Color me DUMB!

[Robatoy]

"Color Me Dumb...

I checked my Crayon box.. I'm all out of Dumb...

[Mark & Juanita]

Used 'em all up, did you? :-)

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Ken]

We all err on occasion, the ones that bother me are the ones I make over and over again. A cartoon, by Steve Spiro, I saw today reminded me of one that haunts me again and again. You know the thing on the end of a tape measure that nobody trusts so we measure starting at the one ince mark, and then somehow wind up with a piece that is one inch too short rather than off by 1/64th. I repeat this one regularly. DOH squared!

Ken

[Dave Balderstone]

Now, there's an idea...

A series of rules and tape measures with the zero mark an inch in from the end...

Oh, Robin Lee... Paging Mister Rob Lee!

[George]

Binney & Smith quit making some colors a few years ago. Remember "flesh?" For obvious reasons....

[Robatoy]

LOL.. you guys are awake. That is exactly why I'm all out. (My ex also used it as a make-up pencil)

[foggytown]

Great! Then everything would be cut 1" too long.

FoggyTown

[foggytown]

You can substitute "Bright Stupid"

FoggyTown

[Robatoy]

If and when I need to do the 'accurate' tape-measure read.. I use the 10" mark. That way, you will see the error... an inch can hise itself. 10" is much harder to hide. Not to mention that it makes the conversion a little easier.....now... I said not to mention it...

[Robatoy]

Then you compensate, cut off 2 inches..and ...waitasec..

[no(SPAM)vasys]

Rather than starting from the one inch mark start from the ten inch mark. A mismeasurment is a little more noticeable.

[John Girouard]

BTDT, isn't that the most frustrating thing? I usually figure it out when I go to throw the drill in reverse in order to change the bit, and have a little 'a ha!' moment.

One of my scarier 'color me dumb' moments was using a brass template guide on my router for the first time. Pretty, shiny new 4" long, 1/2" Whiteside spiral upcut bit, and I picked the 5/8" guide... the one with a 17/32" ID. Hindsight tells me that only leaves 1/64" clearance all around the bit.

Now, the moment itself is a bit of a blur, but what I think happened is that the upcut bit, true to its name, lifted a freshly routed and liberated chip of wood that happened to be more than 1/64" thick. Said chip of wood (part of a knot in some pine IIRC) was thick enough to deflect the bit into the template guide, at which time there was an awful CHUNK sound, my router motor briefly stopped whizzing around and jerked violently in my hands, bits of wood, brass and carbide hit my face shield, and my heart stopped. Obviously, none of that is necessarily in chronological order.

Thankfully, the router, the bit and myself survived (mostly). The bit has a tiny nick on only one of its helical edges, so it still works great. The brass template... not so much. You can still sorta tell that it once had a round opening, but about 1/3 of it looks like it was torn and peeled back much like a cereal box top. The end grain of the wood I was routing got a little torn up, and needed nothing more than the tiniest dab of wood filler to fix. It is now the shorter stile in my first full-size door, and would make a great conversation piece if I didn't have to crowd people around it when I tell the story... it is a bathroom door.

-John

[Mark & Juanita]

:-)

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark & Juanita]

... but, it's a whole lot easier to fix a board that's one inch too long than one that is one inch too short. (or even 1/4" too short -- DAMHIKT)

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Robatoy]

[snipperectomy]

My shop runs on 1/2" bits inside 5/8 guides. That's how I shape my slabs for solid surface fabrication. I always use single-flute bits, better chip clearing and faster/cooler cutting. They do vibrate a little after a couple of sharpenings, but we're not making watches.

The one day I grabbed a router body with a spiral 1/2" and dropped into a base already set up with a 5/8 bushing. Too much in a hurry to change to the single flute, the acrylic went up into the bushing and seized inside the bushing and the whole bushing started rotating, smoking, and ruined the router base-plate.

Like a sign in my office says: "The hurryder I go, the behinder I get."

hangs beside: "You want this tomorrow?? You should have ordered it tomorrow!"

[John B]

In OZ, we have the "Hundred Mil Trick". Measuring from the 100mm mark on the tape and............... you guessed it. :)

Regards John