Wyatt Chen (u/wyattc77)

Posts

Remember when we had to scribe every single plank for a tricky wall?

Honestly, I was doing a job in a hundred year old house in Portland last year, and the dining room wall was way out of square. The homeowner wanted this wide plank engineered wood to run perpendicular to it, so every piece needed a custom cut. I was about to start the old pencil-and-compass routine for each board, which would have taken hours. Then I remembered a trick an old timer showed me at a supply house maybe five years back. You take a scrap piece of the flooring, maybe 6 inches long, and a small block of wood. You run the block along the wall, holding the flooring scrap against it, and it transfers the wall's curve directly onto the scrap. Then you just cut that shape and use it as a template for every board. Saved me a solid two hours on that wall alone. Has anyone else got a good template method for situations like that?

3 comments

c/dredge-operators•

wyattc77•1mo ago

A retired operator in Galveston showed me his trick for spotting a worn pump liner

He just tapped it with a wrench handle and said, 'If it don't ring clear like a bell, it's got a crack you can't see yet.' Anyone have a different method for checking liner wear before a full teardown?

3 comments

Recent Comments

1mo ago

Showerthought: My dad, a retired pipefitter, said 'A boiler's just a big, angry tea kettle' and it stuck with me.

Big angry tea kettle" is how I describe my last project deadline.

1mo ago

I just saw the Firefly episode count and it hit me

But it's not like the show got cut off in the middle of a huge cliffhanger.

1mo ago

Just saved a big tile job in Scottsdale from a layout disaster

You really pulled up two rows for just one inch? On a big floor like that, a single inch over that whole space is nothing. Most of the time you can just fudge the cuts at the walls and nobody will ever know. Seems like you wasted three hours for no good reason.

1mo ago

Hot take: A block of scrap wood fixed my wobbly table saw fence

Wasn't there a guy on a forum who used a strip of that adhesive-backed sandpaper on the rail instead? Seems like that would give some grip without needing to jam in a block that might shrink or swell.

1mo ago

Just realized my cheap chair is RUINING my spine during repairs.

Yeah I used to just grab whatever stool was nearby for repair work. Then I started getting this sharp pain right between my shoulder blades after a couple hours. Finally switched to a decent chair with some lumbar support and the difference was crazy. Even a cheap office chair is way better than a kitchen stool, my back doesn't feel wrecked anymore.