from my father and husband. My father and mother built their first house, all except pouring the slab and the roofing work. When we built our first house, the electrician took one look at my husband's work and told his helper he could go home! (Saved a buncha bucks. We did the wiring at night and the electrician tidied up during the day -- basically we paid him for his license.)
"Most of the newly-built houses/condos I've seen lately started out that way!"
I trace that to, not only the presence of illegal labor, but also their wider influence on the building trades in general.
The availability of an endless supply of unskilled but willing peasant villagers, meant the construction guys adapt or die. (I'm in repair work where I can compete with service and quality)
There's way more. But he's super handy. We've never had to have someone come out to fix his work.
As a contractor and a hater of Home Depot you will probably enjoy this story. I hired a guy to build an enclosed porch for me. He wanted me to buy the windows from some place (prehaps a friend or relative) that would have cost me four times as much per window, and only came in double hung style. The rest of my house had the sliding type and I wanted the porch to match the rest of the house. Further, I knew the porch would get very very cold in the winter and very humid in the summer. I wanted the windows to hold up in all temperatures. I explained all this and the contractor just threw up his hands offering no alternatives. I insisted. I had to get the windows myself (yes from Home Depot) and they've worked great ever since. Further, they match the house. This didn't keep the contractor from whining about the windows the entire time he worked on the job. Poor baby. I don't know what his motive was but that guy hated Home Depot too which is fine but he offered me no alternatives to doing what he said "had to be done" at four times the cost which clearly didn't have to be done. A little less insistence that best is best for everyone and a little more customer service can go just as far if not farther than so-called "expert" contracting knowledge.
Now I'm passable.
At least you've got that in your corner, Mike. Despite sharing the same name as my cousin, at least you try!
I absolutely hate how society has made failure unacceptable. Without failing, we'll never learn how to do things right, in my opinion.
Well to me failure IS unacceptable.
As in, I won't accept it when I fail, so I keep trying until I get it right.
The only way to learn is by doing. In 10 years these kids will know how to DIY.
Me too, plus helping friends do projects on their places.
"A little less insistence that best is best for everyone and a little more customer service can go just as far if not farther than so-called "expert" contracting knowledge."
He doesn't sound like an expert, what is the name of the business and I'll see what his credentials are.
Until you actually own a house and learn by making mistakes, no one truly knows DIY tasks all that well. I'm not too bad at most tasks, although anything above very basic electrical and plumbing repairs makes me nervous. If I screw up a brick patio, I can fix it. When I burn down the house because of faulty wiring, that's another story...
I'm not going to blow the guy in; the job is done. Why don't you tell me what credentials constitute an expert?
This is true of my son. He once told me he was taking his fuel-injected car into the shop to get his carburators adjusted.
Wasn't meant to disparage your son's ability in any way. There used to be a distintion between "carpenter" and "jointer" that seems to have been lost in modern lexicon.
1. Hot on the left.
2. Cold on the right.
3. $#!+ flows downhill.
4. Pack extra bread in your lunchbox. (anyone who's had to sweat copper with water in the line will know what it's for)
What? You mean you don't have an oscillating belt sander in your garage?
Seriously, though, I think Norm could build that Victorian Highboy using a claw hammer and coping saw if he had to.
I ran the outside faucet on that line for a couple minutes, just to make sure. Think I saw it go by . . .
Today it seems to be carpenter meaning framer or "rough" carpenter. Other than that it's "finish" carpenter or "cabinet maker".
Then I'll amend my observation to saying that, IMHO, framing carpentry isn't that hard, but finish carpentry is another matter. I think the term "jointer" may have gone by the wayside with timber frame construction, when there was a person of greater skill and experience than a "common carpenter", who was charged with the critical forming and fitting of the mating parts of the posts and beams.
On inch-pattern variants, yes, the shims are the ticket. All the ones I've fooled with are metric-pattern (Austrian) and shims are *possible* - if you have a good assortment of thin shim stock to cut from (paper thin stuff). Usually, max torque on the barrel brings it up short of the 12:00 mark, so the barrel shoulder's got to be evenly filed down.
I use a hunk of 2x4 with a hole bored nearly all the way through, with a piece of spent .308 brass secured in the center as a pilot. Two old-fashioned auto ignition files flank the hole. Just drop the breech end of the barrel down on the pilot, spin it between your palms for a minute or two, then remove and try the fit. Repeat as needed; only break out the shim stock if you over-cut the barrel shoulder.
Learned the above trick in the WECSOG (Wile E. Coyote School of Gunsmithing) ;-)
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